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Originally Posted by LilLeaguer
Little League has mandatory playing requirements and strongly encourages an accommodation for all players that want to play (including keeping it affordable). It can never be the most competitive league, and children may well find a better baseball experience in other leagues. What they'll find in Little League, hopefully, is an environment where every adult they come into contact with is motivated by making the experience the best for them. Rather than, say, being primarily motivated by money and ego.
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I realize each local LL probably has it's own character. LL in my town was did not exist until two years ago. Some parents felt that their kids were not getting enough playing time and broke away from PONY. These were the same parents who broke away from Babe Ruth to set up PONY years earlier. Not surprisingly, this year, complaining that their kids were not getting enough playing time, some of the same founding parents broke away again and started another new league, this one affiliated with NABF. Just a bit of ego involved in every step.
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...but I doubt if the quality of umpiring is ever the reason somebody chooses a different league.
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PONY, still by far the largest youth baseball leauge in town, lists as their number two asset in their flyers and bill boards, "real umpires." I've talked to a number of parents who give that as one of the reasons they have either stayed with, or switched to PONY.
I stopped off and watched a LL game a while back after working a HS game. The umpire was dressed in jeans and a blue shirt, a backwards Mariner cap, shinguards on the outside of his pants, a catcher's mask and no ball bag. On every pitch he flinched by taking two full steps backwards, and at times looking away while call "strike" or "ball". He called a B/R out for a running lane violation on a clean hit to LF and no play made at first. He parked his butt behind home and made all calls and all bases from there.
After the game, we talked a bit. It turned out he was the trainer for LL umpires in that league. I mentioned that LL had a great training camp in San Bernardino for umpires. He had heard of it, but said that it wasn't necessary. "People try to make umpirng harder than it is," he said, "balls and strikes, safes and outs, and you've got it covered."
With clinics and camps, uniform and equipment replacements and additions, and gas expenses, I spend in excess of $3000 per year for my avocation. I work about 150 game a year, meaning that I spend over $20 a game on umpiring. I do not work for free and I am not ashamed of that. However, if I worked like that LL umpire trainer, I would be embarrassed to take any amount of money.