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Originally posted by His High Holiness
My business approach to baseball is consistently misrepresented and your post above is no exception. On the business side of baseball, I recruited hundreds of umpires over an 8 year period. Perhaps 10 - 15% (and they were all under 20), started umpiring for the money. The other 85 - 90% joined for the love of the game. The had all of the mom and apple pie idealism when they joined that you rightfully point out is so important. The problem is on the back end. Out of 250 umpires, we have about 50 who quit every year. Although money is not the reason that they joined, they might have stayed a few more years had the fees been higher. That would have meant that we could have serviced more leagues rather than turn them away as we do now. We constantly pursue better baseball and sluff off the 12-15 year old programs who end up using parents out of the stands. We would keep those programs, if we had the umpires to service them.
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Peter,
I hadn't intended to misrepresent your "business approach" to umpiring as an assignor and recruiter. I have absolutely no problems with that, especially if it wins more officials to the game and improves conditions in the process. I just can't accept the whole package. The problem I have is that everything seems to be reduced to an issue of money. This is a typical example. You say the problem is the "back end" where your association has a high rate of attrition. You say paying more money would have kept those officials for longer. I say finding out what turns them off and resolving the issues might keep them indefinitely, despite the money. It's a question of approach. Yours is quick and easy and offers a short term solution that keeps disgruntled officials going back on the park for the money and no other reason. Mine says let them go because their attitude does us more harm than good and exacerbates the problem that is abuse and disrespect. The most common taunt we hear when officials do it for the money is "You're not worth what we're paying"! When officials are doing it ONLY for the money, most times the taunt is accurate!
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What I find so amazing about the business discussions that I have regarding umpires on these boards is that we all accept money as a motivating factor regarding other professions. Why should umpiring be any different than medicine, electricians, or teaching? Let us focus on teaching, a profession directed at youth and much more important than umpiring. How many teachers join the profession for the money? Not many. Almost all join because they want to help kids and make a difference. They have all of the right motivations that you point out are so important.
I don't know about Australia, but in America thousands of teachers leave the profession every year to pursue other professions and money is a big reason that they leave. Bureuacracy, politics, and abuse by students also weigh into the equation. (It sounds a lot like baseball umpiring.) Just as the teaching profession loses its best and brightest, so does the umpiring profession, and for some of the same reasons. The purpose of Jim's and my posts are to point out that money is and should be part of the discussion when it comes to getting quality umpires on the field.
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I don't think anyone in their right mind would discount money as a motivating factor in officiating. Many, I'm sure, would discount money as the SOLE motivating factor. I accept the importance of money to keeping good officials. I recently won a 20% pay increase for my officials by proving empirically to the league what it costs an official to walk out on the diamond week in and week out. If I could get them paid twice as much, I would still lose more officials than I can recruit in the current climate.
Your analogy to teaching is an excellent one that I accept as perfectly relevant to this discussion. I even agree with the shared reasons for the high rate of attrition in both occupations. In both cases, paying more money is only a bandaid solution. If bureaucracy, politics and abuse are the shared reasons for officials leaving the game, we need to deal with those root causal factors and not just pay more money to make it worthwhile for existing officials to accept them. One of the most frequent excuses I hear from ex players for NOT becoming an official is "What? And put up with the abuse you guys get? No thanks!" These are the same guys who were doing the abusing a couple of years before! Paying them more money is no more a solution for umpires than it would be for teachers. Eventually the root problems will win out anyway. Deal with the root problems.
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I have never suggested that money is the only motivating factor in recruiting umpires. I will,however, just like the NEA, continue to harp on it as long as the are those idealistic umpires with their heads in the sand that believe that we can ignore the issue. Just as the best teachers gravitate to the localities with the best pay and working conditions, the best umpires will behave in exactly the same manner.
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If you aren't suggesting money is the ONLY motivating factor in recruiting, then we may be closer on this issue than either of us thought possible. Given a choice between 2 otherwise equal evils, most sane people will likely chose the one that pays the best! Agreed.
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And yes, they will even be more appreciative of the coaches and players that they work for. Highly paid workers tend to have a better relationship with their employers than poor paid ones. For the record, I have never had a coach come to the plate conference and want to negotiate obstruction or interference. If they want to play without balks, that is fine with me. That has not happened, however, since I last did a 13 year old game. It has happened in FED games where they wanted to play with OBR balks. Again, for $60 for 2 hours of work in warm sun, they can have what they want. Umpiring is different from teaching in this regard. We are a facilitator of fun and entertainment.
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See, Peter, this is where we always come unstuck. I certainly understand WHY you believe we work for the coaches and players. I just don't think you understand WHY you are wrong about this. We do NOT work for the coaches and players, either directly or ultimately, despite the undisputable fact that their dollars wind up in our pockets. Players and coaches come and go over time. Leagues are much more constant, and the game itself is semi-permanent. We work for the league and baseball, not the players and coaches that make up that league and play baseball.
If a player or coach is the one who hands over my hire, that doesn't give him a right to dictate the way the game is played. He is a participant in the league NOT the owner. We work for the league owner. You do your employer, the league, no good service to change the rules they give you to officiate by in order to please a minority of those with input into the league's aims and objectives. That is NOT an ethical approach to take on this issue. Notice that I did NOT say YOU were unethical, only that this approach is unethical.
Peter, I don't want to end up in a back-and-forth on this issue. You have had your say, and I have had mine. We must surely A2D on this subject. Let the readers judge. I have no doubt some will see this your way. I hope that most will see it mine.
Cheers,