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Let's see:
Since the internet umpiring commnity has lowered the bar for what it means to be an umpire I give you the following:
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I just completed my 38th year of umpiring.
But wait, in "internet umpiring", I have just completed my 48th year.
I have "umpired" games in the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's and 00's.
This means I have umpired in six different decades.
But alas I now have no idea "how many" games I have worked since I did not keep journals of those famous tilts (ah I remember the "Big Game" betwix Ray's Drug Store and Bob's Richfield).
As an additional detail, I HAVE WORKED LITTLE LEAGUE since those are the games I "umpired" when I was 8 years old.
Give me a break.
Garth's example of his "young umpire" story is the perfect example of "when" you begin to count the years of umpiring.
And as an answer to this question:
"Had you attended any mechanics meetings prior to this game?"
Yes, I had attened ONE meeting prior to the assignment. But be careful here:
Things were different in the "old days" -- there simply were not, in my area of the country, "clinics, classes, camps, or weekend jaunts" for umpires.
Our umpire association (the second largest in the state at the time) didn't even have enough umpires to cover a full varsity schedule with TWO MAN CREWS (we drafted basketball referees to work the bases with absolutly no training).
And since I had not only already worked for 10 years (that is in internet umpire years) I had been exposed to mechanics and rules extensively.
And I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express the night before.
Regards,
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