By Dan Ronan
Shane Livensparger has several uniforms in his closet. During the MLB season, the up-and-coming professional umpire wears the traditional MLB umpire uniform — black shoes, gray slacks, a black shirt and a dark hat — and is on the field calling balls and strikes, safes and outs, and administering the rules of the game in 30 big-league ballparks.
A full-time MLB umpire since 2023 — after 13 years in the minors and as an MLB call-up — it is clear league leadership believes Livensparger will be a prominent figure in their umpiring plans for many years to come.
But during the offseason, and sometimes in the spring and summer, Livensparger is wearing another uniform, that of the United States Air Force. He is an officer, serving as a first lieutenant with the 116th Air Control Wing, 107th Battle Control Management Squadron at Robins Air Force Base in Georgia.
Livensparger is trained as an air battle specialist and works as an air traffic controller directing multi-million-dollar military aircraft and playing a key role in keeping our nation safe.
So how does this married father of two young boys balance the high-pressure demands of MLB and climbing the career ladder in that highly competitive field while also managing his voluntary Air Force commitment that he made to the military before he became a full-time MLB umpire? And what inspired him to make that decision?
“I thought there was something more I could be doing,” Livensparger said. “Something more. I did not feel like I was doing enough for my country. So, I started pursuing it and looking into it more. And when I finally started talking to some individuals, they were super excited (to see) my college degree, an individual that’s ambitious, in good shape and athletic — everything was going well, and they loved seeing my resume with professional baseball.”
Livensparger comes from a military family as his grandfather served in the Army during the Korean conflict and his great-uncle served 20 years in the United States Marine Corps. Their service inspired Livensparger.
The process to join the Air Force took several years, with numerous false starts, but eventually, in late 2019, while serving as a Triple-A call-up umpire and still not on the full-time MLB staff, Livensparger found the opening he was seeking in the Air Force. The position was conveniently located in Georgia, about an hour north of where he lives in the Jacksonville, Fla., area.
“Finally, I talked to a recruiter who said, ‘Hey, I have an opportunity if you want to go the National Guard route, rather than the reserves,’” Livensparger said. “I had looked at many branches. I had sat down with the Air Force, Army and Navy at this point, all of which were pursuing officer routes. And the recruiter said, ‘This is an enlisted position. Now, is that something you would be willing to do?’ And I said, ‘Yes, at this point, I just want to serve, so I would totally go the enlisted route. I think that would be really neat.’ The recruiter said it does not mean you cannot go the officer route later. And in fact, a lot of officers, they are highly respected if they have done the enlisted side prior to going the officer’s route.”
Livensparger decided to move forward and pursue the position, which was in Savannah, Ga., with the Georgia Air National Guard.
“There was an air control squadron, and the recruiter sat down with the squadron commander, something that I had done about a dozen times now,” Livensparger said. “He brought in the director of operations, his right-hand man and another man, and we just started talking, and he said, ‘Is there a reason you would rather go enlisted than the officer’s route?’ and I said I would do whatever is needed of me; I just want to get in. I have been pursuing this for years, and no one would give me a shot because of my baseball schedule and the commitments that are involved with that.”
Livensparger said the conversation suddenly became very serious.
“He told me, ‘Go take the qualifying exam for the Air Force and if you have a high enough qualifying score, then you will be an air battle manager and an officer.’ I took the test and scored high enough to qualify for almost every position, except to be a fighter pilot. So, we sat down in the winter of 2019, and he said everything looks good, let’s get this going.”
However, Livensparger still had to speak with baseball officials.
“It was spring 2020, and I am thinking, I have to break this to baseball and Rich (Rieker, MLB director of umpire development),” Livensparger said. “We had spoken about this previously when I was looking at the Navy, and I had not told him what I was looking at. It was just my secret, with my then-fiancé, now my wife, Haley. I remember talking to Haley and saying, ‘We’ll see how this goes. This might be the end of my baseball career, and we might be a full-time military family moving forward.’ And Rich took it really well, and I was lucky enough that he thought it was a cool pursuit.”
Rieker is a key figure in deciding which Triple-A umpires get selected onto the MLB call-up list and are in contention for full-time jobs when there is a vacancy.
Livensparger’s next step was to sit down with him. But there was a problem: The country was shutting down in the spring of 2020 due to COVID-19, and MLB, along with all the other sports, were put on hold.
Five years later, Livensparger and Rieker vividly recall a heart-to-heart talk they had during the peak of the pandemic, sitting outside of an Orlando restaurant when Livensparger outlined his plans to join the Air Force. Rieker was encouraging because his own son and daughter-in-law are in the military.
Rieker said he offered to meet Livensparger halfway to talk, rather than have him drive all the way from Jacksonville, but Livensparger thought it was important to visit Rieker’s hometown of Orlando for the important discussion.
