Meet the youngest baseball umpire at just seven years old

I'm in my stance, and I say, Hoo! Here. He knows every rule of the game. He knows how to call a game. You have to respect him. He wants to be out on the field so bad, his passion for the game is what drives him. Hoo! Hoo! Never in a million years would I have imagined a half a million people would want to subscribe to a seven-year-old kid umpiring a referee in a sport. I have, I don't know how much followers, but I have a lot. He likes to play baseball, but I think he just gets another feeling another feeling when he's behind the plate. I think you take this all the way the major league level. Hi I'm Lathan the umpire and this is my passion. I'm seven years old. I first played baseball when I was three or four. We took our kids and put them in almost every sport to see what they would gravitate towards and what they would like and not so we just always feel like they should be doing something. Logan baseball and basketball and Lathan's still in between three sports football basketball and baseball he would always want to be like I'm gonna beat you at this I was like no you ain't but like now that he's starting to catch up a little bit it's like okay this is a bit of a challenge he's always watched his brother play always watched it on the TV with us for Christmas he had asked for umpire gear and he umpired his brother's games he would sit right here in the living room and watch baseball and just umpire in our room. I dressed in referee stuff for Halloween and I really liked it. I didn't know what the umpire's job was. He would dress up and show up at games and be outside of the fence and mimic him whatever the other umpire would do. We would just record him here and there and then it got a little more serious. He would go high school games, dress up, he's in a stance, he's umpire. We just want to support whatever he wants to do, we thought it was the cutest thing and never would have imagined it would have turned out like this. So we had a ton of videos of him and never thought nothing of it. Kristen had took him to a St. Thomas playoff baseball game, right? And he was in the stands and he's umpiring from the stands where someone had recorded him and posted it on TikTok. Hey, what's the count, little man? A friend of ours calls up and they're like, Lathan's on TikTok and, you know, the video's got 50,000 views. And we're like, what? So the next day you look at it, it's got 100,000 views. The evening you look at it, it's at 300,000 views. So we said, I have a ton of videos of Lathan umpiring. So we just started editing them. I think it did 4 million views in one weekend. So it went from no one knowing who he is or what he does to we're at a Houston Astros game and kids are coming up to him asking him to take a picture with him. I went to a baseball camp where you become an MLB umpire, and I really liked it. I didn't want to leave. I did not want to leave. Wendell Studd Umpire School invited him out. We went for four days, and he got to go out there and warm up with the umpires. There were several MLB umpires that were out there that were actually coaching him, and Mr. Hunter awarded him a scholarship whenever he turns 18 to go back. It's a great day to play baseball. My name's Randy Dow, I'm the head coach with the 7U Hammond Yankees. We try to get at least one scrimmage a week with a couple of teams to help us get ready for tournaments on the weekends. I've known Lathan for the last five years. He's a great kid, very easy to coach, very easy to get along with, and he's always been a leader on any of my teams. Coach, plate meeting real fast. We're gonna play six innings. Sportsmanship, everybody legally and properly equipped. If you have a problem with the play completely die, call time and go to umpire Mason Clark. All right, best of luck to you, coach. Best of luck to you, coach. Let's do this, brother. Hey, guys. I've been umpiring for about 10 years. The highest level I've done is junior college baseball. Do a lot of junior college in New Orleans and Baton Rouge, and I do a lot of high school baseball. You have to have good people skills, and I learned those people skills through the classroom how to deal with kids. You learn how to deal with the coaches and the players, everything else will fall into place. Now, obviously you have to know the rules, and you have to be able to make judgment calls, but it all goes down to your people skills. He's taught me a lot of things. He's taught me about taking my time, and he was looking for my timing in the scrimmage. I think I had good timing. No matter what game you're doing, that game is that kid's national championship game. It doesn't matter if you're doing Delgado and LSUE or you're doing the Yankees and the Red Sox out here. That game is very important, so the game has to be very important to you. As an umpire, it's important to be patient because you can call out and he was actually safe. I try to teach Latham communication skills, how to deal with the players and the coaches, how to make good calls, how to be patient with your calls, how to work well with others and be a good teammate. Those two plays that I got in the beginning of the inning, they were hard. They were hard? I got them. I think you got them both right, though, buddy. I thought the second base one was an interference. No, I think that's a good call, too. As an umpire, he's hard, man. I tell you, he's made some calls against me before in games. You know, I had to ruffle his feathers a little bit. He's not just a kid, but he's a really good umpire. He takes this more seriously than anybody else I know. If you want to be an umpire, just learn on YouTube, learn from people, learn from TV, learn from MLB, learn from an umpire school. I went to an umpire school, it was amazing, I learned a lot of things. We have guys that are starting at 20 who want to be an umpire, and Lathan's over here starting at 7 going to umpire school, and it's crazy. As of now, he's inspired current umpires, and if the experience from what he gains from this and the inspiration from other umpires, that's enough too. This is a family thing. We can't do it without him, he can't do it without us. We can't do it without Logan's support or his mom's support, so we all pitch in. If he takes the path where he does Little League in high school as soon as he can do it if he goes to umpire school and gets with the right people the sky's the limit i have a good passion i have a good attitude it's my favorite thanks for watching subscribe to Whistle for more fair you point to the left side foul you do this i'm in my stance and i say