Umpire Numbers -- curious about other areas

[aaluck]

-- Down 16 from last year.  Think we had about 50-60 guys

-- We have had to cancel six of our contracts (due to decreasing numbers) and those six are having a very hard time finding someone to do their games.

-- We are also letting coaches know that all varsity non-area games are subject to one umpire if only one is available--giving them the choice to cancel the game otherwise.

-- Most JV games will only have one umpire

-- All middle school games will have one umpire

Are any other organizations having similar problems? 

[umpstu]

I'm from the Coachella Valley in SoCal and at one point a few years ago we had around 35-40 members.  We currently have 20 on the roster, but realistically only 15 who are actually available.  It has been near impossible to attract new, younger umpires.  A few weeks ago I was bumped over and over in a game to include spitting sunflower seeds in my face.  Ran coach and parents are calling me a F**king piece of Sh**.  It was a 12U game.  Those kids won't forget seeing that.  And that type of crap is why we can't get new umpires and retain them.  Plus the expense of starting out in umpiring. CIF southern section is having their pre season meeting and hopefully recruiting will be discussed.  It is now my 27th year as an umpire and that was the first time I have been purposely bumped.  I would leave the profession but who will step up to umpire?

[cjroman]

We gained 9 more bodies for our first meeting last week than what we finished with last fall. However, our numbers are half of what they were 10 years ago and we barely have enough to cover all that is asked of us. It's very hard to recruit younger umpires and I'm trying to appeal to the 40-50 year old set (like me) who possibly have high schoolers and might have a little more time. 

[umpstu]

21 minutes ago, cjroman said:

We gained 9 more bodies for our first meeting last week than what we finished with last fall. However, our numbers are half of what they were 10 years ago and we barely have enough to cover all that is asked of us. It's very hard to recruit younger umpires and I'm trying to appeal to the 40-50 year old set (like me) who possibly have high schoolers and might have a little more time. 

It seems like the new umpires we do get are in the 65-75 year age range.

[Mudisfun]

When I started in my HS association in Orange County, we were in the 230-250 strong number... We are down to the 150ish number now, but we also cover 80+ High Schools in Orange County. Coming back last season, we had some serious number draw down with a good number of guys deciding not to come out due to Covid. Come this year and many of those folks we hoped would come back, they either have moved on and no longer officiate, or they came back and found that after 1.5 years, their 70 year old legs are not taking the punishment and bouncing back... so they left.

All Varsity in my area is typically 2 man, with some of the private schools paying for 3.

Many of the private programs will pay for 2 on a JV game, but for everyone else, 1 man for JV and below. We do not officiate below HS in this association.

Almost daily our assignor is begging guys to open up their availability. He has been begging schools to move games or there will be no officials and the games may need to be cancelled. Just today he said a bunch of schools finally realized their seasons start in a little over a week and threw several hundred changes at him, many of which caused declines as the games moved to already blocked time slots.

The typical well for HS Umpires of recruiting LL umpires is coming up pretty dry lately. We are struggling to get volunteer new umpires at that level. When you consider MANY umpires started officiating because their kids needed someone or there would be no games, this is a bad sign of things to come.

Now add on bad coach, player and fan behavior and you may see even a bigger exodus.

 

[umpstu]

21 minutes ago, Mudisfun said:

When I started in my HS association in Orange County, we were in the 230-250 strong number... We are down to the 150ish number now, but we also cover 80+ High Schools in Orange County. Coming back last season, we had some serious number draw down with a good number of guys deciding not to come out due to Covid. Come this year and many of those folks we hoped would come back, they either have moved on and no longer officiate, or they came back and found that after 1.5 years, their 70 year old legs are not taking the punishment and bouncing back... so they left.

All Varsity in my area is typically 2 man, with some of the private schools paying for 3.

Many of the private programs will pay for 2 on a JV game, but for everyone else, 1 man for JV and below. We do not officiate below HS in this association.

Almost daily our assignor is begging guys to open up their availability. He has been begging schools to move games or there will be no officials and the games may need to be cancelled. Just today he said a bunch of schools finally realized their seasons start in a little over a week and threw several hundred changes at him, many of which caused declines as the games moved to already blocked time slots.

The typical well for HS Umpires of recruiting LL umpires is coming up pretty dry lately. We are struggling to get volunteer new umpires at that level. When you consider MANY umpires started officiating because their kids needed someone or there would be no games, this is a bad sign of things to come.

