Darling began his professional umpiring career with the Northwest League in 1980, and officiated the California, Texas, and Pacific Coast Leagues before his promotion to the National League staff in 1988. He was one of the 22 umpires who lost their jobs in the 1999 mass resignation event, and was rehired to the league in 2002, alongside Bill Hohn, Bruce Dreckman, Joe West, Larry Poncino, Larry Vanover, Paul Nauert, and Sam Holbrook.
Since his return, Darling promoted to Crew Chief, officiated Division Series his first and second years back (in addition to 2005, 07, 08, 10, and 13), and worked his first World Series just a year later, in 2003 (his second World Series was in 2010).
In 2005, Umps Care was initially founded to assist retired umpires and their families in financial difficulty, but the group's mission shortly expanded and, under President Darling's leadership, UMPS CARE regularly began to run programs such as BLUE Tickets and the BLUE for Kids hospital visit event, charity golf outings, the annual online auction at MLB.com, and even an UMPS CARE Charities All-Star College Scholarship award.
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