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Originally Posted by aceholleran
The answer is both simple and sad. These umps, for the most part, are the honchos of their local areas. They don't do HS, Legion, whatever. They have never been in a position where someone will take a look at their game and come back with any critique.
They got there through longevity and working games for free.
There is no mechanism in place to tell these shlubs that they look like horsesh&t. There's n one in W-port who'll do that, either. And W-port doesn't care, either.
Remember, we are in a vast minority when we cast asparagus at these umps. Even diehard baseball fans don't notice all the (minor and major) inadequacies of guys who couldn't buy a HS varsity game in Buttlick, ND.
You get to W-port via lobbying by your District Administrator, years of volunteering and not p*ssing anyone off.
Saddest of all, there is no one at LLHQ who is truly interested in advancing the excellence of LL umpiring. It's more about, "Joe Blow in SoCal, who has been in a D. A. the system 35 years, has an ump he wants in the WS. We have to throw him a bone."
And that's the way it is. Trust me on this.
Ace
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Not only is that the way it is, but that is the way it will stay as long as the umpire fraternity in Little League remains, at its "upper echelons" a fraternity of insiders who dominate the instruction and attendance at the regional schools, and use the regional schools more for networking and establishing pecking orders for postseason assignments - state, regional, WS - than for training umpires to be able to go back to their local leagues and institute LOCAL training and development umpire programs that are based on sound teaching principles, rather than the current system of Smitty trains Smitty, Jr. which leads to homegrown, inbred, ridiculous habits that then make their debut to our horror on national television at the LLWS.
The idea of regional weeklong umpire schools is a great one. The implementation, so far, leaves a lot to be desired. The focus has become grooming the select few for moving up, rather than extending professional instruction to "the masses" of LL umpires back in their local leagues.
If it really were "for the kids," reorienting the focus of the regional umpire schools would be a good place to start to prove it.