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While the Internet provides an excellent avenue for umpires to converse about different topics including rules, mechanics, and game management..........there is no replacement for experience.
Learning to umpire is much like learning to play the piano.
That is, if you take 10 piano lessons and don't practice what you've been taught, then you're not going to be any good. When you're not pleased, the answer is not to go take an additional 10 lessons to get better, but rather to better practice that which you have already been taught. Once you develop good habits from the first 10 lessons you've had, then you take more lessons (to learn more) and further refine your skills. What you've learned in first 10 lessons may now seem to be everyday habit, but you're improving and honing all the combined skills.
Don't expect overnight wonders because you've spent 5 days discussing a topic on the net. Don't expect not to make errors. While you have considerable time to make comments and decisions regarding issues on the net, you don't have that luxury on the field.
Yet, as you continue to practice that which you've learned about umpiring it will become routine so you make those decisions reactively. You'll even learn to make some decisions in amateur ball proactively. While the net offers tools of learning that were far more difficult for yesterday's umpire to seek out, there still remains no substitute for experience.
Getting them right on the net is not the same as getting them right on the field. Certainly the net IS a place to practice your learnings, but it's a totally different field from being on the diamond...........
The more you practice, the luckier you get.
Just my opinion,
Freix
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