Hopefully Someone Understands How I'm Feeling...

[NCAAump2]

Has anyone ever just felt that they weren't getting a fair shot to prove themselves as an umpire (like to their assignor/evaluator) and they don't know what to do?

That's kind of the position I feel like I'm in. As far as I know, our assignor doesn't evaluate umpires...just goes off of what other people tell him and coach's ratings of umpires. The last time he saw me work, I believe I was 20. I'm now 25, way more mature, attended a fairly well-known camp, and have worked my ass off all season. But for some reason, he still won't give me any college games (I attended our association college rules meeting this year and last year, and also worked a JUCO Jamboree last fall, which I understood was basically a try-out to work college ball and from the guys evaluating that I talked to, they all told me I did fine and should have no problem getting games.) I worked a predominantly varsity schedule, and still only got one district game. (the #1 team in the STL area against a 5-20 team). I know I'm not supposed to get jealous of other guys getting assignments over me, but it's hard not to when other umpires in the association agree that I should be getting a shot to work the better games.

Don't get me wrong, I love the game of baseball, and love umpiring even more...but I'm almost to the point where I'm thinking..."what's the point anymore? I'm working my ass off and don't get noticed at all." Sorry for the rant, and I hope what I said makes some kind of sense.

[johnnyg08]

Tell your assigner your goals. Ask him what you need to do to improve. Ask him what you need to do to get college games.

Just be upfront and make sure he knows what your goals are.

Keep your head up. See if you can get evaluated from the the state level.

[csabo17]

How about an advanced camp? To be post season eligible we have to attend a camp at least once ever four years.

Edit: just reread your post and saw you attended a camp.

Our assigner gets out and watches games all the time. I think he evaluates everyone st keast once a year sometimes more. He also goes off coaches ratings. Butnit seems to me your assigner should be seeing you a lot more then once in five years.

Also are others talking bad of you if hes just going off them?

[johnnyg08]

In some parts of the country, you have to break through the good ol' boys club which can be frustrating to say the least.

[Welpe]

Johnny hit the nail on the head. It can't hurt to ask him, that right there might be enough to get you on his radar. Don't approach him with "Why am I not working more district games?" Approach him with the idea that you want to improve and try to ascertain what he wants to see out of his umpires working at that level.

I am in your shoes right now when it comes to football and have been struggling to get on a crew to work a regular varsity schedule. I know how frustrating it is to feel you are ready to work better games or a higher level and not feeling like you're getting any chance. I encourage you to be patient and stick with it. At 25, you still have a long umpire career ahead of you.

[Mike Prince]

Also leverage your partner when you get a senior one. They normally have lots of pull with an assignor and accept a number of lower-level games to keep their schedules going. Work hard on the field, accept feedback from your partner and show him that you should work the better games. 9 out of 10 times that guy goes back to the assignor and tells him that he wants to work with you more, either because he sees potential/ability to learn or existing skill.

[Umpire in Chief]

Johnny hit the nail on the head. It can't hurt to ask him, that right there might be enough to get you on his radar. Don't approach him with "Why am I not working more district games?" Approach him with the idea that you want to improve and try to ascertain what he wants to see out of his umpires working at that level.

Excellent suggestion approach it like a problem solving situation and you are being proactive, but want to know what more you can do.

[cuban]

Umpiring is a marathon not a sprint...

It's always better to show up a season late then a season early...

[johnnyg08]

Umpiring is a marathon not a sprint...

It's always better to show up a season late then a season early...

Gosh, isn't that the truth. There are times where I was held back in my advancement which I hated at the time, but it was for the better.

[3rdGENump]

Umpiring is a marathon not a sprint...

It's always better to show up a season late then a season early...

Gosh, isn't that the truth. There are times where I was held back in my advancement which I hated at the time, but it was for the better.

I am currently holding back the urge to advance... I have been asked to travel to Texas to umpire an ASA 18U Gold, National Qualifier. I keep telling myself I should just go, but deep down I know I need more experience before advancing to the national level. I keep telling myself I will be better off in the long run to pass on this opportunity, and gain valuable experience.

[johnnyg08]

Heck there are associations in this country where guys who worked MiLB have to start doing 9th grade games and "work their way up" to High School Varsity baseball.

