Carl has a good point. It is worth contemplating his idea when you are NOT on the field.
Over the years, I have seen many umpires hurt their promotion chances by working too much. In my area we have about an 8 month playing season. Some umpires here work 250 games a year. Invariably, tiring leads to problems and their careers suffer.
Decide before the season starts, how much you will umpire. Take aggressive steps with your assignor to avoid going over your maximum.
For example, I know that at my age, I have only three good plate games in me a week. Adding in three base games, my maximum number of games per week is 6. (That is a maximum for 1 week. I cannot do that week in and week out!) I do most of my umpiring over a five month span. Last year I only worked 80 games and 70 of them were from March - July time frame. That works out to fourteen games per month or an average 3-4 per week. If you lose a week of games due to weather, do not let your assignor talk you into to extra games the following week. I probably would have worked over 100 games if weather had not intervened last year. For me, that is about the maximum that I can work and give a good accounting of myself.
Obviously, most younger umpires could work more. However, young people are not a tough as they think, I have seen the effects of fatigue degrade minor league umpire's games. They are all in their 20's, early 30's, yet it is clearly obvious that their calls are not as good in the 7th - 9th innings of a three day weekend as they are in innings 1-6. (These young people are delusional. Almost all of these umpires would insist that I am wrong. Yet the videotape and independent observers say I am right.)
Bottom line, if these professional umpires, who go through a rigid selection process based in large part on their physical condition, suffer from fatigue and degraded performance, what are the odds that an overweight man in his 40s or 50s is not suffering form the same problem in spades?
Of course, on the field, you are perfect. When Joseph Stalin was in his last days and suffering from liver disease (probably due to too much drinking), his doctors informed him of his prognosis which was not good. Stalin sent the doctors to the Gulag. Stalin died shortly thereafter but the doctors predeceased him in the Gulag.
Peter
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