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Rich,
No, I do not believe I am a better umpire than you. On the contrary, I am envious of you and David B who live in an area where judging from your posts baseball seems to be played like it should be. We are probably much alike in the way we would manage a game and if we worked together we would have no problems.
In my area they are almost 200 high schools within 100 miles that I can umpire. The nit-picky stuff most coaches expect to be called is mind boggling. I have to be picky to make the game go smooth, and as a consequence, the game is less fun than it should be. The games go fine because both coaches are on the same wavelength.
And only at a handful of them can I umpire as you would. Luckily I do a number of games at those handful of school which includes Start H.S. in Toledo Ohio,(1994 USA Today National Champions). Their coach understands the way baseball should be played and develops his players to be successful at the next level. Unfortunately I can not do all of their games.
From 1986-1996 I would leave Ohio and travel to Florida for the whole month of March to umpire HS and College Baseball. It was so much fun to be able to umpire and not be so picky. The game flow was tremendous and the talent level was high. Coaches concentrated on coaching their team rather than worrying about me as the umpire.
I pride myself on endeavoring to know the rules inside and out, not just baseball but football, basketball, and softball also. But that doesn't make me a great umpire. My greatest accomplishment is being known by coaches and those who have evaluated me as an umpire who manages the game efficiently and without prejudice. I'll take that compliment over book learnin' anyday.
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