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Wow!
Excellent post Peter -- let's look at it from two different sides:
1) Cliff Gustafson told me that when an umpire walked onto his field he could "tell" which umpire he was going to have trouble with.
2) I have said repeatedly over the years that only "other umpires" and evaluators care what umpires look like.
While these two items seem to be disassociated thet are, in fact, related.
Until the internet I never heard of umpires disagreeing on what color an undershirt should be . . .
Until the internet I had never heard that shirts of crew members should match all the way to the order of the piping on a sleeve.
Here's what we run into, in my opinion, with umpire decorum:
As more and more professionally trained umpires come into groups that umpire non-professional games there is a change in standards. Because these school graduates were evaluated heavily during school those requirements begin to find a road into local associations.
Any time there is an evaluator involved they must, by nature, find something that separates one umpire from another that is more lowly rated. What we wear starts to show at this level.
Like you I am not an advocate of base umpires with ball bags, or leg guards on the exterior of a plate pant . . . I am only saying that a well dressed umpire will normally command a certain amount of respect UNTIL THE FIRST MISSED PITCH OR CLOSE CALL ON THE BASES!
We exaggerate EVERYTHING about umpiring on the internet because there are only a certain amount of topics that can be discussed.
I am glad we have standards and over the last 40 years that I have worked I have seen a marked change in the overall professionalism of sport officials. How we dress and what we wear is a small part of that.
Regards,
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