Umpire in Chief

Sorry for the slow reply... A few people have contacted me directly with this. I've been looking into it. There is a major update about to come out I'm going to wait until that drops get it installed and see if that fixes it, otherwise I'll get some paid support in. I've just about exhausted everything I can think of to do. It seems to be intermittent. comes and goes. I lease this server directly and have access to the stats and there doesn't seem to be on that end.

Wow memories. Being its been about 6 years since I called a game I can't remember my finger combinations well. But I will say I did this as a back up to having an indicator. A few times in my career I either lost or broke an indicator during the game and had to come up with something.

Been there just under different circumstances. My new job in 2018 wasn't flexible with my umpiring schedule and I stepped away, but it really wasn't planned and not truly my decision. At first I think it will be hard, but then you'll get to the point where you really appreciate the open time you have because you're not umpiring. But congrats to you and your umpiring career.

As many of you know, I've been in HR for the past 25+ years and I've been following the contractor/ employee DOL rulings and was thinking about this in terms of umpiring. ***Everything below is my opinion based on my extensive HR experience and not intended to be legal advice or the word of the Lord. Also not intended to be political*** @JonnyCat you and your fellow California absolutely are not ICs under AB5. So I would be very concerned as both an assigning body and the official about what the repercussions will be. But watch out the rest of the country the PRO Act is gaining traction in congress which is essentially the same thing at a national level. For the DOL's latest interpretation posted by @The Man in Blue Very close for umpires. We can supposedly turn back assignments without repercussion. We can in large part determine our own pay by selecting which groups we elect to work for. We do engage in efforts to secure more work by attending camps and clinics, reaching out to other organizations to gain work. Investments - We're ICs. We buy our own equipment pay for camps/ clinics on our own Permanence of relationship- Close but I think IC. It is non exclusive and sporadic we can work for as many groups as we choose. The permanence side leads to employees. While the work is generally seasonal it is seasonal every year. This gets interesting. It is probably 50/50. Associations we work for generally evaluate us and based on these evaluations they give us greater work at greater responsibility. So there is a bit of supervision on their part. But we set our own availability. In Arbiter I'd block out one group to be more available for another that ability leads me to IC. -- Also not mentioned in the post above but historically uniforms are considered a form of control for employee contractor relationships Integral to the business- Absolutely an employee. There are no officials associations, Athletic districts, conferences or any other body we work for without officials. Skill & Training. This goes both ways. We take initiative and go to non-required training camps & clinics voluntarily for our own betterment, this leans IC. But also we are required to attend various training for our assigning groups - this makes employees. As you can see (based off of my opinion) this makes it a gray area. Based on the above I'd say we're still ICs, but this could vary based on the political direction of where you are.

In HS & College I went to a lot of concerts, but not so much since. I actually went to my first in forever the summer of 2021, but haven't gone to another since. But, I keep thinking I want to do some more, especially as some of my favorite bands are not getting any younger...

I've decided I will bring it back. I will reorganize it a bit and will get some things cleaned up, so hold off on posting in there until further notice.

This is something that baffles me. I remember when the Norfolk Tides changed from the Mets to the Orioles and they were talking about the ease of moving players and consolidating resources, yadda, yadda, yadda. I thought this was flawed logic. In todays age you can be anywhere in the world in less than 24 hours, so moving players is bunk. As for consolidating resources, how many resources do they actually share ??? They don't share equipment, facilities, support staff, etc.. As far as I know the Minor League Franchises are independently owned and operated. If it weren't for that I could possibly see consolidating as a way to cut overhead... back then. But today not so much. I manage people and resources in California, Pennsylvania, Utah, Texas and more all from Virginia. My uninformed opinion would be to spread out your franchises to build the largest geographical fan-base you can. On the other hand free agency has probably ruined that as well, Think about it, the players coming up through the minors, if they make it, probably won't be in the same franchise which would diminish that loyalty. Growing up I saw Mookie Wilson, Daryl Strawberry, Lenny Dyskstra and more play for the Tides and would get excited to see them on the Mets. Today your favorite players at your local franchise could end up anywhere. It's a cargo net vs a ladder now. Another thing is the seemingly constant team name changes in the minor leagues. Today when I go to MiLB game I have to look up who the team is and who they are a part of.

Let me see what I can do...

Also, I recently received 2 emails asking about the availability of stickers like the oval UE stickers, The Keep Calm or even Logo stickers. Obviously since the recodification a while back this isn't the same, but I want to let people know. I am looking into this. But I do not want to do the fulfillment myself. That is why I closed the store with T-shirts, stickers and such. I was not only bad at fulfillment, but beyond awful. I made many people mad with me, and rightfully so, That it would take a month or even longer to get what they ordered. I created a Zazzle shop and didn't sell a single item, but will look into this again maybe a shopify or other print on demand type service. The down side is these can get expensive at $8+ for a stupid sticker. I know there are any number of places that I can get 100s for less than $0.30 each, but once again I'm horrible at fulfillment.

Thank you we have already had 2 "Crew" Level supporters. Enjoy your ad free experience! I don't have a logo made yet, but I'll work on that this week.

I've been spending some time getting some things done around the site; fixing things, enhancements, etc... I've received a handful of questions asking to bring back the review section, and I'm more than happy to do that. When I first started Umpire-Empire (Wow it's been 16 years now!!!) Reviews were something that was important to me to differentiate from the other online forums. The feedback I received was overall positive on the reviews, but very few people posted reviews. Most items had no reviews and the traffic to those areas was lower than the rest of the site. So in 2018 I closed the review section. I've re-opened the old review section for you to see what it would be like. https://umpire-empire.com/reviews/ Please vote in the poll to let me know.

I have launched a new way of supporting the site through Patreon. I have 2 tiers available: Crew Member Costs $2 per month. Removes the Google ads Get a "Crew Member" profile badge (to be designed) to show everyone you support the site Crew Chief Costs $5 per month Removes the Google ads Get a "Crew Chief" profile badge (to be designed) to show everyone you support the site After 3 months of support receive a 3" vinyl sticker of the UE Logo It may take a few days to remove the ads. Please either use the same email address you are registered with here or in the notes on Patreon enter your username, so I can: Identify who made the contribution. You can support the site here: patreon.com/user?u=112779508