BY JONATHAN SKUZA
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — A familiar face was seen behind home plate this week at Innovative Field during this week’s Rochester Red Wings series against the Buffalo Bisons.
Rochester native Thomas Fornarola returned home to call balls and strikes between the Triple-A interstate rivals during his first year as a Triple-A umpire.
The moment was special for Fornarola, as he got to have family and friends see him in action for the first time.
”The special part for me, is being able to have friends and family that have never seen me work come out and enjoy some baseball and kind of see a familiar face,” Fornarola said.
Along with support in the stands, Fornarola enjoyed the comfort of being able to go home and sleep in his own bed.
”As an umpire, we don’t have home games, all of our games are on the road,” he said. “It’s just nice to have before and after games just being able to be around your friends, your family, my wife Melissa, and our dog. Being able to sleep in your own bed rather than bouncing from hotel to hotel.”
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Fornarola graduated from Aquinas Institute in 2011 and then received his bachelor’s degree from SUNY Brockport in 2016.
The Aquinas graduate grew up playing baseball in Greece.
He got his start in umpiring at the age of 14 as a part-time gig and instantly fell in love with it.
”I went to an umpire clinic held by Jim Festner and I absolutely just fell in love with it,” Fornarola said. “I fell in love with it more than playing. I don’t know what it was about it, but I just fell in love with it.”
All throughout high school, Fornarola umpired for Greece Little League, before becoming a high school umpire while in college at SUNY Brockport. In his final year at Brockport, Fornarola went to college umpiring camp ran by Chris Marshall who is an assignor for the United Collegiate Umpires (UCU).
Fornarola worked Junior College and Division III games in the Rochester area during his senior year.
His love for umpiring had grown so much that he knew he wanted to do it for a living.
”Probably junior or senior year of high school, I knew I wanted to do this as a career,” Fornarola said. “I knew I wanted to go to umpire school. It was funny because at 17, 18 years old you think you know everything.”
Fornarola went to the Wendelstedt Umpire School where he graduated in 2017, started his umpiring career later that year in the Class A Rookie-Gulf Coast League and earned a promotion to the Class A (Short-Season) Appalachian League before the end of the season. Fornarola started the 2018 season in Class A (Short-Season) New York-Penn League before getting called up to the Class A (Full Season) South Atlantic League (SAL).
The SUNY Brockport graduate stayed in the South Atlantic League and earned a spot in that years SAL All-Star game played in Charleston, West Virginia before ending the summer in the Class A-Advanced Carolina League.
From 2021 to 2023, Fornarola was umpiring in Double-A in the Eastern League. He started as a lone man, then a two man and then became a crew chief in the three years he spent in Double-A
This season, he got promoted to the Triple-A level to umpire.
”Double-A you see a lot of good raw talent,” Fornarola explained about the difference between different levels of minor league baseball. “You get young very good players that you know that are going to be major league players and they’re just working their way up through Double-A. Triple-A is a large mix. You get a large mix of those young players that you know are gonna be major leaguers. Then you have guys that are kind of on the other end of the spectrum where they’re a little older and they’ve been in the major leagues a long time and now they’re trying to get back into the major leagues.”
Along with being promoted to Triple-A, Fornarola also got to make his MLB Spring Training umpiring debut on March 17, 2024 as he overlooked first base in a 4-2 victory for the Pittsburgh Pirates over the Atlanta Braves.
”That was a fantastic experience that I was fortunate enough to have,” he said.
The opportunity came about when one of his umpires on his crew Austin Jones got sick and was unable to do the game. Fornarola was able to fill in and work the bases during the contest.
The experience had a little extra meaning and comfort as Fornarola got to work with long time friend Junior Valentine.
”It was really cool to have the opportunity to work with him,” he said. “Also, on the human side of things, it calms everything down because anytime you know you’re with a familiar face, it doesn’t seem so crazy and outlandish and it calms your nerves.”
Valentine and Fornarola both teach at Wendelstedt Umpire School where they learned the craft they look to teach to young aspiring umpires. Fornarola has taught there ever since he graduated.
”I’ve taught with him and he has mentored me and taught me almost everything I know about umpiring,” he said about Valentine.
Throughout Fornarola’s experiences as an umpire, he believes for any young official trying to get to their feet wet in the profession, they should start at the high school level.
”High school is great for a young official,” Fornarola said. “Any young kid man or woman in any sport, I would definitely encourage to get involved in any type of sports officiating in any level and I think high school is a really good start.”
Tom Fornarola’s journey of becoming a professional umpire has had a lot of excitement to it, but nothing was more exciting than was for him to do it in front of people he knows and cares about.
”Just being able to share the experience with friends and family for the last six days has been awesome,” he said.
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