Now add on bad coach, player and fan behavior and you may see even a bigger exodus.

 

And you have Gary G. as an assigner, who knows what he is doing and how to deal with people.  Have known him for many years and he's a very fair assigner to work with.  Can't imagine the mess he is working with due to lack of officials. Especially with the quality of ball in the Orange County area,some of the best in the world on the high school level.

We only have 15 schools,but have less than 20 umpires to work those games covering a 150 mile stretch.  But it is so great to be back working ball. 

[GreyhoundAggie]

We are down to about 130ish guys. We had 200 about 6 years ago. They said we lost 25-30 guys from last year alone. Umpires are getting older and its difficult to get younger guys in. avg age in our chapter has to be around 60.

They said we need about 120 guys any given day just to cover the Varsity games, so we end up doing games M, T, W, Friday, and Saturdays to cover everything.

It's a snowball rolling downhill and I don't know how it stops or gets better.

[aaluck]

Interesting comments so far... and what I expected to hear.

Our most recent downfall in numbers started in March 2020.  I remember the last games played in 2020 were march 15, when everything got shut down.  Like expressed above we had a bunch of guys realize they had other stuff to do and didn't miss being on the field and didn't return in 2021.

1 hour ago, GreyhoundAggie said:

its difficult to get younger guys

This is the problem we are having. Last year we had three young/new guys. One of them, out of necessity due to not enough umps for that day, had to do a game alone--we normally keep young guys with older/experienced umps.  He never did another game. From that point forward that school got an ump we refer to as 'the ejector'--the coach didn't make it through another game, most games we was dumped by the second inning. However, making his life miserable didn't bring that kid back.

What these parents and coaches don't seem to understand is, games cannot be played without umps. Umps do not want to spend their evenings being yelled at.

I also do football and we are seeing the same problems. We are requiring schools to rotate varsity games between Thursday/Friday just to have enough officials on a particular day.

[Mudisfun]

One huge detractor in Orange County, and I would bet most areas is that most of our baseball fields at the schools are unlit. This means games, especially pre-daylight saving time are scheduled to start at 3pm, but even after the time change, they start at 3:15 or maybe 3:30... That just makes it hard to get officials there considering baseball wants the official on site no later than 30 minutes pre-game just to check in. So for a 3pm game with a 20 - 30 minute drive, I'm forced to leave work at 1:45 just to be on site in time to find my partner, go check in, change clothes, pre-game and then schlep across 1/2 the school (again) to get to the game. If the schools had lights, or would contract with their cities to use lit fields at the parks, they could then have start times at 6pm, thus potentially opening the gate to many more officials to participate since they would be off work and available. But until the shortage of officials really hits home to their programs in the case of multiple cancelled games, I doubt this idea will gain much traction.

Sadly, for most, baseball by and large is a loss financially to the schools. There typically are no gate fees and many times not even a snack shack for the boosters to try and raise funds. Compare that to Football or Basketball where just to get in the door you're shelling out $10 a person. So to accomplish my thought above would potentially either force the teams to do some serious fund raising, or force the schools and districts to shell out scarce funds just to have lit fields available. 

Bottom line, it is going to get worse before it gets better.

 

[SH0102]

So I have tried typing a response 2-3 times and then end up deleting it, I’m gonna give it another go.

Part of the problem is us, and by us, I mean established umpires who are in it for the long haul.

How much are you, and I don’t mean literally the “you” who is reading this, but just picture everyone you know in general, doing to bring young blood into the brotherhood?  I have tried and done some but not enough.

If we rely on non-umpires to join the craft by other non-umpires, we will always fall further behind.

My son just turned 15, he’s been umpiring for 2 years, been to 2 college camps and another in a few weeks. He has already umpired D1 and D2 college teams on bases during fall ball games and D3 college on the plate. He’s never batted against above 75 as a player but he has umpires 85-90 and done great.

I am fortunate to be involved with an association of college umpires who welcome him with open arms and train him (at 13 he only worked with me mostly, last summer at 14 he almost exclusively worked with others) and give him opportunities.  But how many would?

without using names of people or camps, at his first college camp, several veteran umpires were less than pleased he was there. I heard “why is a kid here” and “he took someone else’s spot”.  Most people on this site are passionate about umpiring so probably don’t fit that mold, but several umpires, even in college ranks, do not welcome umpires who are young, less experienced, less talented.

