Princeton grad Garrett Cornman lays down the law on field, at work

Garrett Cornman enforces the law as a patrol officer for the Fort Wayne, Indiana, Police Department.

On his off days, he lays down the law on the baseball field as an umpire.

The former Princeton Tiger baseball standout and 2006 All-BCR First-Team selection is getting his first taste of collegiate umpiring this summer in the Prospect League.

His most recent assignment brought him to Peru to work Wednesday’s Illinois Valley Pistol Shrimp/Clinton LumberKings doubleheader, working the bases in the first game and the plate in the nightcap. He caught Thursday’s Prospect League game at Lafayette, Indiana, on his way home to Fort Wayne.

He worked a similar two-sight swing last month at Clinton, Iowa and Lafayette with a layover at his parents’ home in Princeton.

“I saw that Clinton was one of the Prospect League teams. I went to Clinton LumberKings games all the time growing up. As soon as I saw that, I thought that’d be really cool,” he said. “I messaged the assigner, ‘Hey, I can do this game on that day and on the way back I can do that game.’

“It’s a lot of scratching and clawing. You’re not guaranteed anything. You’re an independent contractor. If you want games, they’re there. You have to drive. You really have to sacrifice if you want it bad enough. If you want it, you have to let it be known you want it. If a few people put in a good word for you, it’s certainly easier to get games.

“I don’t do this for the money. It’s fun for me, and I do this for the experience. Possibly down the road, higher-level games is certainly not out of the realm of possibilities. If you want games, you’ve got to work them. And if you want more games, you have to travel and let people see you. That’s the only way you get games. You have to let people see you and how you handle situations, [and] stress. Coaches are going to yell at you. What’s your strike zone? Are you consistent?”

While Wednesday’s assignment drew two delays for lightning, Mother Nature could not rain on Cornman’s homecoming parade to the Illinois Valley.

“I love it here,” he said. “It’s good to come home. This field has definitely improved since I played on it last [in senior league/high school]. You get paid to do this. Can’t really beat it.”

Cornman said there’s a lot of correlation between officiating and police work, both professions enforcing the rules in what can be hostile settings. You have to have good game management, he said.

“Umpiring is about timing and handling intense situations. You get the occasional bangers [close calls]. One side is going to be happy and the other side is not,” he said. “When the other side comes out and yells at you, keeping your composure is kind of part of it. You can’t match screams with screams. You’ve got to be able to handle everything. Send the coach back and not buckle. Even if you kick [miss a call, and it happens, everybody kicks a call, you got to be able to take a chewing, brush it off and get right back in the fold.

“Same as the calls I get as a police officer. People are calling you to fix a situation. On domestic instances, one party is going to be happy, the other party is not. That’s just how it is. Got to make the best of it. Some times by yourself.

“It’s like umpiring, you’ve got to be able to handle it and know what you’re doing. Find everything applicable and then get back to work because the next call is going to be coming down your way too.”

Cornman, 36, a father of two children 5 and under, has been with the Fort Wayne PD for three years, previously serving with the Las Vegas PD, and loves being back in the Midwest.

“It’s home. We’re used to it. Even the people are different. We know all of our neighbors in the first year,” he said.

He grew up in a house of an umpire/referee. His dad, Steve, officiated football, basketball and baseball for about 30 years. But that didn’t mean Cornman wanted to follow in his foot steps.

“I just wanted to play. Umpiring was the last thing on my mind,” said Cornman, who set a single-season record at PHS with 31 stolen bases and played three years of college baseball at downstate Greenville College. “I saw him running up and down the court and I wanted to run up and down the court. Umpiring wasn’t really a thought. I liked playing, but when you’re done playing that’s kind of it. You’re done. Maybe the seeds were there watching him do that. I don’t know.

“I hadn’t really thought about officiating very much. I had done games at Zearing Park, Little League kind of stuff and got my feet wet, but I never really thought about it.”

He is finding umpiring is the next best thing to playing baseball.

Cornman started officiating varsity basketball in 2022 in Indiana, where he says basketball is king.

“Basketball is incredibly serious out here. I haven’t run into a school, even a small school, that hasn’t been competitive,” he said. “I haven’t seen any high school basketball in Illinois for awhile, but varsity basketball in Indiana is no joke. Someone’s equated it to football in Texas because Texas thinks they invented football.

“Indiana, I think, has the top 10 biggest gyms in the country. I mean like 8,000 seats, 7,000 seats. They don’t mess around when it comes to basketball.”

Cornman lives by the adage that an official/umpire’s best work is when no one really notices he’s there.

“When you’re at the game, you’re watching the game, taking in the smell, taking in the atmosphere. The last thing people go for is the umpire,” he said. “It’s a thankless job because if you screw up, people know it. Nine of 10 times you don’t, but it’s the one time people know it.”