Good Sports - Lee Meyers

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- If you are looking for Madera-native and Memorial High grad Lee Meyers, you can find him on a baseball field, as a Triple-A umpire in the Pacific Coast League.

"Kind of just fell into it. I was at the local Little League in Madera and they needed an umpire and they knew that I played and I was fairly familiar with the game," said Meyers.

At 15, Meyers started umpiring 7-year-old Little League games and continued to work his way up the local high school and junior college ranks before deciding to pursue it professionally.

"Went over to Florida for five weeks and went through the training and was lucky to get selected out of Umpire School in 2011 and that started the journey that I'm currently on."

Six years later, Meyers is entering his first year in the PCL on the doorsteps of the Major Leagues.

"It's 140 games on the road every day and here in the PCL we are almost on a plane every four days," said Meyers.

The road to Major League Baseball can often be harder to crack for umpires than the players.

"It's tougher for us than it is the players. Players if it doesn't work out with one organization they can try with another organization. For us, it's one shot," said umpire Brett Terry.

"There are I believe 71 spots in the Major Leagues and the fact that he's one league away from that step is a major deal," said Grant Meyers, Lee's brother.

Earlier this season, Meyers got a taste of the Major Leagues when he was behind home plate to umpire a Milwaukee Brewers - Oakland Athletics spring training game.

"It's something that we all dream about once you got to umpire school and get that first game under your belt," said Meyers. "All I can do is hopefully make an impression on the evaluators that come to watch me and hopefully get a chance at fall league, big league springs someday and maybe get my chance up there at the Major Leagues."

From little league to the doorstep of the big leagues, that's a major league success story.