[SanDiegoSteve]

Well, I've umpired many, many games for the high school I graduated from, and never had one thought of any impropriety. I am a consumate umpire, chock-full of integrity. I worked for the association this past year who did my nephew's games, in order to hopefully get assigned to his games on occasion.

I never thought twice about any conflicts of interest. Those are for people who have a propensity to cheat, or have guilty consciences concerning cheating.

I received random assignments throughout the year, and happened to get a total of one of my nephew's games. I would never favor, nor over-compensate and disfavor, any relative of mine. I am 100% nuetral in every game I umpire. I don't like most of my relatives to start with, so what difference would that make, anyway?

And what, we can't umpire games where friends of ours are playing? That would pretty much eliminate a great deal of my games, because I have friends in baseball all over town. MLB umpire Kerwin Danley umpired many of Tony Gwynn's games, and they were buddies in college. Do you think Danley let his friendship with Gwynn cloud his judgment somehow? I'm sure he didn't.

And what about umpiring games with coaches that we don't like, the ones we've had to run nearly every time we see them? The ones that say, "oh, not you again?" I umpire games with coaches I both like, and dislike, and I give them both the same kind of professional job.

Too much is being made about me umpiring my nephew's Little League Minors game. It's not like it was the 7th game of the World Series or anything. Just a kiddie ball game. All the harumphing about "conflict of interest" is amusing at best.