Quote:
Originally posted by Rich Fronheiser
Hi Peter,
Love and kisses as always, my favorite slimeball.
Anyhow, I think you take an unnecessary run at the average LL umpire. Sure, those who umpire nothing but LL for 20 years and think it puts them at the top of the Internet world deserve all the crap you dump on them, but many are not like that at all.
I worked a lot of LL come tournament time last season. It was truly a fun experience and I worked with umpires who have all worked at the NCAA level. Of the six umpires who worked the junior state championship game, only the outfield umpires were not college umpires. This crew could've worked any state HS championship game.
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Rich;
How come those NCAA umpires who worked the state championship game with you aren't selected for the regionals and LL World Series. It's fairly obvious from watching the LLWS on TV that those guys have never seen an NCAA field. What kind of politics is it that eliminates the good umpires and selects the marginal ones to appear on television before a national audience?
It's the system that I take issue with. Requiring volunteers to spend large amounts of money on uniforms and equipment with no financial renumeration is a guaranteed way to produce mediocrity.
You write:
"Sure, many of the regular season LL umpires are less-than-optimally trained. It is hard to find umpires and these kids are willing to learn and be taught by trained umpires. Some of them will make up our umpiring corps of the future."
The are less than optimally trained because there is no money in it. There are few adults or kids willing to participate for free because slimeballs like me have offered them money to do the same thing.
Finally, you write:
"What's the point in blasting an entire organization just because 1 out of 100 LL umpires thinks he can work the CWS?"
I don't know know how many of them think that they can do the CWS, but I do know that most of the them think that they are a lot better than they are. The LL system is insular. It is only when you get outside of it that you realize how bad you are. When you surround yourself with inadequately trained and equiped coworkers, it's easy to see yourself as an umpire god when you have not yet graduated from the apprentice level.
In any event, from reading the extensive comments on this board, (many of the threads were deleted), the views that I wrote are shared by a large number of non LL umpires.
Peter