Thomas Mullaney

I started umpiring in July 2016 when I had just turned 20. I worked a lot of D2 baseball that summer, during the season I busted my butt and worked my up to being a consistent JV umpire. The following summer I got bumped up to Legion, and worked that all summer with a couple Legion 3A games even. This season I’ve made the jump to being a consistent Varsity umpire and even working in to a few 3-man games on our 5 and 6A schools (Oregon’s classification system, 5A and 6A at the top 2 and 3 at the bottom). Im incredibly excited to be given these games at this point in my career. I so look forward to mastering the 3-man system and working hard towards it. I just had my first 5A Varsity 3-man game last night, and have a few more on my schedule already. Just wanted to share that!

I'm curious what regulations and stipulations you all have in your respective associations about what you can and cannot wear, what is recommend and so forth. As a side note, if you have a specific piece of your uniform that you absolutely swear by, e.g. Oh man, my New Balance Mid base shoes are the absolute best. I'll never buy another different pair of base shoes again. Let me know!

I certainly wouldn't say that I "openly berate" myself. But I'll absolutely walk over to the coach and let them know that I kicked it. "Hey coach, I got a little eager and jumped that call. My bad. "Blue, where'd that miss?" - catcher "Great pitch, I missed the call." Everytime I've ever had that conversation, the coach has told me that they gain respect for me by my owning up to the missed call and apologizing. Now, mind you this is no spectacle. It's a super brief couple sentence exhange between innings.

"Coach, what are we doing? Let's play ball" if no reply "Coach, we need to get moving." if no reply "Coach, this is your warning. If you do not return to your dugout you will be restricted to your dugout." if no reply Restrict him to the dugout.

I had a SS doing that in a u10 tournament I was helping out with. After a walk with the bases clean, as I'm running from A to B I could see him throwing his arms up and loudly questioning how that pitch was also a ball. I told him very sternly that if he wants to continue to play baseball that day that he needed to find a way to get his attitude in check. Didnt hear from him the rest of the game.

I had this exact scenario, but with a swipe tag up the line, between innings the coach came over and talked to me and said that his HC asked if there was a tag, he said no, HC asked why he didn't argue, 1BC said that there was no reasonable way he could expect me in B to see the space between the runner and the tag and arguing only would've made things worse.

Why give a coach ammunition though? (Devils advocate) now a coach can come out and argue that his safe signal caused his fielder to momentarily stop or delay. Even if it's only for a half second. Obviously that isn't the case, but theres just absolutely no reason to signal the missed tag. Verbalize it, sure. But the signal is confusing in the situation.

Love this answer. Remember that you could pose questions all day about little league umpires blowing calls. Though, it does sound like you got the bad end of that call. That all said, they are volunteers, and shouldn't be held to the same standards. Little League is an instructional league for the players, coaches, and umpires. Just to really emphasize it, never coach your kids in to malicious contact. If I see and can deem that a runner intentionally runs over a fielder to make an OBS call more obvious, the conversation shifts to whether or not this runner deserves to be ejected for intentionally malicious contact with a fielder.

Thank you so much! That's an awesome idea. I was talking with my local association's commissioner and recently found out he made it all the way up to AAA and even umpired during Spring Training. I hope to talk a lot more with him about potentially forming some type of mentor-mentee relationship with me. I really appreciate the good advice!

Trust me, you're not wrong. First three weeks of the season were rained out. But the sun is finally starting to shine on Southern Oregon!

At our association the schools pay our commissioner immediately after the game and the commissioner then gives us electronic paychecks every other week through arbiterpay.

Hey folks! I'm an umpire out in Oregon, fairly new to the game. Though in my limited experience (a full Summer league and the current season to this point) I've fallen in love with umpiring and everything about it. I find that I would rather be watching baseball (actually watching the umpires), reading the NFHS rules or practicing mechanics in the mirror. I've already been given the opportunity to work a few varsity games when my commissioner needs someone, which feels good as a young guy. I am just about to turn 21, which I've realized is a lot younger than most start. If all goes according to plan in my life and in my umpiring career, I have some pretty big aspirations. Once I graduate college, I plan on going to one of the accredited pro schools (likely Wendlestedt, but I'll look more in to that in a few years). I figure this path gives me a few years of umpiring at the HS level and some time to develop in to a consistent and solid umpire before putting myself in a position to move up. I'm on this site really just to soak up as much knowledge from others as possible. I figured this would be a good place to be if I ever need advice on anything from brands of gear and attire to discussing calls and situations that come up in a really respectful and helpful environment. Cheers, Thomas