Dave Yeast


Dave Yeast is an American baseball administrator and former baseball umpire from 1981 to 2015. Between 1996 and 2008 Yeast was the National Coordinator of Baseball Umpires for the NCAA. In 1999 he was named Umpire of the Year by the International Baseball Federation.

Early life

Davis Dixon Yeast was born in 1959. He attended umpiring school in 1981. Early in his career he was involved with the National Umpire Improvement Program.

Career

Yeast served as the conference umpire coordinator for the Missouri Valley Conference from 1990 to 1994, the Metro Conference from 1993 to 1995, and Conference USA from 1996 to 1999. He was an umpire during the NCAA College World Series in 1991 and 1995, and was involved with the NCAA baseball committee as it structured the officiating program for the NCAA playoff and World Series tournaments.
Internationally, Yeast worked as an umpire for the 1996 Olympic Games, the 1993 and 1999 Intercontinental Cups, and the 1990 World Championships. In 1995 he also worked as an umpire for Major League Baseball.
From 1996 to 2008 Yeast served as the National Coordinator of Baseball Umpires for the NCAA. During his term as National Coordinator, Yeast developed the NCAA’s first rules testing program for sports officials, implemented the NCAA Umpires Mechanics Manual and NCAA Baseball Umpire Preseason Guide, and cofounded the NCAA Umpire Development Camps. He resigned in order to return to umpiring on the field, where Yeast continued until 2015. Since 2015 he has served as Coordinator of Baseball Officiating for the Pac-12 and the Big West and Western Athletic Conferences. He worked as an Instant Replay Communicator for the NFL from 2008 thru 2015, and as an Instant Replay Official for the Pac-12 Conference. He is the vice president of officiating education for ArbiterSports.