Bird's-Eye Umpiring

Fleshy, flashy Ray Dumont, onetime Wichita sporting-goods dealer, is a prolific begetter of brain children. Six years ago, to stimulate his trade, he organized the country's sandlotters into the National Semi-Pro Baseball Congress. To ballyhoo the sand-lot business, he introduced many innovations: automatic home-plate duster (compressed air whooshed through an underground tube), neon-lighted Scoreboard, jack-in-the-box microphone for umpire's announcements, electric eye to detect balls.

Last week Ray Dumont announced the birth of another brain child: an "eagle's nest" for umpires. Like the crow's nest tried out at a Southern Oregon State Normal basketball game last month, the ballpark nest will be about ten feet above the ground, will give the base umpire a bird's-eye view of the infield. But Dumont's nest will be perched on a movable derrick, which, at the press of a button, will whisk the umpire to crucial spots.

First tryout: next summer, when the pick of President Dumont's 70,000 sand-lot teams meet in Wichita for the national semi-pro championship.

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