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Umpire in Chief

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Everything posted by Umpire in Chief

  1. 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.
  2. 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...
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. 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
  9. As most of you know I stopped umpiring in 2018. But I ran into a friend I met umpiring and he informed me that this was his last year he was hanging it up. He was much more accomplished than me. He was a regular in collegiate post season at the D-II level and he was on 1 or 2 D-I conferences staff. I'd feel confident that he did some D-I conference tournaments if not maybe a regional. But I told him he was one of my all time favorite partners and he asked why. So I thought I'd share my thoughts on why he was one of my all time favorites. He was straight up honest with me. He pulled no punches his feedback was just like his umpiring, he called it like he saw it. He was one of my first collegiate partners before I was on any conferences. Where I'd get a call as a last minute fill-in and such. Post game I thought I did "okay." But his first comment to me was, "You're in over you're head dude." And yes, that hurt, but he went into detail of what he saw and how I could do better and that helped. Being honest with myself I could see exactly what he was talking about. Another instance of brutal honesty was that he was really pissed at me for not being good enough of a rodeo clown after a debacle on the field that led to multiple ejections. At the time I thought I was controlling the situation the best I could given everything going on and I ended up having an ejection in the situation too. But his feedback helped open my eyes about what to do in that type of situation. I honestly think he may have been tougher with his feedback to me because he knew I was absorbing it and trying to make the necessary adjustments. He had his partners back. I've written before that I believe umpires go through a swinging pendulum when it comes to ejections. At first they have either way too many or way too few. then they go back and forth adjusting until they figure it out and normalize. I was early in my career. The year prior I had a crazy high number of ejections so I was a bit trigger shy. I had a situation where an ejection was more than warranted, but I didn't pull the trigger. I had this coach eating my lunch on the field, and I think beyond being trigger shy I was not correct. Either way I was not fairing too well with this coach and he very professionally took control of the situation without throwing me under the bus and got the coach to back off. We had fun together. As time went on and I developed more and learned (with a lot of help from him) He was a partner I would be excited to see on my schedule. Milestone games. I'm sure it was purely random, but he was my partner for many of my milestone games and that's a really good feeling to have one of your go-to guys there with you. His presence gave me confidence. Some of my milestones he was with me for were my first high school post season assignment, a charity "all-star" game, my first collegiate post-season assignment which was also my first time in a 4 man game and we worked together in my first 6 man game in that same conference tournament. There was a HS game we had been assigned to separate games elsewhere, but because of a social media feud between players on the 2 teams that ended up making the local news, we were reassigned to the game together and the school district's athletic director attended the plate conference and spoke to the coaches there. (we had zero issues in the game). I'm sure there's much more, but he was one of my all-time favorite partners and he made quite a difference in my umpiring career. I hope all of you have someone like this in your career and can be that person for someone coming up the ranks.
  10. I personally despise all the changes to pitching allowing the hybrid stance, the be pitch dancing like in this example.
  11. First time I encountered a real knucleballer was in a summer league game. It was later in the game and they brought in this reliever he started pitching typical stuff. Then with 2 strikes and 2 outs he surprises me with the knucleball. He also surprised the batter. I froze up and balled it for some unknown reason. The pitcher yells at me, "Just because you don't know what it is doesn't mean it's not a strike." And he was right... and I let him have his say The catcher tried to help me out and tell me he should have let me know a knuckle was in his arsenal.
  12. I stole @Razzer 's facebook image and placed it in the sidebar. Clicking the image will Take you to Zac-Tate's page where you can buy a commemorative patch or just make a donation.
  13. @jim knight was a long time member of the site and someone I considered a personal friend. We had incredible conversations. I believe he was and Mike Taylor were the first people I personally connected with after meeting online. https://406mtsports.com/baseball/legion/jim-knight-brian-knight-mlb-american-legion-baseball/article_d66da20e-2046-11ee-803b-83a14a595b48.html
  14. Feeling less butthurt today. Last night I saw another angle where you see the player put the sandwich in his mouth easier, then I watched the IG video again and saw that. Legit ejection within the rules, but I still think this was grabbing the dirty end of the stick. But the interwebs are having a field day with it. https://youtube.com/shorts/-fA8Syp2Kuo
  15. Here's the homer where the player was EJd.... https://www.instagram.com/reel/Csl_dm6sNJX/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
  16. Trying my hardest to take my fanboy hat off. ECU lost today and this had zero effect on the game. And I understand the no prop rule add to that ECU was one of the worst offenders. From cowboy hats, our safety cone "birdhouse", wrestling belts, broom stick ponys, ECU did them all and I'm glad they're gone. But today in the conference tournament one of our pitchers on the bench was EJd for bringing a prop on the field. This "prop" was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich he was eating at the time. In the pic below you see him on the stairs eating it before the homer was hit. Definitely not a prop. And this was the bottom of the first so no previous issues. I just think judgement and discretion need to come into the picture. But now we've lost a starting pitcher... Picture taken from a ECU fan page.
  17. Making a wrong call on purpose, absolutely not - can be "mild" exceptions for euthanizing an out of control game within reason. However... I believe umpires need to go out there with a get outs mindset. Every pitch is a strike - until proven otherwise. Every play is an out - until proven otherwise.
  18. Here's the best picks I could snip from ESPN while eating lunch. Super close if he gained more ground towards 1st/home. From 2nd base view I couldn't get it to stop exactly on where his foot lands. Like I said I would say from these pics his non-pivot foot moved: 2-2.5 ft toward home (I'm thinking his right foot started a shade toward home of where his left knee is in the top pic) 18in-2 ft towards 1st Funny, I let this video play and the Campbell coach apparently did ask for a balk from the box, but no discussion/argument and didn't press the issue, but the next pitch was a check swing and PU called a strike and then the Campbell coach was yelling at the PU to appeal the strike call to 3rd. PU had to take off his mask and give a little back to the coach.
  19. Long story short, could it have been called? Yes Even as a fan-boy, would I have been upset if it was called? Probably not Might he have gotten away with one? Probably This I think we're just going to have to say was the judgement of the 4 guys on the field. We've got the Dookies today at 4:00. We have a really tough non-con schedule.
  20. Probably little visit to the pokey. But alas. ESPN makes it difficult to steal their content, and I wasn't going to try too hard.
  21. Watched again on ESPN+ the behind second view shows he's absolutely gaining ground to 1st. Whether he's gaining more towards home or 1st. I don't know. They also show a higher level 1st base view. Which is not conclusive. I'll try to record & post the video later tonight and be prepared for U-E's 10,000,000th DCMA notice. Looks just like 90% of Andy Pettit's moves.
  22. @johnnyg08 Very interesting... I watched that game Tuesday and I remember that play, but I don't think that angle showed on ESPN+. Seeing it live I didn't give it a second thought. And they replayed it half a dozen times. Plus the idiot commentators didn't say anything either. Seeing it from the ECU dugout angle it looks a lot closer
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