Quote:
Originally posted by GarthB
All this is prelude to a question to any here who agree with my friend and others who balk at the word "professional" or who dislike an emphasis put on professionalsim.
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If you don't mind an outside viewpoint, anybody that gets paid for an activity looks like a professional to me.
Just about anybody that is just umpiring for fun, unfortunately, is probably welcome at the local LL. I know that I cannot be very choosy in finding recruits, and I sometimes personally certify folks without any more training than a 10-minute conversation in a parking lot and handing them a rule book. As for uniforms, my league has been providing hats for the last few years, and we occasionally pick up some blue shirts, but I've got "certified" umpires wearing shorts and sandals on the bases.
If you want to be a Real Umpire(tm) and work Real Baseball(tm), and especially if you expect to be
paid, it certainly isn't unreasonable to meet the expectations of the employers and the association that they deal with.
Again, from the outside, I sometimes think that Real Umpires(tm) are amazingly picky on appearance, and may even put too much stock in it, but umpires that don't want to live up to the local standards have other choices.
-LL