At my sons summer game this year, a kid was working solo, and he was bad; I mean bad. He wore shorts and t shirt, no shin guards , only a mask, jumped away from every pitch bc he was afraid of being hit, called strikes the catchers were jumping to try and block, it was bad.  Between games of the DH, I asked him if I could do bases for him, work with him, and not take a dime of his money. Between innings I gave him advice, at end of game I gave him my number and said at the end of this season I was buying new gear so he was welcome to have my old stuff (not great shape but free). I never heard from him, he may have hated me, but I was trying to help. Bc as bad as he was, he won’t last long by getting butchered by fans and coaches.

The head of my association and another very respected college umpire we’re doing games at a HS field, and in between games, watched the umpires at youth fields. At a 12u game, working solo, was some guy “with terrible mechanics and timing” but when a kid hit a double, he was at 2nd for the close play and had watched batter touch first.  They recruited him to join us, train with us, and a few years later he is going to go to pro school. Pretty awesome.

Do we as a group do enough? Probably not, I know I don’t.  I focus so much on myself and my son that I haven’t done enough for others, that’s actually a goal of mine this next year is to help bring a couple more guys up and help them.

if all else fails, the money would bring kids. My 14 year old made $4000 cash last summer and fall, and paid for all his equipment and clothes, so came out with about $3000, that’s about a million to us.

ive heard mention of the start up cost…if you have someone you trust and will mentor, what if you bought his stuff for him and worked games with him/her and took half their game fee until it was paid back ? They still walk away with 25-30 cash each game, and 15-20 games later, it’s all theirs. That’s what I did with my son, though admittedly it’s easier bc he can’t disappear on me and not pay me back  but it’s a thought. Or donate old gear as you buy new stuff.

guess my point is we can all do a lot more than just wait for new people to join our classes and try to bring them along

[aaluck]

1 hour ago, SH0102 said:

guess my point is we can all do a lot more than just wait for new people to join our classes and try to bring them along

This is a great point as well. I like you have done some but probably not enough. We do put all unused gear in a box and give it away to new guys each year.

I will also speak with the players about umpiring after they finish their baseball 'careers' in high school. I do the same with coaches to encourage their players to stay involved in baseball by umping.

However, I will say that most of these younger guys have no interest.  Like you, my son has been umping with me since he was 13 (now 22). Like your son he does HS, college and just graduated from the Wendelstedt Umpire School on Wednesday--didn't make it to the advanced school.  But getting any of his teammates from HS to try it is impossible.  We have both invited them every time we see someone.

I will also say, if we are honest, that the money has a lot to do with folks joining. We do okay here in Alabama at $80 for a varsity game. But if that was say $100 I think we would see more interest as well.  Look at it this way. We get $110 for a varsity football game that takes, at most, about 2.5 hours and $80 for a dual wrestling meet which almost always takes way less than 1.5 hours. Heck, some of these HS baseball games can take 2 plus hours--last year I cannot remember any games going under 2 hours. 

[SH0102]

2 minutes ago, aaluck said:

This is a great point as well. I like you have done some but probably not enough. We do put all unused gear in a box and give it away to new guys each year.

I will also speak with the players about umpiring after they finish their baseball 'careers' in high school. I do the same with coaches to encourage their players to stay involved in baseball by umping.

However, I will say that most of these younger guys have no interest.  Like you, my son has been umping with me since he was 13 (now 22). Like your son he does HS, college and just graduated from the Wendelstedt Umpire School on Wednesday--didn't make it to the advanced school.  But getting any of his teammates from HS to try it is impossible.  We have both invited them every time we see someone.

I will also say, if we are honest, that the money has a lot to do with folks joining. We do okay here in Alabama at $80 for a varsity game. But if that was say $100 I think we would see more interest as well.  Look at it this way. We get $110 for a varsity football game that takes about 2.5 hours and $80 for a dual wrestling meet which almost always takes way less than 1.5 hours. Heck, some of these HS games can take 2 plus hours--last year I cannot remember any games going under 2 hours. 

I should mention that scholastic umpiring is not where the money is…my son is looking forward to do long HS games in near future but he will be making $45-50 for a freshman or JV game solo, where in summer he works four games a day, two-man, for $50 cash each.

His first summer tournament, he did 8 games in two days and made $400 cash, and went and bought a brand new bike with cash, pretty cool.  I would definitely start with youth games to get them started with money.  Even football and basketball youth, you can crank out 7-8 games that are 45 mins each for 20-25 a pop. I do youth wrestling and make 30/hr but they still pay the un-certified refs 25/hr plus free food and drink all day.

it can be done 

[aaluck]

1 hour ago, SH0102 said:

I should mention that scholastic umpiring is not where the money is…

I agree completely and that was my point.  Until they make it competitive (pay wise) folks will do the ball (sports) that pays the most.