“It was during a pandemic and lockdown, and it was the summer of 2020 when baseball was off, and we were working toward a 60-game season, and Shane was in Jacksonville at the time, and I was in Orlando, and he said he wanted to meet,” Rieker said. “And when minor league umpires make that phone call to a supervisor, they ask some serious questions about the future of their career. So, I was prepared for anything. Because the restaurant was serving ‘to-go’ food only during that period of time, we got a sandwich, and we sat in the parking lot and we talked for what seemed like well over an hour, probably two hours.”
Rieker said Livensparger realized the idea carried an element of risk, especially since he was performing very well at Triple-A. With the COVID-19 pandemic taking 12 full-time MLB umpires off the field for a shortened 2020 season, he would be filling in full-time in MLB in 2020. And another two MLB umpires were out for the season because of injuries.
“We talked, and he brought this idea to me, and he was very heartfelt,” Rieker said.
“Remember, he was a call-up umpire at the time, which means there are no guarantees until you get that major league job. We had 33 call-ups at that time to fulfill all the needs of the club’s taxi squads prior to resuming work after COVID. So, he was in a big pool of umpires, but he was making progress going forward. He was moving ahead in his goal as a major league umpire.”
Livensparger said Rieker offered his full support.
“He grabbed my hand, and he gave me a hug and said, ‘Congratulations. This is awesome, I am proud of you,’” Livensparger said. “I said, ‘I am going to try and juggle multiple balls in the air and make them both work if you allow this to happen.’ And Rich said, ‘OK, let us just see what is going on with COVID.’”
Rieker recalled his reaction to the news.
“(Livensparger) came at me with this — I was happy to hear that he wanted to do something for our country,” Rieker said. “My son and daughter-in-law are both captains in the United States Air Force, so I am familiar with just a slight bit of that lifestyle, and from what I have learned, Shane would fit perfectly with that.”
Rieker said he believed Livensparger is the one person who could pull off the demands of both jobs.
“So, it took a lot of cooperation on behalf of the office from Matt McKendry (MLB’s vice president of umpire operations), and then when Mike Hill (MLB’s senior vice president of on-field operations and workforce development) came aboard, he was cooperative with the whole thing,” Rieker said. “And we were able to work with Shane and his military schedule to get his Air Battle Management training completed. It was an interesting meeting. I was very happy that he chose this, and it is very unique. And again, I thought he was capable of doing both during the offseason and during his vacation time. If there is anybody we have on our staff that is capable of balancing these two unique professions, it is Shane.”
But after signing the papers and getting the approval, an unexpected medical complication arose. Doctors believed Livensparger was allergic to shellfish and possibly anaphylactic. He underwent a series of tests, including sitting in a room for six hours, eating shrimp and waiting for a reaction.
“They said, ‘We will make you a deal. If you sit down here with me and eat actual shrimp, and you have no reaction, we will sign off on your paperwork for you.’ I said, ‘Deal.’ So, I sat in the office for six hours, eating shrimp and having zero reaction. They signed it, and they sent it to the Air Force, and I said, ‘Give me more sauce and another piece of shrimp,’” Livensparger said with a laugh.
Due to COVID-19 and other bureaucratic delays, Livensparger did not begin Officers Training School in Alabama until the fall of 2022. However, when he was commissioned as a second lieutenant at graduation, Rieker was in the audience to attend the ceremony.
“He was there to shake my hand and say congratulations,” Livensparger said, beaming. “Just how cool is that?”
After working the entire 2022 season as a Triple-A call-up and logging a full 141 games, MLB promoted Livensparger to the full-time umpiring staff on Dec. 21, 2022. And in 2023, while awaiting his additional military training, Livensparger was back on the field full-time, working 118 games and also pulling several weeks in baseball’s replay center in New York.
But Livensparger needed more training for his role as an Air Combat Manager, and that would require time away from baseball at the beginning of the 2024 season. He ended up working just 37 games in 2024, as he started the season in late June and then came back full time in August and September.
“Again, MLB was very supportive,” Livensparger said. “I talked with Rich. I did some games in Triple-A, got my medical clearance and I was back on the field.”
Ultimately, Livensparger’s unit in Savannah was dissolved, and he was reassigned about 150 miles away to Robins Air Force Base near Macon, Ga.
During the season, the life of MLB umpires is one of three or four days in a city, two or three airline flights a week and a never-ending stream of airports, hotels, restaurants, Ubers and every afternoon or evening spending at least six hours at the stadium. But for four months from the end of October until late February, they have a chance to decompress, relax, heal, spend time at home with their families and then get ready for the next season. But it is during the fall and winter that Livensparger spends most of his time fulfilling his military commitment.
Now five years into his dual career, Livensparger has no regrets, but admits he is much busier than the average, already very busy MLB umpire.
