Officially starting my little league umpire journey tomorrow

[Velho]

1 hour ago, orangebird said:

Without attempting to turn this into an economic forum concerning the intricacies of supply and demand, is there a way for a LL to pay the umps more money without just charging the parents more money?

A=B+C is immutable so the money has to come from somewhere. Would have to come from corporate sponsorships or donations beyond playing fees.

The fees you're talking about are around what my area pays LL youth umpires (often for games that don't even need 3rd party umpires imo).

[ousafe]

6 hours ago, orangebird said:

is there a way for a LL to pay the umps more money without just charging the parents more money?

I think our LL district has only one league that pays for umpires, and it's one of their biggest expenses.  All other leagues in the district maintain a volunteer corps of umpires.  Basically the leagues are run as a parent co-op where *everyone* (including umps) is a volunteer.  While not perfect, our umpires are decent, certainly good enough for rec ball. So there is another way...community based.

If you wanna get paid, I'd recommend HS or above.

[orangebird]

2 minutes ago, ousafe said:

I think our LL district has only one league that pays for umpires, and it's one of their biggest expenses.  All other leagues in the district maintain a volunteer corps of umpires.  Basically the leagues are run as a parent co-op where *everyone* (including umps) is a volunteer.  While not perfect, our umpires are decent, certainly good enough for rec ball. So there is another way...community based.

If you wanna get paid, I'd recommend HS or above.

Yeah I'm definitely aware there's (probably) a pretty 1-to-1 correlation between the stakes of the game and pay for the game, I'm fine with starting out in LL for modest pay just to get used to everything and know if I make a legit mistake it's 9-year-olds in their first year of kid pitch and not HSers trying to earn scholarships and win a state title

[MadMax]

9 hours ago, JonnyCat said:

If umpires stopped working games that pay poorly, then the pay is likely to increase. After all, we are supposed to be "independent contractors."

What has to stop, first, are Assigners and "association leads" taking on a contract, securing their assigner fee, and then scrounging to find as few umpires as necessary to fill the game time slots. 

Change has to start from the top, and any sort of introspection into "what the problem is" must start with checking one's reflection first. 

[JonnyCat]

2 hours ago, MadMax said:

What has to stop, first, are Assigners and "association leads" taking on a contract, securing their assigner fee, and then scrounging to find as few umpires as necessary to fill the game time slots. 

Change has to start from the top, and any sort of introspection into "what the problem is" must start with checking one's reflection first. 

I agree. I'm hoping that by umpires not working games, the assigners will be forced to raise rates and change their ways.

But apparently, my hopes continue to be dashed. Seems these assigners still manage to find plenty of stooges to work their games. 

[The Man in Blue]

 

14 hours ago, BLWizzRanger said:

Comic books and rule books, I read.  Thus, I don't know what you are saying.

On 3/6/2025 at 12:26 PM, BLWizzRanger said:

I thought I would share. This is the business card that I lamented and carried with me on the field when I first started. I used it, well held it, for three or four plate conferences. Just reminders. No drawn out script. NFHS.

[Next post]
Sent from my SM-F721U1 using Tapatalk
 

[The Man in Blue]

 

[Velho]

Never seen that before. Well done.

But why do they go the wrong direction? And is that a softball pitchers mask instead of a... Oh, never mind.

 

[orangebird]

Org #1 is scheduling soon, I am both excited to get into doing this and unwilling to miss any of March Madness for it so my availability schedule is basically just Tuesdays, Wednesdays and weekend mornings right now haha

(Monday is when org #2 will be doing training/testing) 

[BLWizzRanger]

@The Man in Blue

Had to be correct, spell check didn't correct me.

[Velho]

@orangebird Since you're new to the vocation, thought I'd share this to help you set expectations on your development process.

Since you're new, I hope you don't know about the 'conga'. [EDIT: meaning you don't know the reference, not that it won't happen to you - because it will. Many of us were drilled that technique until our ears bled]

 

[BigBlue4u]

On 2/4/2025 at 4:08 PM, The Man in Blue said:

As one of my old assignors used to tell us . . . 

"Try to get a few right, even if it is an accident."

And never forget the umpire's prayer:  "If I'm not right, please God make me look right."