We have the same here, PG. $60.00 a game/5-6 a day, 7 days a week all summer into fall. I'd die behind the plate by day two!!! 😇

[LRZ]

I retired from umpiring several years ago. I still have all my gear, I can't give it away, despite offering it to several teens I thought/hoped would be interested. One kid said he made more money, with less hassle, delivering pizza.

The dearth of officials is not a problem to be solved by the benevolent acts of individuals, as the issues are both objective (3:30 starts for school games, unlit fields, an aging population of certified officials, inadequate fees) and societal (abuse, assaults). If we are, collectively, part of the problem, it is an extremely small part. IMO, of course.

[umpstu]

1 hour ago, SH0102 said:

I should mention that scholastic umpiring is not where the money is…my son is looking forward to do long HS games in near future but he will be making $45-50 for a freshman or JV game solo, where in summer he works four games a day, two-man, for $50 cash each.

His first summer tournament, he did 8 games in two days and made $400 cash, and went and bought a brand new bike with cash, pretty cool.  I would definitely start with youth games to get them started with money.  Even football and basketball youth, you can crank out 7-8 games that are 45 mins each for 20-25 a pop. I do youth wrestling and make 30/hr but they still pay the un-certified refs 25/hr plus free food and drink all day.

it can be done 

I umpired some Khoury League games when I was a freshman in high school.  I'm 63 now. Pay back then was $2 agame. I did 11 games.  

 

[SH0102]

56 minutes ago, LRZ said:

I retired from umpiring several years ago. I still have all my gear, I can't give it away, despite offering it to several teens I thought/hoped would be interested. One kid said he made more money, with less hassle, delivering pizza.

The dearth of officials is not a problem to be solved by the benevolent acts of individuals, as the issues are both objective (3:30 starts for school games, unlit fields, an aging population of certified officials, inadequate fees) and societal (abuse, assaults). If we are, collectively, part of the problem, it is an extremely small part. IMO, of course.

LRZ, I’m not disagreeing, but my main point is that we can not expect people who are not umpires to bring in people who are not umpires.

If we only bring in the people who voluntarily join, problem can’t be solved. We are not the universal problem but we are the greatest asset in terms of what we can control.

As for pay, it isn’t better in college.  I did a D3 fall DH, was there 7 hours, made $225. I love it, money is a bonus , doesn’t bother me, I left happy.  My friend who is asst AD at school I umpired told me the field hockey official who worked the game from noon (when I started) until 1:15pm and then went home also made $225.

7 hours vs 1:15 for same pay. Neither sport is a $ sport (like football and basketball) so not sure why pay discrepancy 

[Mudisfun]

Being still heavily involved at the youth level as a league UIC, I see this quite often. We have a training this weekend where we may see 100 volunteers come out, mainly because if they don't, their kids wont play. How many of these folks, even those who have officiated for several seasons will continue after their kid ages out of the league? Not many, and yes, we do try and get them to continue on, and not specifically high school, but any level. 

The responses for no:

* Lack of time (especially for HS games)

* Low pay - this not only is on the assignors/leagues, but on us. If we do not demand better pay, why would they offer it?

* Lack of decorum by participants and fans.
                 - Not only being yelled at or harassed locally, but also electronically. I posted a while back being on the front page of Umpire Hate on Instagram... Thankfully I                          didn't really care all that much, but a new guy? And God forbid they read the comments? (Note to all... never read the comments!) 

* Little to no backing by the leaders of the league or associations against bad actors. Leagues such as this breed bad behavior and kill new officials staying with the game.

* Other umpires... how many times have  you heard of a partner who just tries to big game their partner instead of providing good critical feedback. Instead of helping, they just unload on the new guy. Really a great way to motivate someone with little experience, especially if they do not have a good mentoring support structure already in place. This is a big pet peeve of mine. If uou have nothing of value to offer, then just tell the other umpire you have nothing for them, get in your car and move on.

 

So to your point, yes, we can do better trying to recruit. But this is a multi-faceted problem requiring addressing many of the problems we all complain about to make the officiating landscape better.

 

[SH0102]

Mud, back in my original post, I said that most if not all of us on this site are passionate about umpiring. If all we cared about was a side gig and some slush money, we wouldn’t bother doing extra stuff like discussing rules, situations, ejections, etc.

