kylehutson

Just subscribed. Haven't listened yet, but I'm always up for a good podcast.

My other side-hustle is very lucrative (IT consulting), and when I'm umpiring I could frequently be making more doing that instead (sometimes there just isn't enough work at any given time), so I think I'm being accurate when I answer your question with "yes, but probably not as much". I do this because it gets me out from behind a desk and using my body rather than my head. I honestly didn't keep track. I doubt it was that many. I don't keep track of how much of that is volleyball, how much is high school level baseball, and how much is college level baseball. I just keep a spreadsheet of what I get in and an app to keep track of my expenses. Most of my expenses are mileage. I live in rural Kansas so if I was to limit myself to "close" I wouldn't be working much. College games pay a lot better, but also require a lot more travel. I might make $300 for a college DH, but lose money after deducting mileage. It's not just officiating, but I typically average about 30k miles/year on my car, so I buy cheap high-mileage fuel-efficient cars that I can run into the ground (even if they're ugly), so when I lose money on mileage I'm not really losing money. Yessir. Oops. Me too. Interesting to me that schools elsewhere don't have lights. This year I worked on a total of 2 HS fields that didn't have lights. One of those is a small school that just established their program a few years ago and plays on a field that used to be an elementary school (now closed) playground. The other had their lights taken out by a storm and hadn't had a chance to get them fixed yet. Every high school game I've worked has been a doubleheader[1], but we don't do JV/V, we do JV/JV or V/V. I know that's not necessarily the case in parts of the state where you get near more urban areas. College games around here are more likely not to have lights, but they typically start their games at 1:00, regardless. [1] For the sake of accuracy, I've had a couple that were scheduled as doubleheaders, but sometimes JV games will either do a single 9 or sometimes will cancel the 2nd game due to lack of pitchers, etc. Also postseason games aren't doubleheaders, but umpires are still not working a single game.

@JonnyCatYou're right, BUT there are probably very few of us here that are trying to make this a significant portion of our incomes. I have to fill out 3 schedule C's every year (2 for me, 1 for my wife). For my sports officiating, I include all my income (whether I get a 1099 on it or not), and I also include all of my expenses including equipment, professional development, and travel expenses[1]. With all of that, according to the IRS last year, I made A gross of $14300, expenses of $9600, for a net of $4700[2], so in essence for every $3 I received, I really made $1. That goes to your point about being in business vs earning a wage. How many hours did I spend? Ummm... lots? Would I have been better off just working some crappy retail job? Probably not. $4700 per year is certainly not enough to live on, but it is enough to take my wife on a vacation and take her out to dinner when she wants. It's not nothing. Point is, it can be a pretty decent side-hustle, and I don't mind taking time off of work (especially since I'm getting paid "vacation time" there, too) to do this, because it's worth it to me. YMMV. On the other hand, I've decided to start refusing high-school sub-varsity, not because I can't make money at it, but because I no longer enjoy it enough to spend my time on it. [1] And yes, you should all be doing the same. Not only is it the legal and honorable thing to do, it will also help you understand your financial situation. [2] I'm not trying to get into a pissing contest here, just using my own real-life numbers to illustrate a point. Geez, I re-read that, and I really sound like I'm rambling. Apologies.

NCAA has changed from Arbiter to RefQuest+ I think this is the link you want: https://plus.refquest.com/registration/governing-body (since I already have an account, it might be showing up differently for me than for you).

I keep mine wrapped in a rag, which I keep inside my Skully (which doesn't move due to the way the bag is built).

Kansas / Baseball 3081 registered in the state I am a part of 19 groups ranging from 97 - 1038 for local-ish groups, 1227 in a much larger regional group.

A) I've not worked anything solo on anything longer than 60' bases, so take my opinion for what it's worth, but B) The strike zone really isn't the problem, IMHO. You can see that pretty good from behind the mount. The real issue is seeing fair/foul down the foul lines.

I don't have an official diagnosis, but my oldest son does. And the info we were given on it was "Yep, that's me. Yep, that's me. Yep, that's me" clear down the line. Admittedly, I'm not the worst case example, so I haven't ever been on any meds. I just see my umpiring as "hey this is something I can do so I'm not sitting at home bored out of my mind watching TV", so it's kind of a therapy of sorts. Sure, the mind wanders sometimes, but you do have to know when you can let it wander and when you have to really lock-in.

Leave it to a Canadian to try to find the most polite way of getting out of this.

The game itself, yes, intricate. Seeing everything you need to see in real time, yes, takes experience (I'm still not very good at seeing double-hits on a set, for instance). But the actual rules of the game? Pretty straight-forward.

Not as much as baseball, but that's just me. I do enjoy it, though. It has a couple of advantages. There are never any rainouts/weather like baseball or football, and there's not the constant running of basketball. Unlike most other sports, you can call a "do over" if you screw it up. There's also less of a tolerance of sportsmanship BS - I've heard a curse word one time total in the last 7 years I've been doing this

I've been working volleyball for about 3 weeks now. The issue is that there's really not all the edge cases to discuss with volleyball like there is with baseball. The biggest thing you might have is a video of "would you call this a lift?" and at what levels (if you were to call a middle school match as tight as you do a college match, there would be a lift on about every volley). Incidentally, I heard the best quote from a coach in years yesterday. The other team's setter dumped the ball into an open area and nobody even moved toward it. Coach: "Girls! You can't be surprised when volleyball happens!"

NCAA changed last week so it's the same as OBR Rule 2-37 Foul Tip A batted ball that goes sharp and direct from the bat to the catcher and is legally caught. It is not a foul tip unless it is caught and any foul tip that is caught is a strike, and the ball is in play.

Not quite as bad, but happened to me earlier this summer with Legion ball. The first text I get from him is "I see we're working together, can we wear navy?" (maybe not an exact quote, but essentially) While this isn't in-an-of itself a deal-breaker, it did put my skepticism on high-alert. My next text from him a couple of days later. "Question from a game I had last night. Guy is stealing second and the batter foul tips it straight to the catcher, and he catches it. Does the runner need to go back to first?" Sure enough, I show up to the game, where we'd arranged I have the first plate, and he's wearing a ball bag in the field. I'll give him credit over your "partners", though. He was there for the whole game (actually 2 - it was a doubleheader), and even got most of his calls pretty good, despite not being in the best place to see them.

I think $10 is what Tony charged me to get it powdercoated to match my mask (maybe that was because I had my mask done at the same time?)