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Originally Posted by mcrowder
Because he knows what it's like to be on the other side of the coin, and should know better.
Because others around him know that he's an umpire... and if it's acceptable for HIM to behave this way to umpires, then it must be acceptable for THEM to behave this way.
And why is the allowing of choice words for an umpire who you don't like considered to be the "standard" by you. The standard should be much higher than it is. Players/coaches behave below the standard ... but being an umpire, he should at least be able to control himself to what's acceptable, and have a better idea than the general fan of what is acceptable.
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OK, so how about this?
I'm a coach and an umpire. The guy working the bases is an absolute HORRIBLE umpire and his mechanics are terrible. On base hits, he runs straight for second base and my trained umpire eye notices that he is never even close to looking to see whether the BR touches first.
So, instead of running my mouth, I wait till an appropriate moment and then start appealing every touch of first base (or, indeed, every base touch where I *know* neither umpire has bothered to do his job). I'd probably get ejected eventually, but a call to the assignor afterwards would clear that up, I would think. Too rat-like? Is it too rat-like to expect umpires to be well trained and DO THEIR JOB? I do my job and I've noticed that my check has the same numbers as Smitty's.
Many of you talk about standards and say that since we know how hard it is to umpire, blah, blah, we should behave ourselves, no matter what. How am I (if a coach) being an advocate for my team if I refuse to be an advocate for my team? I don't expect more out of umpire/coaches than coaches. I don't expect more out of umpire/players than players.
Furthermore, I'm convinced now, more than ever, that it's the bad umpires that cause much of the bad behavior that we see on the fields. If an umpire of my caliber (or Bob Jenkins or Tim Christensen or Garth Benham's caliber) worked every game, I honestly think that a lot of the truly egregious stuff I see on the field wouldn't happen. Maybe I'm blowing smoke out my ***, but those teams that know me never give me problems. It's a new thing for me, cause I've never stayed in one place long enough to enjoy that, but this is my 6th season here in Madison now. Would we still have ejections and incidents? Sure, but that's part of the territory.
Let me finish with a story. I assign a 44-team adult wood bat league. The league pays the umpires $70 a game (9-innings). We're in year 3 of a 3 year pay deal, which means that the umpires can look for more money next season. I've talked to at least 4 teams away from the field (likely drinking beer after the games, which I encourage more umpires to do with adult leagues -- picking your moments, of course) who would have no problem paying more for quality umpires, but don't think that the bottom 2/3 of the staff are worth what they are getting now. And I can't really come back with much more than, well, all the umpires need to be paid the same amount of money and you certainly don't want to lose the best ones.