I think everyone on here could talk about at least something they are doing or trying.

And idk; the pay has never been an issue for me…I told my son, you’re getting 50-60 bucks cash for 2 hours work (equal to about $30-40/hr if taxes were being taken out), so you better work like you’re being paid well because you are.

Even college, it’s a grumble about getting $225 for a DH, for 6 hours of actual work (plus drive time and between games I know), but my actual on field work I’m getting over $35/hr for doing something I love.

I think the biggest requirement is a passion for the game, and we see in the ratings of mlb that is waning. We really need to hone in on the kids currently playing, get them doing some games and making some money while they are playing so whenever they are done (cut in HS, after HS, after college) they are more likely to stick with it.  My kid makes more in 2 hours doing a game on a fall weeknight from 6-8pm than his buddies do in 6 hours at Wendy’s (well, before covid raised their rates to 15/hr at fast food so now it’s about 5 hours after taxes), and doesn’t have to wait two weeks for his money

[StatsUmp]

On 2/3/2022 at 3:56 PM, aaluck said:

-- Down 16 from last year.  Think we had about 50-60 guys

-- We have had to cancel six of our contracts (due to decreasing numbers) and those six are having a very hard time finding someone to do their games.

-- We are also letting coaches know that all varsity non-area games are subject to one umpire if only one is available--giving them the choice to cancel the game otherwise.

-- Most JV games will only have one umpire

-- All middle school games will have one umpire

Are any other organizations having similar problems? 

 

I've seen a similar crunch for officials here across multiple sports. During the ongoing basketball season, officials are being stretched to their limits because numbers are fewer and assignors are dealing with last second changes and officials either no-showing or getting sick.

Back on topic for baseball, I heard that my assignor only had two baseball umpires for every five softball umpires this past season. Those of us doing baseball (or both sports) were stretched to our limits purely out of necessity. On one particular day where my game was rained out, the assignor told the home AD not to reschedule for the next day because there were no baseball umpires available. Similarly, he implored his CYO ADs to be sure umpires were being treated right because nobody wants to do baseball any more. Also, middle school baseball games that might get two umpires when available pre-COVID were all downgraded to solo assignments. It won't surprise me if this happens more often in freshman or JV games moving forward.

The biggest issue here with attracting new umpires is the 4:00/4:30 start times. For those that work a traditional 9-5 job, it simply isn't doable. This is in addition to the other previously-mentioned issues such as poor behavior. In the time I've attended association meetings for baseball and softball, I think I'm the only new softball umpire and just one of two or three new baseball umpires - a rate that's well below what we're losing through attrition. I know my state is trying to make a push to get as many new people as possible into officiating, but spring sports with early start times make it difficult to recruit new, younger individuals.

Another issue is that one of the leagues in this area has no time limits for freshman and JV games. A number of umpires I've worked with cite this as a reason they either dislike doing baseball or simply stopped umpiring it in favor of softball, another spring sport, or no spring sport.

With so many issues and dynamics at play, I'm not sure there's a simple or easy solution.

[Thatsnotyou]

All valid points above. Many issues at play. But if you were to try to fix one thing and have it make the largest impact, it’s $ per game. I realize it varies around the country, but $60-65 for a HS game, while it sounds great for a 2 hour game, isn’t that much. Your total time away from home (family) and work is over 3 hours, sometimes even closer to 4. Your hourly is closer to 15-20. In some areas, in cold or hot weather on top of it. Most of us here do this because we genuinely enjoy it - but I don’t think there is, or will ever be, a large enough pool of guys out there that will do it for that reason. You have to attract some guys that will just simply do it as a side gig, even if they don’t love it. Furthermore, the powers that be use the “enjoy it” reasoning to figure out the minimum they can pay to get guys on the field. Most of us don’t do this for the money, but we should still be compensated fairly for our time - and not just the game time. 
 

If guys were making, say, 90-100 per game, you’d definitely get a few more people feeling that it was worth it. With any job, one of the biggest ways to attract new applicants is to throw more money at it. Start there and then work to solve the other issues. 

[Colinh]

On 2/4/2022 at 11:57 AM, SH0102 said:

My son just turned 15, he’s been umpiring for 2 years, been to 2 college camps and another in a few weeks. He has already umpired D1 and D2 college teams on bases during fall ball games and D3 college on the plate. He’s never batted against above 75 as a player but he has umpires 85-90 and done great.

