Noah Katz ’26 was ready for his close-up – Clark Now

Noah Katz ’26 doesn’t need a thesaurus when asked to describe what it was like to walk onto the field at Fenway Park and officiate a game in front of a raucous crowd of 37,000 fans. He easily comes up with a multitude of adjectives, including “incredible,” “cool,” and “surreal.”

Katz patrolled the right field line as a member of the crew that officiated the June 8 Savannah Bananas game at the historic ballpark. The Bananas have attracted a national audience for their fast-paced, crowd-pleasing baseball game, in which players break into spontaneous dance numbers and engage in comedic antics that draw comparisons to the Harlem Globetrotters basketball. It’s as much a work of performance art as it is a sporting exhibition.

The junior marketing major established a relationship with the Bananas while filming the team for The Umpire Channel, which he founded and maintains as “the leading source of refereeing-related content in the world.”

“I fell in love with Savannah and the team,” he says. “I experienced a day in the life of referees, coaches and players, and later realized I could referee for the team.”

At Fenway, Katz enjoyed the perks of being an insider, dressing in the locker room and visiting the imposing left field wall, aka The Green Monster. He was even able to add his signature to the thousands of signatures already scribbled inside the Monster by famous baseball players over several generations.

“It was an extraordinary experience,” he marvels. “A childhood dream that I was able to realize. »

Katz will next umpire for the Savannahs on July 14 at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C., and August 10 at Progressive Field in Cleveland.