Six years after the first pitch was ever thrown in the North Central Alberta Baseball League, an idea was born. What better way would there be to have a young promising baseball league achieve its full potential than to have within its ranks a dedicated group of umpires responsible for maintaining order and decorum according to the rules of the greatest game in America. And so, the baseball itself was unwound revealing the core in 1974. The core soon took on the NCABL’s personality and gritty approach to the game of baseball. The core was synonymous with respect for the game, proud representation of our League’s bold lettering (NCABL), and a tenacity no matter the weather for applying fair minded and knowledgeable practices throughout the course of a game. The most valuable and longest serving members of our core have a reverence for the plate, know its outline, and call its corners sacred ground. Many have contributed to the development of baseball in this province and beyond in various supervisory roles within Baseball Alberta and the National Program. Many have umpired in the largest and most prestigious baseball tournaments ever played in Alberta. Others have toiled in the educational realm of the game. Some have left us with memories of great and not so great calls. But all have left us touched to the core by their necessary presence within a game that demands that the rituals remain creating the mystique within this great game.