[Fittske24]

Heck there are associations in this country where guys who worked MiLB have to start doing 9th grade games and "work their way up" to High School Varsity baseball.

And in my opinion this makes absolutely zero sense.... If you have a guy who has the credentials to umpire MiLB he should have no issues with a HS varsity game. Ok I get it, if he is a unknown guy, but even then if you are properly evaluating your umpires during preseason camps/clinics and scrimmages, one should know pretty quickly if a new guy can work. It kills me how these groups use “years of service†as the only determining factor on who gets the varsity games.

To the OP. I would ask your assigner to personally come out and watch you work. If he umpires ask him to schedule a game with you and let you work the dish. If he agrees, work the game like it’s the 7th game of the WS. Once it’s over, seek immediate feedback. Ask him to tailor his comments with needed improvements that will help you get to the next level. If he ignores your request or blows you off, I would look into getting into a different association, because your leadership obviously doesn’t believe in developing, improving and promoting its umpires. There is JUCO Baseball in every state. I would look into surrounding states if needed. Put you together a baseball resume with all your experience including training and tournaments that you have worked. Send it to other JUCO assigners and see what you can get. Never hurts to have options if your current one isn't working.

[Mike Prince]

2 additional tips - request to be evaluated and be available as an emergency fill-in. Our HS assn has a dedicated evaluator and if you request to be eval'd, he will work you into his schedule (otherwise he gets a list of people to go watch). My fisrt year in this ass'n, I requested to be eval'd as soon as the opportunity presented itself and got eval'd on a midseason "showcase" JV game after an early season of mostly low/mid-level JV., did very well, and within a couple of weeks I was getting better games. I also made a point of taking as many "same-day" assignments as I could - this helps your assignor more than you know and while it doesn't give him a good feel for your ability, he knows he can depend on you.

But the onus is on you to express your desires regardless of the mechanism. There's plenty of guys who want to collect their game fees and not work on getting any better - if you don't speak up you are not viewed negatively, but you are viewed as one of the guys who's happy where you are.

[JaxRolo]

I agree with Fittske Post above. I makes no sense. If you have abilities they should be noticed at the preseason clinics and tryouts.

Our association will evaluate you during the preseason work outs. My first year working HS about 1/2 my games were varsity. Most new guys come in and they have to work Middle School and JV with no Varsity for a couple of years. My second year i had about 2/3 of the games Varsity. Maybe not all TOP rated teams but Varsity nonetheless.

Work Hard, make your goals known and keep working hard.

[SanDiegoSteve]

Heck there are associations in this country where guys who worked MiLB have to start doing 9th grade games and "work their way up" to High School Varsity baseball.

Exactly as it was when I came up in baseball. This was how the SDCBUA operated. It is a storied organization with a history of many MLB and MiLB umpires (Doug Harvey, John Kibler, Paul Runge, Ed Runge, Brian Runge, Mike DiMuro and Mike Winters to name a few), and that's how it is. The fact that I was working HS varsity consistently by Year 3 was far ahead of the norm. It usually was 5 years till umpires got a sniff of varsity. College ball after 5 years? They would laugh at you for suggesting it.

[dumbdumb]

Heck there are associations in this country where guys who worked MiLB have to start doing 9th grade games and "work their way up" to High School Varsity baseball.

Exactly as it was when I came up in baseball. This was how the SDCBUA operated. It is a storied organization with a history of many MLB and MiLB umpires (Doug Harvey, John Kibler, Paul Runge, Ed Runge, Brian Runge, Mike DiMuro and Mike Winters to name a few), and that's how it is. The fact that I was working HS varsity consistently by Year 3 was far ahead of the norm. It usually was 5 years till umpires got a sniff of varsity. College ball after 5 years? They would laugh at you for suggesting it.

We are not talking about starting at the bottom and working our way up to MiLB. We are talking about Doug Harvey quitting after 10 years of MLB, coming home and having to start all over at the 9th grade level and take 5 years to get to varsity, because of some fiefdom system to keep you down on the farm. Pitiful.

And yes, I know Harvey plowed fields on a tractor.

[SanDiegoSteve]

Heck there are associations in this country where guys who worked MiLB have to start doing 9th grade games and "work their way up" to High School Varsity baseball.