Hold it, Hold it, College at 15, holy crap. 

[SH0102]

2 hours ago, Colinh said:

Hold it, Hold it, College at 15, holy crap. 

Not official regular season games of course, but fall games yes.

and he was 14  

[dumbdumb]

so how did they do all those games back in the day that started at 3-4pm?

bet they have a lot of 3rd shift guys work who did not have to be at work till 11pm

bet they had a lot of supervisors who would change off with each other to cover leaving 1/2 hour to an hour early from 1st shift.

bet a lot of 2nd shift worked on their days off if their off days were during the week.

and if a coach got out of line, they sent the terminator crew the next game.

kids see how their coaches are allowed to treat umpires, especially the td's, with that keep em in the game due to the fee crap.

why would you want to umpire after watching the parents deportment that they are allowed to get away with, from LL, travel ball, etc.

at least in some areas HS has protections due to possible job loss for those who teach and coach and are just not an outside coach that ,

has a good job anyway.

and in areas that coaches do not rule and are not allowed to blackball the officials who restrict them. why would i want to be a good young

umpire and lose all my games or have to make a choice. do i restrict and lose all my games or do i not restrict and let them walk up one side

of me and down the other.

and not that system of rug rat ball not moving up for years and years like in some areas and then finding out a lot of guys moved up in a year or 2 in the old days. that 10,000 hours to be a master at your job at work applied to each level of ball, rug rat, middle school, jv,  and finally to varsity after 15 years just ain't going to cut it. like i said, when they find out some moved up in a year or two. heck you could be a CEO before a varsity official.

and only those who can call their own shots every day of their life (own their company, job where they are a superstar and company cannot live without them and can get lots of time off or just do their work any 40 hours of the week or only work 20 hours as long as they can get their 40 hours work done early) can make the commitment any more. everyone is on the job 24/7 now days.

and i deleted my previous financial situation words.

 

 

 

[johnnyg08]

On 2/4/2022 at 8:58 AM, GreyhoundAggie said:

We are down to about 130ish guys. We had 200 about 6 years ago. They said we lost 25-30 guys from last year alone. Umpires are getting older and its difficult to get younger guys in. avg age in our chapter has to be around 60.

They said we need about 120 guys any given day just to cover the Varsity games, so we end up doing games M, T, W, Friday, and Saturdays to cover everything.

It's a snowball rolling downhill and I don't know how it stops or gets better.

Think about that...if your average age is 60. Tough times ahead. 

[JonnyCat]

Late to the topic, but here goes.

While there are many reasons why recruitment and retention is difficult, the two most glaring are:

The pay is dismal, and the working conditions often suck. Until those two things are addressed, it's still going to be downhill for a long time. Bottom line, it's often a SH*#ty minimum wage job that takes years of practice to even become competent at. And what do you get for all the time and effort you put in to get better? The working conditions may get better (you'll catch less grief, but it will still be there), but the pay doesn't. Still a SH*#ty minimum wage job even with years of experience. It's hard to attract new people to this line of work. Not a whole lot of incentives.

Sure, it's a great paying job for a kid, but then what? As they get older, are they going to want to stick with it? Chances are no, and how reliable are kids anyway? Not from a competency standpoint, but rather does their school and extra-curricular schedule allow them to do many games? How do the non-drivers get to games? Not a pool you can reliably count on to work games.

Similar to Mudisfun mentioning, most of our fields in SD County don't have lights, either. Games start on or around 3:30pm. So who is your available pool of employees now? Most people work until 5pm. What are you left with? Retirees, self-employed (like myself), people with part time jobs maybe, people with no jobs? Your pool of employees just keeps shrinking. Who's left, and who wants to do this job? I lose money every time I leave work early to do a paid game. I do it because I enjoy the craft. But not everyone is demented as me! There's just not a whole lot of people willing to do this type of job. Period.

A job paying $20-$25.00 per hour with benefits and a chance for advancement and better working conditions is a much better deal for the vast majority. And you're not burning all your weekends working marathon games. Those types of jobs are readily available in my area. Even if your entry level wage is lower to start, moving up to better pay often doesn't take that long. And with many employers, your pay ceiling can be much higher. Umpiring for the vast majority is just not a career job, nor will it ever be. We have to start facing that reality.

In the end, we are all to blame for working these games for poverty wages. Stop working games and demand higher pay and better working conditions. Until we take a stand, nothings going to change. We're just going to be swimming in circles for a long time.

JMHO