FORT WAYNE – The year Thomas Bice called his first Little League pitch, Gerald Ford was president, Derek Jeter was a year old, and no one had ever heard of Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, Michael Jordan, Brett Favre, ESPN, Twitter, Facebook and even “Star Wars.”

In other words: It was 1975.

Thirty-six years and more than a generation of kids later, Bice is still callin’ ’em like he sees ’em.

This month – from July 27 through Aug. 3, to be exact – Bice will be callin’ ’em down in Easley, S.C., where he’ll be one of a dozen umpires from eight states and Venezuela to work the Big League Baseball World Series. It’s the second time he’s been picked to ump a Little League international event; in 2003, he worked the Junior League World Series in Taylor, Mich.

To get to Easley, Bice had to survive a rigorous selection process in which two umpires are eventually chosen from each region of the country.

“It’s quite an involved process, and quite an honor,” he says.

It’s also a labor of love for the 64-year-old Bice, who fell hard for the game as a high school player, got away from it after he got married, and came back to it in a wholly different capacity when he saw a picture in the paper of one of his co-workers at General Electric umping.

Shortly thereafter, he answered an ad in the paper looking for umpires, and he’s been at it ever since.

“I just love the game,” says Bice, who says the best of it for him is watching kids grow and mature as both athletes and young people from year to year.

“Baseball teaches kids how to accept victory and defeat, which you have to deal with in life,” he says. “And to be humble when you lose and gracious when you win.

“I guess that’s what I like about it. It’s just playing the game and learning how to you can apply a lot of things to life to baseball. And it keeps me thinking young being around all these young kids.”

It’s not all sunshine and blue skies, of course. The kids tend to get a little more, ah, vocal as they get older, which compels Bice to monitor both their language and their behavior at times.

And every once in a while, he runs into a coach who thinks it’s baseball’s loss that he’s not manning the dugout in, say, Yankee Stadium.

“The older the kids, sometimes they get a little mouthy,” Bice says. “And the coaches; … some of them try to be like Earl Weaver and guys like that. They think they have to throw their weight around, and it doesn’t work that way.”

The way it works, he says, is he calls the game, the kids play, and the coaches coach. And along the way, if he’s lucky, he gets to see the game take a kid somewhere he never could have imagined when he first picked up a bat and ball.

“My favorite is Eric Wedge,” Bice says of the Seattle Mariners manager who first starred at Northrop and Wichita State, turned to managing and in 2007 was named American League Manager of the Year with Cleveland.

“I know him personally, and I know his dad real well. We host a junior regional in Fort Wayne where we give out the Eric Wedge Spirit Award, and he gives us autographed baseballs.

“He’s the most known guy I saw as a kid. There’s been others – I know there’s been a lot of others – but he’s the most notable I can recall.”

What’s notable about Bice is not only his longevity, but the way the game has worked its way into every aspect of his life. After being laid off at GE, he went to work for his current employer, JB Tool. And wouldn’t you know it, there’s a baseball connection there.

“The owner is a huge baseball fan, and he helps support the Little League here in Fort Wayne quite immensely,” Bice says.

bensmith@jg.net