Former Mustang Porter Presides Over MLB No-Hitter

It's one thing to throw a no-hitter in baseball, or even witness a no-hitter. But how about presiding over an historic "no-no" as the home-plate umpire?

That's exactly the position former 1998 Mustangs Baseball Team MVP Alan Porter found himself Sunday afternoon in Washington, DC. The now Major League Baseball umpire was responsible for calling balls and strikes on the final day of the regular season as Jordan Zimmermann tossed the first no-hitter in Washington Nationals history in a 1-0 victory over the Miami Marlins.

A 2013 inductee to the Montgomery County Community College Alumni Hall of Fame, Porter played for Mustangs Head Baseball Coach Lou Lombardo.

"I am very proud of where Al is with his career in Major League Baseball," Coach Lombardo said. "Al was a hard worker who did an outstanding job balancing athletics and academics here at the college."

Porter, a 1995 graduate of Hatboro-Horsham High School in Horsham, graduated from Montgomery County Community College with an Associate's degree in general studies before attending California University of Pennsylvania. He went on to enroll in the Wendelstedt Umpire School in 2002.

One of only 37 students nationally selected to join the Professional Baseball Umpire Corp (PBUC), Porter worked his way through umpiring in the Gulf Coast, New York-Pennsylvania, South Atlantic, Carolina, Eastern, International, and Arizona Fall leagues before working his first major league game in 2010. After spending one year as a major league rover, Porter was promoted to the Major League staff in 2013. He is now one of only 68 Major League umpires in all of baseball.

Porter returns to the Central Campus in Blue Bell every year -- on Super Bowl Sunday -- to hold an Umpire Clinic.

- By Bob Kent, Sports Information Director