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Originally Posted by Rich Fronheiser
I just like to hear from Little League umpires, cause I don't understand them even though I work a few dozen games in Little League each season. I'm pretty insulated from the stereotypical LL umpire -- for example, last night I worked a 9-10 state DH with a guy who went to PBUC this year and was offered a job (didn't take it cause of lack of health insurance).
I like working LL, mainly because of the people I umpire with, but I just don't "get it" sometimes. How any significant subset of a group of umpires can, essentially, work one rule set and yet make comments like "maybe I need to read the rule book" amazes me.
And don't get me started on how they expect umpires to work for free and also pick umpires for national tournaments using "umpiring ability" as a minor factor in being chosen....
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While this has been discussed before, I'll jump in.
Little League is fundamentally organized as a service organization that provides baseball and softball leagues for youth. As such, most folks that contribute are expected to be volunteers, and the bulk of the volunteers are probably parents of the children involved. Ideally, the dedication of the volunteers to the experience of the children will offset the sometimes spotty quality of the groundskeeping, coaching, scorekeeping, and even the umpiring. The skills of the volunteers can be very ragged and, unfortunately, sometimes so is their dedication to the kids.
I train the umpires for the local Little League. Most are parents (mostly dads) with a little more spare time, eagerness to help out, our less tolerance to the pain in a twisted arm than the other parents on the team. None have been dreaming all their lives about calling strikes and outs in a ball game. I can usually squeeze about 8 hours before the season starts from their schedule for the training, and I have to start with the assumption that they've never carefully watched a baseball game. At the end of their first season, I suspect that none of them can find their way around the rulebook, though I hope that many have read through it at least once.
I do promote the reading of this web site to the local umpires. I warn them that they may never want to post (and I know that I read it for most of a year before I did), and that much of the information here doesn't transfer simply to our experience, but I've personally learned a bunch about the rules, their application, and the necessary demeanor to be a more successful LL umpire.