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Old Thu Jul 19, 2007, 11:32pm
Blu_IN Blu_IN is offline
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Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 77
My backyard

The 'B' in Indiana is in my backyard. My home is five minutes from the Portage site. My work is 4 minutes from the Hidden Lake site and 7 minutes from the Crown Point site. Its neat finally having one near home, though, I did do Shaumburg back a few years ago and that is only an hour or so away.

Not sure which site you will get, but if you can beg for a location, take Hidden Lake. There is a ton of shade trees on the front fields and if the umpires park in the back, its a nice place to hang out between games. However, if you do get that location, pray you are on the front fields and not the back. The back four fields are a pit. No breeze, no shade.

I have been to more WS than I care to admit, and I do agree with the above posters to some extent. If you get the right site and the right crew to work with, it can be a ton of fun. If you get the wrong site and an bad crew, it can really suck. There are some UIC's that go above and beyond for the umpires, and then there are some that do infact, hide in the shade or air conditioning. I would say that of the years that I attended, its been about a fifty/fifty chance of getting a great crew and location. I can't speak from experience, but I imagine you run into the same thing working other associations.

And of course, the weather makes or breaks some years. It shouldn't be too bad in Indiana, but it can get pretty hot here. However, it won't get nearly as brutual as S.C. and Chatanooga. I am still waiting for our first WS in Minnesota or upper Michigan.

As for my attendance, I am to the point now where I am not going to take off work, just to go work. Seems silly. If I am going to take vacation, I am going to lounge around the house, take a relaxing vacation, or go golfing.
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