“I have to work very hard at balancing my time and making every minute count,” he said. “My wife, Haley, is my partner and is fabulous. During the season, she and the boys will travel with me, and when I have military duty in the fall and winter, I am able to bring the family as much as I can. And I do it a lot. Usually, we get an Airbnb wherever I bring them out to because if you get a hotel room, sometimes you’re sharing. And it’s a hotel room; I’m not going to bring two kids in a hotel room for an extended period of time. But we are pulling it off.”
As for the challenging military career he has chosen, Livensparger finds the responsibility of controlling multi-million-dollar aircraft and potentially saving the lives of pilots in combat humbling.
“There are two parts of the job I think that are really awesome,” he said. “There’s one that’s being on the radar in the scope and telling these aircraft where your friends are and where the enemies are, giving them bearings and ranges and so on and so forth, telling them how to keep separated safe from the other team, and then how to defeat the enemy.”
Livensparger first started umpiring in Jacksonville to pick up a few dollars while in college. His inspiration was his father, K.C. Livensparger, who played college and semi-pro baseball and after retiring from playing, became a successful umpire in the Midwest where the family lived when he was a boy.
“My dad always loved baseball. He showed me his umpiring gear over the years. He had the old balloon protector, the heavy metal mask and a plate brush that had been around for a while, and I think that’s what got me interested when I was in college,” he said. “I got involved in youth and high school baseball and, besides my dad, two people really helped me. Justin Vogel was a Double-A umpire, and he told me if this was something I was interested in, he would help me to attend one of the umpire schools. Getting help from the right people, Justin and Randy Olhausen with the Jacksonville Umpires Association, really pushed me forward.”
In 2009, Livensparger attended the Jim Evans Academy of Professional Baseball, where he graduated at the top of his class. He qualified for a job and began his career in the New York-Penn League, where he began climbing the ranks. In 2017, he worked his first MLB game between the Oakland Athletics and Tampa Bay Rays at nearby Tropicana Field.
Livensparger is also a businessperson and physical fitness expert, who, along with his wife, owns a business called RomRod. This business has developed and sells a portable piece of fitness equipment that he uses regularly to assist in his daily workouts. He also runs another company, Officially Fit, which helps officials maintain top physical condition. Livensparger is also heavily involved with UMPS CARE, the official nonprofit of MLB umpires.
Fellow MLB umpire Dan Bellino believes that in his career, he has never seen another umpire in as superb physical condition as Livensparger, who blocks out time several days a week, even with an umpire’s difficult travel schedule, to get to a gymnasium for a workout.
“He has always been in the best shape of any umpire,” Bellino said. “I know he does these workout challenges that he creates on his own. When I worked with him two years ago, he created a plan to visit 100 CrossFit gyms over the course of the season. And he did it. That alone was crazy. But he was committed to it. Every day. He found a new one, and he went, and he worked out. He’s in tremendous shape.”
Livensparger is also in the middle of a fitness routine called “rucking” — walking or hiking while carrying a 50-pound knapsack. Livensparger is making it his mission to conduct a “ruck” in all 30 MLB stadiums, where on an off day, or several hours before a game, he can be seen walking through the concourse in an empty park, carrying the added weights.
Livensparger has a history of taking on a lot of projects and being successful. Before entering professional baseball in 2009, Livensparger earned his professional scuba diving certification, and he has taught scuba instruction in Honduras. Livensparger is also a certified Emergency Medical Technician. And while he was in the minors and climbing the ladder, he earned an Executive Juris Doctorate degree from the Purdue Global Law School after earning his bachelor’s degree in sports management.
“Shane is a smart guy,” Bellino said. “He is an entrepreneur. His brain is always thinking. He is not a guy that is content to sit around. He just moves forward. He is always thinking about making things better for himself, for his family, for his co-workers. I call Shane a do-gooder. He wants to do good, and he wants to do good by everybody. And in all the years that I have known him now, which goes back about eight or nine years, I do not think I have ever seen Shane get mad.”
Rieker believes Livensparger has found a larger purpose in his life and will be a great leader in MLB, as well as serve his country in the Air Force for as long as he desires.
“I was honored to attend his commissioning and meet with some of his co-workers and commanding officers,” Rieker said. “And I understand that it can work. So, it’s something that is working today. We’re happy for him, we’re happy for the Air Force, we’re happy for Major League Baseball, and it’s right now. It’s been a very positive relationship. I am very proud of him and what he is doing.”
Livensparger admits his life is a constant balancing act, and it takes a lot of planning and discipline to pull off what he is doing.
“I am very fortunate. I love my wife and family,” he said. “I am passionate about my service in the military, and baseball was my dream, and I am living it.”
Dan Ronan is a Washington D.C.-based journalist and a former NCAA baseball umpire and high school and small college basketball official.
