"What's black and white and blind all over?"

"Why don't you call it both ways? Alright?"

Those are some of the nicer things yelled from crowds in attendance at high school sporting events. It's part of the reason that games have an official shortage, not just in New York, but nationwide.

"I'll be the first to admit during a game, you're gonna miss a few calls. You probably call the ball (that) should have been a strike, or a strike that should have been a ball," said Mike LaNasa. "Sometimes, the timing on that isn't the best."

Fifty-one years on the diamond, and LaNasa has just about seen it all.

"The worst thing you have to look out for is a grandmother with an umbrella," he said. "They can come after you and there's nothing, not a darn thing you can do."

He understands the most important thing he can do is keep his cool from the first pitch to the last.

"You have to stay calm," he said. "You have to stay in control the whole time. If they get you upset, all of a sudden now things are gonna go in a bad direction."

The game of baseball has changed. So, too, have the type of personalities, from the officials themselves to coaches, spectators and even the student athletes.

"Nowadays, the kids want more of an explanation on what's going on. Why did this happen? Why did you do this and so on. The respect has changed quite a bit over the years," LaNasa said.

While most games are incident-free, part of the national shortage of officials is due to umpires and others not having a sense of safety while working.

"We're now the spectator getting physical with the umpire or the official of the game and things of that nature. That's totally uncalled for," LaNasa said.

Being an official comes with plenty of frustration, but it's something LaNasa and countless crews have dealt with from the summer stage to the fall grid iron and beyond.

"Friday night lights, you get the big schools, you're gonna get probably in the thousands," he said.

The governing body for high school sports in New York recently met and say they're going to key in on what officials have to say to make their experience safe and worthwhile.

LaNasa has a few ideas.

"When the game is over or even at halftime, have somebody with you that would walk you back to the school," he suggested. "You feel a little bit more secure that way. You wouldn't feel as though something could possibly happen."

For the countless hours of commitment, sometimes it seems more than the cost of doing business.

"You have to have a love for it," LaNasa said. "You have to have a real commitment in order to do that. After you kind of do it for a while, you kind of get hooked."

Having officials means sports, sports means youth learning critical life skills on the field and the sidelines. It leads to plenty of great things down the road.

"I've been involved with at different times, interviewing kids for different things. You start interviewing some of these kids and you're kind of going, that's our future, we're in pretty good shape," LaNasa said. "If you have any passion for the game, if you want to get back involved, you want to get into a good organization. We need officials all around."