[PeteBooth]

Originally posted by Tim C


The "best" plate umpire for the entire World Series has not been selected to work the championship game at any umpire position.

Three umpires that have been selected are three of the most marginal umpires in the tourney. Having evaluated umpires for over 25 years I think I have a pretty educated view of what umpiring takes . . . Little League apparantly just doesn't get it.

Going into this tournament I have never met any of the umpires so I feel my view is also fair.

By watching last years LL World Series Championship game from Williamsport and watching about 9 games (live) and three more on TV here I have come to the awareness that the Little League Admistration just sees different things in umpires than trained observers.

I am sure that again in the Williamsport Championship game we will not see even the best umpires at the tournament much yet the best volunteer Little League Umpires from across the nation.

TEE it's not just in Oregon. I'm from NY and Bristol Conn is about a 1 hr. and 30 minute drive. I went down last week with some fellow umpires and watched all 4 games. We all did our own rating system and the results were similar. Even though I had the least exprerience (14 yrs. of service), I was pretty consistent with their evaluations.

To my surprise the PU on last nights FINAL game in Bristol wasn't the best selected. U1/U3 should have been on the dish.

The only thing one can deduct from these various selections throughout the tournament is that the selction process is political and if that is indeed true what a shame. Granted in the scheme of things for the most part it doesn't have a bearing on the outcome, but there should be some set guidelines for evaluation other than political

Pete Booth