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The Rule on the Locker Room Door says one thing: No one admitted. My partner(s) and I broke this only once (on seperate occasions) to let our fathers in to our locker room (after a game). There were no other exceptions. If you weren't an umpire or working for the umpire (re: ball boy) you weren't coming in. (PBUC supervisors are umpires).
The suggestion that an umpire should have to be preached to (by a leader of a religion he doesn't believe in) or leave the lockerroom (his office) for even 5 minutes before a game is repulsive.
I admit that I have what I call "umpire OCD". On days when I worked the plate I had to do the same exact thing in the lockerroom during the hour before the game. I was a creature of habit. Too suggest I should have to leave my workspace, and stop my mental preparation for 3 hours of grueling work, so someone can come in and preach something that, frankly, I don't agree with or believe in is ridiculous.
I wonder how many umpires would be defending this if it were Muslim "preachers" seeking "just 5 minutes"? Instead of "baseball chapel" it was "baseball mosque"?
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