[orangebird]

Good news: first game for org #1 scheduled for next Saturday! (depending all the clothes arriving lol)

Annoying news: I now have access to org #2's schedule software so I now must copy my availability calendar to another website lol

[orangebird]

Yeah at a quick glance HorizonWebRef (org 1) is much more usable than Arbiter (org 2) lol and seems to have way more ways to customize my availability (you can block fields if one place is really a haul from your house, etc)

[orangebird]

Alright, on-field training for org #1 is done and I am now a fully certified ump for a little league and have the hat to show for it!

I would've liked the training to include a bit more emphasis on 2-man mechanics, but they split the year one and year two umps from the more experienced ones and had the newer ones just focus on the slot and enunciating their strike calls, which makes sense but could've been more efficient with our time IMO. But regardless, I'm ready for my gear to arrive, and as long as it does before Saturday at noon, I shall officially be an umpire!

[BLWizzRanger]

10 hours ago, orangebird said:

Alright, on-field training for org #1 is done and I am now a fully certified ump for a little league and have the hat to show for it!

I would've liked the training to include a bit more emphasis on 2-man mechanics, but they split the year one and year two umps from the more experienced ones and had the newer ones just focus on the slot and enunciating their strike calls, which makes sense but could've been more efficient with our time IMO. But regardless, I'm ready for my gear to arrive, and as long as it does before Saturday at noon, I shall officially be an umpire!

Ahhhh, your first umpire hat is like a baby's first toy.  You might outgrow it and you will buy many more, but, will always cherish your first one.

 

Congrats! Almost time to make more friends.

[stevis]

Have fun and don't suck!

[orangebird]

Final information session for org #2 is done, the fact that I've already heard all this material once and that the test will be open note/open book quite frankly made me think I didn't really gain that much from going but it also feels like material you can never review too often.

They're not doing the test until two Mondays from now (no idea what'd stop it from being next week) and the on-field training to finish will be three weeks away so I'll be looking at potentially working 3-4 games with org #1 before org #2 gets me in the field. 

Remains pretty interesting to me org #1 was like 60/40 rules vs mechanics with org #2 just focused on the rules and will presumably teach stuff like position A/B/C at on-field training.  

[orangebird]

Reached out to my plate umpire for Saturday and folks you'll be shocked to learn the average 9th-grade boy doesn't come across as a particularly energetic texter lol

[834k3r]

1 hour ago, orangebird said:

Reached out to my plate umpire for Saturday and folks you'll be shocked to learn the average 9th-grade boy doesn't come across as a particularly energetic texter lol

Wait until he shows up wearing navy cargo pants and a navy polo shirt.

[Richvee]

1 hour ago, 834k3r said:

Wait until he shows up wearing navy cargo pants and a navy polo shirt.

With his head in his phone. 

[orangebird]

1 hour ago, Richvee said:

With his head in his phone. 

As long as that screentime is spent on Umpire Bible reviewing two-man responsibilities! 

[BDad]

On 3/7/2025 at 4:05 PM, ousafe said:

I think our LL district has only one league that pays for umpires, and it's one of their biggest expenses.  All other leagues in the district maintain a volunteer corps of umpires.  Basically the leagues are run as a parent co-op where *everyone* (including umps) is a volunteer.  While not perfect, our umpires are decent, certainly good enough for rec ball. So there is another way...community based.

If you wanna get paid, I'd recommend HS or above.

Well, LL is still technically a volunteer organization. It was recently made clear to me no one will advance to Region or WS if they're taking money. Still... my local league budget category is U.M.P. Expense = Unapproved Miscellaneous Payments. 🥸

[ousafe]

3 hours ago, BDad said:

recently made clear to me no one will advance to Region or WS if they're taking money.

...for umpiring LL games. LLI will not ding you if make money umpiring HS, adult league, etc. At least one of our LL guys does college ball.

[Umpy]

Is this official anywhere? I was told when I started out years ago that you can't do Regional or WS if you were ever paid for umpiring Little League games but I've never been able to find any documentation on it, only word of mouth.  A guy involved with the Western Region told me last year that they'd never find any umpires who had never been paid for Little League games.

Purely from curiosity I've been looking for years for anything official, one way or the other.