Exactly as it was when I came up in baseball. This was how the SDCBUA operated. It is a storied organization with a history of many MLB and MiLB umpires (Doug Harvey, John Kibler, Paul Runge, Ed Runge, Brian Runge, Mike DiMuro and Mike Winters to name a few), and that's how it is. The fact that I was working HS varsity consistently by Year 3 was far ahead of the norm. It usually was 5 years till umpires got a sniff of varsity. College ball after 5 years? They would laugh at you for suggesting it.

We are not talking about starting at the bottom and working our way up to MiLB. We are talking about Doug Harvey quitting after 10 years of MLB, coming home and having to start all over at the 9th grade level and take 5 years to get to varsity, because of some fiefdom system to keep you down on the farm. Pitiful.

And yes, I know Harvey plowed fields on a tractor.

I think you are missing the point, so I will try one time to correct that. I didn't say anything about Harvey or other MLB pros coming home and having to start all over again. I said that they were part of the history, and association members. I've worked with DiMuro and Brian Runge. Mike Winters is the rookie instructor. And the discussion was about MiLB, not MLB umpires, in some mythical association that Johnny alluded to, but did not specifically identify. I mentioned no MiLB umpires in my post.

This is who I was talking about: The people who were newbies just starting out had to work their way up, starting with LL Minors and then Majors, and then a little Pony, then some Frosh, then some JV, then some varsity, then all varsity. By year 5 or 6 in the old days. In 86 I started out, and by 88 was doing mostly all varsity, and was told how lucky I was that I didn't start out in the 60s and 70s with this group, one of the oldest and most storied in the country.

[dumbdumb]

Heck there are associations in this country where guys who worked MiLB have to start doing 9th grade games and "work their way up" to High School Varsity baseball.

Exactly as it was when I came up in baseball. This was how the SDCBUA operated. It is a storied organization with a history of many MLB and MiLB umpires (Doug Harvey, John Kibler, Paul Runge, Ed Runge, Brian Runge, Mike DiMuro and Mike Winters to name a few), and that's how it is. The fact that I was working HS varsity consistently by Year 3 was far ahead of the norm. It usually was 5 years till umpires got a sniff of varsity. College ball after 5 years? They would laugh at you for suggesting it.

We are not talking about starting at the bottom and working our way up to MiLB. We are talking about Doug Harvey quitting after 10 years of MLB, coming home and having to start all over at the 9th grade level and take 5 years to get to varsity, because of some fiefdom system to keep you down on the farm. Pitiful.

And yes, I know Harvey plowed fields on a tractor.

I think you are missing the point, so I will try one time to correct that. I didn't say anything about Harvey or other MLB pros coming home and having to start all over again. I said that they were part of the history, and association members. I've worked with DiMuro and Brian Runge. Mike Winters is the rookie instructor. And the discussion was about MiLB, not MLB umpires, in some mythical association that Johnny alluded to, but did not specifically identify. I mentioned no MiLB umpires in my post.

This is who I was talking about: The people who were newbies just starting out had to work their way up, starting with LL Minors and then Majors, and then a little Pony, then some Frosh, then some JV, then some varsity, then all varsity. By year 5 or 6 in the old days. In 86 I started out, and by 88 was doing mostly all varsity, and was told how lucky I was that I didn't start out in the 60s and 70s with this group, one of the oldest and most storied in the country.

I understand exactly your point of starting out from scratch and working your way up.

If you were able to move up on your ability and not linger at lower level just because that's the way it is, you were indeed lucky after basically only 2 years of lower ball, whereas some areas would not care how good you were and would not let you move quicker since they couldn't in the past, no matter what.

Glad you were in a group that recognized your talent whereas there are groups who could care less and you must strictly stay to a time line. If in the old days before you, the SDCBUA stuck to a timeline no matter what, but they started relaxing that policy by your time, then just thank your lucky stars you did not have to serve another 3 years of servitude.

The other thing I wanted to make sure you understood and I am sure you do, is that in some areas, a MiLBU with 5-10 years of experience who is let go, must come home and start at the freshman, JV level and apprentice for a couple years before they can get HS, just like a brand new newbie who has never worked a game in their life from what I have read. That is just pitiful, and that is what I was afraid you might be forgetting. I know you are a good umpire, excuse me very good umpire.

[SanDiegoSteve]

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