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Originally Posted by bigsig
I stopped doing the “testosterone” leagues about 3 years ago. Even though I’m in an area with the highest per game fees in the country I am fortune enough to umpire as a hobby. I do it because I enjoy it. But I stopped enjoying men’s slow pitch.
Going out to do a doubleheader at 8 PM and getting home close to midnight. Hearing asinine arguments on EVERY call from players who have no clue what the rules are. That’s just not fun to me.
If these leagues don’t get their acts together soon they won’t have any umpires, or at least one’s with experience. Here we are at the point where most of the games are officiated by rookie umpires because no one else will do them.
Now the teams get umpires with little experience, reducing the quality of officiating, and our umpire association has a lot more turnover of new umpires then we should. No one wins.
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These days, the average umpire only calls games for 3 years. A lot of rookies come and go, and it's a strange feeling when I'm only 30, yet I have more seniority than most of our crew.
Some of the problems we're facing have a lot to do with the turnover, but I think that's partially due to the lack of training most new umpires receive. I've seen rookie umpires calling higher-level games, mostly due to the fact that it's becoming increasingly harder for us to find willing participants. There are some areas that do a wonderful job of training their umpires, and I commend them for recognizing that training is a worthy investment. I encourage all organizers to spend as much training time as possible with everyone in their crew, newer and older umpires alike. The more training we offer our crews, the better-equipped they will be in order to handle complicated situations.