Will Harvey

Will Harvey
Will Harveyis a software developer and Silicon Valley entrepreneur. At the age of 15 he wrote Music Construction Setfor the Apple II, the first commercial sheet music processor for home computers. Music Construction Set was ported to other systems by its publisher, Electronic Arts. He wrote two games for the Apple IIgs: Zany Golfand The Immortal. Harvey founded two consumer virtual world Internet companies: IMVU, an instant messaging company, and There, Inc., an MMOG company...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBusinessman
CountryUnited States of America
I want you to know that I am one of the more fortunate people in life. There aren't too many of us that somebody selects and says, 'You know, that guy ought to be an umpire.' That's what happened to me.
Balls and strikes are the basic tenet to everything in baseball. From the perspective of hitting, pitching, offense and defense, it's all about the strike zone and how the battle is waged there between the pitcher and hitter.
Willie Mays was the best baseball player I ever saw. He could do anything.
I know that there are no famous 'Doug Harvey plays.' And I'm proud of that.
I always told my young umpires, 'Don't get mad. Whatever you do, don't show it. But no matter how long it takes, get even.'
I always tell my wife, 'If you're ever looking for something to put on my gravestone, put down, 'He was an honest man, and he never held a grudge.'
I just umpire. That's what I've done. That's all I can do. I'm one of the fortunate ones on God's earth. I found what God meant for me to do. People ask if I like working home plate best. I just want to be between the white lines. That's where I belong, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
There was something special about watching a manager and umpire both convinced they were totally right, but knowing that one had to be wrong. As an ump, those moments made my job fun, and getting 'nose-to-nose' was part of my job description.
As we all know, Cooperstown is the home of baseball. One of the many duties of the home plate umpire is to make sure that the runner touches home. Well, if you're a true baseball fan, you need to visit Cooperstown. This is home.
If you don't need umpires out there, and you can put robots out there, then why do we need ballplayers?
My mom beat us until she started breaking clothes hangers. Wooden clothes hangers! Once we started laughing back at her, then your spankings were through. That's the way I was raised. So, I got to be about 13 years of age when finally she quit spanking on me. But I think that it was great way to be raised.
I've heard it said that umpires are necessary evil. Well, we are necessary, but we are not evil. We are hard-working and dedicated people whose primary interest is to make sure the game is played fairly. We are the integrity of the game.
If you're a photographer, they give you a camera. If you're a writer, they give you a typewriter. If you're an umpire, they give you an unseen object and they call it a strike zone, and nobody seems to agree with you no matter what you call.
The price point has to be attractive to an institution, but we're not talking about thousands of dollars or what a school might want to expend on a coach or staff member. My guess, depending on the numbers (of athletes), it would be less than $100 (an athlete).