John Tumpane has one of those jobs that blend in. It’s the kind of job that only draws attention when done poorly; and when done to perfection, the performer is virtually invisible.

Tumpane is a professional umpire. On Wednesday afternoon he made a perfect play while crossing the Roberto Clemente Bridge in Pittsburgh. His action had nothing to do with baseball, but it did catapult him in the national limelight.

Tumpane, who was in Pittsburgh working the series between the Pirates and the Tampa Bay Rays, stopped a suicide attempt when he approached a woman as she hopped over the bridge railing.

Tumpane, 34, grabbed the woman even as she urged him to let her go.

“She wanted to go the other way,” he said later. “I was like, ‘not on my watch, please.’ We were just hanging on.”

Tumpane latched on tight to her arm. A bystander walked up and grabbed the other arm while another — Mike Weinman, an employee for the Rays — clutched her legs and pinned them to the railing while Tumpane mouthed to someone in the crowd to call 911. They held on until emergency responders arrived.

“I just happened to be there,” he said. “I think I’ve been a caring person in my life. I saw somebody in need, and it looked like a situation to obviously insert myself and help out.”

Nice move, Mr. Umpire.

[naviga:h3]Jeer [/naviga:h3]

Just because something is legal, that doesn’t make it right. But guess what? It’s still legal.

The Washington Redskins National Football League franchise appears to have survived the withering legal attack on its naming and trademark rights at the hands of the federal government.

In a letter sent Wednesday to a federal appeals court, the Justice Department said the recent Supreme Court decision in Matal v. Tam in favor of an Asian-American band calling itself the Slants means the NFL team will prevail in a legal battle to cancel the team’s trademarks because the name is disparaging to Native Americans.

“Consistent with Tam, the Court should ... enter judgment in favor of Pro-Football,” Mark Freeman, an attorney for the Justice Department’s civil division, wrote to the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Redskins case had been on hold in the federal appeals court while the Slants decision was rendered. The Supreme Court found that Simon Tam could trademark the Slants as the name of his Asian-American rock band because it would be unconstitutional for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to discriminate against it, citing the First Amendment’s free speech protection. The justices were unanimous in saying the 71-year-old trademark law barring disparaging terms infringes free speech rights.

That doesn’t make it right. The team deserves to lose every game against Dallas and New York, and even a few games against Philadelphia. Maybe.

[naviga:h3]Tears S[/naviga:h3]

Sometime last week, a 30-year-old Brady Street man died of an apparent drug overdose. The exact day isn’t certain. Police say the man was dead a couple of days before his brother found him.

His home is situated just a few blocks from the hospital, five blocks from the police and fire stations, within a three-minute walk to a half-dozen churches, not to mention an assortment of medical and psychological therapy offices.

This weekend marks the midway point through calendar year 2017. The official count so far this year is 36 drug overdose deaths for Butler County, but the actual number probably exceeds 40, because lab results are slow in returning to the coroner.

At this pace, the county’s 2017 overdose death toll could greatly exceed 80, eclipsing the record 74 deaths in 2016. The toll keeps rising despite the introduction of naloxone — Narcan — the opioid antidote that’s now routinely carried and dispensed by emergency personnel everywhere. A week ago, Butler police reported a case in which a 37-year-old Wayne Street man needed four doses of Narcan to revive him from a near-death overdose. His girlfriend told the 911 dispatcher he was unconscious and had stopped breathing. Once revived, the man refused to go to the hospital for further treatment or evaluation.

Emergency workers are getting tired and discouraged responding to overdose calls that end this way.

Members of our clergy are getting tired and discouraged performing funerals, asking survivors to hold on to hope.

Most of all, law-abiding citizens are tired and discouraged over a seemingly endless story of a social cancer eating us from the inside out.

We must hold on to hope and take back our town. But how?

— TAH