They have a MLB-sponsored one-day clinic and weeklong clinic every fall outside Los Angeles at the RBI complex. The one-day clinic is actually free and the weeklong is about a grand or so. I do the one day clinics. In just one day, you improve significantly as an umpire. In fact, it becomes one of the highlight experiences of your umpiring life.
At the last one, the featured instructors were Tim Tschida, Larry Young, Sam Holbrook, Jerry Layne, Kerwin Danley, Gary Cederstrom, Brian Gorman, Brian Runge, Paul Runge, Jim McKean, and the most compelling and interesting of them all--Steve Palermo. They were absolutley hands-on about everything and they even took time to offer plenty of information one-on-one. It was absolutely remarkable.
If you just go to the one-day, I assure you that you will gain significantly from the experience. And that one's free. You just need to travel to the Long Beach area of Southern California. It is a good way to get a taste of umpire school.
Here's the press release from the one that I attended last fall:
http://mlb.mlb.com/news/press_releas...=.jsp&c_id=mlb