Kckumpire

I show up to do 2 high school tournament games a few years back. Meet my partner who is going to do plate for the first one and all is good. We gear up head to the field and after the plate meeting he reaches into his under shirt and pulls out a ear bud, puts it in his ear where you cant tell it is in and says "play ball". Between innings he would tell me the score on the royals game he was listening to and I was thinking WTF? He did this in the field when we switched for the next game. He was one of the top 3 umpires I have ever worked with, his zone was great and he was so smooth with how he called the game.

I think apologies are worthless and actions speak louder than words. Adidas should have known better than to do this and its too late for me to accept their forced and pathetic apology. Now I understand that with a company as large as Adidas they can not be expected to know every detail of what is going on. If the higher ups meet and decide to drop Ball from any tournament they are doing I would be happy and move on with them but anything less than that and I am done with Adidas.

You know who cares about winning an 8U game....the coaches and parents.

Just curious what is the big deal with doing this? If it gives me a better view of the base and helps me do my job better than who cares.

Guess I am a smitty cause I do this. I don't wear a ball bag as the BU but keep a brush in my back pocket if I am umping a game on a field that has loose dirt piled up at the bases. I do it to be able to see the play better and done it for years.

I had a coach pull that last year on me. I am the UIC and he came up demanding the ump be removed before the game even started. I said why and he said this is 12u boys and I dont a girl behind the plate. I looked at the coach and said that's funny because I just evaluated her last week and her zone was great. He said well its me in your tournament or her behind plate who do you choose? I started walking toward the field and spoke in my walkie talkie saying to my GM we have a forfeit (never pushed the button so was tricking him) he runs up and says hey no we don't forfeit. I let him dangle for a few minutes until I say fine but I am telling the ump if you say one word to her its a forfeit. I walk up to the umps and say real quiet look at the coach and give him a dirty look, they do and I walk away. Game gets over and coaches team wins, umps come up and say man that coach did not say one word the entire game that was weird. I talk to coach the next day and he apologizes and says the umps zone was great and he got yelled at by his wife the entire way home for what he did and none of the moms on the team will talk to him lol.

It has been my experience that ground crews are made up of one old grumpy guy and a bunch of 16 year old kids. Fields are what they are and while I think what you are doing is noble there is no way I am buying spray paint and painting bases.

We talk about game management all the time and picking your battles. How is this a battle worth fighting? Game over no one was going after the umpire or attacking him.

If I show up to a game I better get paid. I drove there and was ready to go, if the weather is that bad cancel in time for me to know not to drive there. At my complex if my umps show they get paid if they ump that night or not.

I agree game is over who cares.

My 14 year old daughter started as an ump this year. It was a great feeling but she thinks I am going to hook her up since I am her boss at work lol. She gets treated just like the rest of the umps. She started tball and by the end of this season was doing 10u boys behind the plate, has a good zone too. Had a coach start getting mad at her one game and she stood there and smiled at him, could not have been more proud.

They are both leaving the game and going to the parking lot. They showed up the umpire and I don't care if it was balls or not you don't show up a umpire like that.

This is the biggest problem a lot of TD's face and I understand. They need teams to come play to make money and if they don't kiss their a$$ they get baby coaches who cry and take their teams away. As a UIC I am lucky that my GM backs me and the umpires 100%. If the 3 P's are crossed we toss otherwise we tolerate. Umpires need to unite and start walking off the job as soon as one of our umps are not backed. Hard to have a tournament if you don't have umps

Most of the guys we have are either older guys who do it for a side job or young guys who quit after a year. I have had 2 kids that I have took from wide eyed rookie doing t ball to being a dam good umpires. They have moved up to High School umping and want to get into umping college ball. I could not be more proud of them and at the end of the day it gives me pride to know I gave them the tools to get where they are. This is part of the reason I love my job as a UIC.

I work as the UIC at a complex the has Tball - 14U league and tournaments. Been there 5 years now and love it. I hire, fire, train and schedule all the umpires. - As Madmax said know your rules not just the easy ones cause you will be called for everything under the roof - Work with the young umps to develop them into good umpires. This is one of the best parts of the job and will give you pride knowing you are turning out great umps - Know your crew and what they can do. We don't have the pool we use to so you are going to get umpires that are older and set in their ways. You are going to have to either work with them or not put them in higher games unless you have to - Good way to get rid of bad umps is to just quit scheduling them. They will get it after awhile and you don't have to fire them - Be ready for coaches and parents to find you and complain every night, most the time it will be on plays that ump had right and you will have to explain the rules to the coach who will not want to listen. - Watch your umps work and take notes - Be ready to walk coaches to the gate - Know your league or teams. If you know you got a game with two hot headed coaches sit on the game - Make sure you don't take your umps for granted. Always tell them good job tonight or I appreciate you. They work in a hostile work environment and need you to tell them good job - You don't have to but I give my umps my cell number. We have a long complex and I can't be everywhere so if they have a problem like coach ejected, rule question, fans getting out of control or need more balls I can be there. - Get to know your coaches so they know who you are will come to you with any problems - Always have you umpires backs. I had a game 3 weeks ago that our umpire ejected both coaches and called ball game. This team was the problem team of our league and I had no problem with how he handled it. I go to check on the ump in our umpire parking lot and see the coach over there in his face screaming at him. Our ump was 60+ and a good ump and this coach was 20's. I get in between the two and long story short I push my ump away and me and the coach almost go to blows. The next day the umps were happy and excited that I would go to war for them in that way. Not saying you have to do this but the umps need to know you have their backs It is a great job and you will get what you put into it. You have a lot of responsibilities but when coaches and parents come up and tell you how great your umps did you will feel pride. Most of the time you are watching games but when it hits the fan it really hits the fan.