Umpire in Chief

Agree and with @DerekGDS too. The whole site this I removed the link to was AI created garbage. But it's a good though provoking post. Someone did an awesome video covering this many, many moons ago...🤣

First I think this is a great idea! I do not believe it is hard to get an EIN, I actually have one for U-E. Now it was 18 years ago, but I just applied online and got it immediately if I remember correctly. From there you will want to provide those who pay you a completed W-9 to use for payment. Now the flip side. This puts you on the radar for cities/states/municipalities to tax you and create additional burdens on you. Many years ago a city not far from me got lists of people who claimed non W-2 earnings on their taxes, then fined them for not having a business license and such. I found out about it from multiple sports officials that this happened to and this was just using their SSN. So I'd say do some research and see what obligations this may bring for you.

Version 5.0.X of the forum software has officially launched. I am not going to be an early adapter, but I am following some discussions of people who are and the response the highly positive. I will continue to monitor, but unless something crazy comes up, I plan on doing the upgrade in mid-February. Besides not wanting to be an early adapter, like many new software updates there are a ton of small updates that have already come out. They're literally already at 5.0.15... And I don't want to do a lot of small updates. I'll let the dust settle first. I am always very hesitant to send an email out to all members, because I hate emails, and from 30+ years in HR I know the vast majority of people won't read it any way 🤣 However... I am planning on sending out 2 emails to all members. The first one will probably the week before letting people know that if you're like me and login using your username, that will no longer be an option. You will have to use the email in the system. So please check the email address we have for you. If it is out of date you may not be able to log in I know many people have used their work email addresses and they may no longer work there for example. First, Select the dropdown by your username and avatar in the top right. Then Select Account Settings Then you can see and update your email address.

I do not miss taking that test... Not the best written, but overall if you paid attention in one of the regional meetings you should come out okay on the new rules questions.

I've finally completed a laundry list of software updates some of which were very over due. For the geeks, this upgrade included: Newer version of PHP Conversion of the databases from MyISAM to InnoDB Multiple security updates So I am again allowing new registrations to the site. Please note. This upgrade is in preparation for a new full version of the software in February. Going from 4.7.X to 5.0 in February. I've skimmed through the change logs and the only thing which will directly impact users seems to be that members will no longer be able to log in with their username they must use their email. I will send a couple of email reminders out to all members before I launch this upgrade.

The first thing today on my YouTube feed was @Lindsay appearance on NBC Sports. She gave a great and honest breakdown of the "Robo Ump" situation. Great job and Congrats!

I'm still looking into the options. The other site I got the idea from uses the authenticator app. The problem with the email is that all 96 of these spammers did verify their email addresses.

I've been following the CWS this year and particularly the Chants since eliminating ECU, but was away for these 2 games. First, I really respect Coach Schnall and Coastal Carolina, they really stand out as a class act, the coaches, players and fans every time they come to East Carolina win or lose. In 2022 ECU was the host of the Regionals, and beat them, everyone concerned were amazing, humble and very professional. So much so that it stood out. This year we hosted them for a series and lost 2 of the 3 and the same thing, very classy - I was at the Saturday game only. And look at the stance he took against Florida's coach and team at the Regionals this year in Conway when they were acting like complete D-bags. That said the coach ultimately should have absolutely ejected for arguing balls and strikes. But I also think the warning and EJ came really quick. Initially it was reported that the suspension was for the "bump" and when the "bumped" official got up he signals 2. There was no bump. Plain and simple. Now the narrative is the suspension is for prolonged arguing. Towards the end of the video you see him raising the 2 fingers, and I'll take that as prolonged arguing. Now people on SM are saying the prolonged was about the bump suspension. And since there was no bump that he shouldn't have been suspended for prolonged arguing something that didn't happen. In spirit I agree, but at some point you need to give up and let your AD and the NCAA hash it out. Class act or not, he deserved the ej and suspension, but the optics of the whole situation for the umpires looked really bad IMO. And we all know assistant coaches are like children - meant to be seen and not heard. So he was an easy one.

Earlier this month U-E got slammed with 96 spammer accounts, and over 1000 spam messages. This was a coordinated attack by real humans, they beat the Captcha and the little quiz I had to try and limit spammers like what color are the threads on an MLB baseball, how many sides does home plate have, and such. I do have multiple upgrades to do for the site. One is a major upgrade that will require me bringing the site down but I'll find the time to do that in the weee hours of the morning one day. But my question is.. I belong to another forum that requires two factor authentication at registration, every 45 days or if you log in from a different IP than your last log in. I am considering implementing something like that. Would using two factor authentication like Duo, Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator or something similar for registration, new IP logins or every X many days (30+) deter you from using the site?

Are you still seeing those posts.. I thought I got them all

LOL...🤣

I've been waiting for Lindsay's analysis of this and got exactly what I was hoping for. This has blown up my social media and I've been asked a few times about it too. Not a great situation on either side.

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.