Well-known West takes picture with Schoen

by Dave Boehler
Beacon Sports Editor

ANDY SCHOEN (right) gets his picture taken with umpire Joe West. – Submitted photo

I’m thinking most people would rather ring the neck of an umpire than take a picture with one.

Or boo them instead of compliment them.

Perhaps joke that they need glasses.

Not Andy Schoen.

The 2005 South graduate recently got a photo with Joe West, who broke the all-time Major League Baseball record with his 5,376th game as umpire in May.

But it might have never happened if it was cloudy or the roof at American Family Field was closed in early June.

Schoen was sitting in the left field bleachers and was “baking in the sun” with several of his friends.

So they “snuck down” to the third base side of the field for some shade and ended up in the front row.

Schoen, who calls himself a huge baseball fan, asked West for a picture over the course of about three innings.

He helped his cause by yelling out Joe West is the GOAT (greatest of all time).

“He looked over a couple of times,” Schoen said. “I mean, we were only probably 20 feet away from him.”

Finally when the game ended, West walked over to Schoen for the picture.

“He was super cool about it,” he said. “We kind of had a feeling he was going to come over.”

Schoen, who think he’s never had a picture taken with a player but did get a family photo with a racing sausage one time, is not one to ridicule umps, either.

“I’m not one of those hecklers; I like to keep things positive,” he said.