Former SSU Baseball Standout Dexter Kelley Makes MLB Umpiring Debut

Previous Savannah State University baseball standout Dexter Kelley made his Big league Baseball launching on May 23 as a participant of the officiating staff of the video game in between the Atlanta Braves and the San Diego Padres at Truist Park.

It was the very first game of a three-game collection between the Braves and Padres.

Kelly, 36, was the second base umpire on Friday, worked initial base upon Saturday and will certainly lag home base on Sunday as the series completes.

Although it was his MLB officiating launching, the Augusta, Georgia citizen that currently resides in Fayetteville, Georgia was not alone. His wife and child went to the game along with his parents and other family and friends.

The road to “The Program” is usually a lengthy and sluggish climb up the ladder for umpires that typically call games at the high school and college levels before being chosen to function Solitary A, Dual A and Triple A video games. And since there are just 76 permanent settings in Major League Baseball and since umpires hold their jobs for decades, the turnover price is extremely reduced.

Big league Baseball welcomes the leading umpires to work springtime training games and some even obtain selected to be on-call throughout the routine season to fill in in instance of health problem or other absences.

This is what occurred to Kelley. Back in mid-February, he was just one of 21 umpires selected to function 2025 Big league Baseball spring training video games.

Kelley was an outfielder with Savannah State for 4 seasons (2008 -11 During his junior year, the Augusta, Georgia native was 2nd in NCAA Division I with. 88 swiped bases per video game (his overall of 44 steals was fourth).

After making his undergraduate degree from SSU, he umpired a few secondary school video games prior to being invited to the MLB umpiring camp. He showed guarantee and made a scholarship to one more camp in Fort Myers, Fla., then obtained an additional scholarship to the Wendelstedt Umpire College (called after fabulous umpire Harry Wendelstedt) in Daytona Beach.

Kelley finished at the top of his course and at some point began functioning Gulf Coastline League games. Since then, he’s climbed up from rookie round to the New York-Penn League, to the Solitary A Florida State League, to the Dual A Southern Organization was working the AAA Organization games before obtaining his shot with the major leagues.

Back in 2022, Kelley had the possibility to work several events throughout the week leading up to the MLB All-Star Game at Dodger Arena in Los Angeles.

He lagged the plate in the MLB & & USA Baseball High School All-American Game, at 3rd base for the Futures Video game, in the beginning base for the Celeb All-Star Softball Game and in the outfield throughout the Crowning achievement Derby.