Quote:
|
Originally Posted by SanDiegoSteve
If you get paid to umpire baseball games, I believe you have lost your amateur standing, so to speak. You are by the very definition of the word, a "professional." Just because you umpire amateur teams, doesn't make you an amateur. Just like sitting in a garage all day doesn't make you a car.
So, unless these minor league games are being umpired by Little League District volunteer umpires (who are the only true "amateur" umpires), they are being umpired by "professionals," albeit not AMLU members, or even necessarily pro school trained.
|
Exactly the response I expected from you...based on your numerous posts in the past few weeks/months.
As an aside, there are mulitple definitions of "professional". A quick search of an on-line dictionary revealled that one of the definitions does state, as you implied, that one is a professional simply by being paid for services rendered.
The definition that I believe 99% of all umpires I know use however, defines "professional" as, "(e)ngaging in a given activity as a source of livelihood or as a career: a professional writer."
And since I don't know a single amateur umpire who umpires as a career or make their livelihood from umpiring (and since 99% of umpires I know use this definition) I'll reiterate my point: minor league games umpired by amateurs are not "professional" games.
I allow for the possibility that there may be someone out there who makes a career umpiring amateur games...if so they in some sense may be a "professional" under the definition I have put forth as being the one primarily used. If such a person exists, they are the exception rather than the rule.