[PeteBooth]

Originally posted by Tim C

Tee,

Wisconsin or Oregon is not The BIG Apple. The small diamond games which you refer to pay as much as a JV FEE here in NY. Many umpires get HS certified but do not umpire HS or they umpire only a handful of games.

There's a few LL associations that pay JV type money for Small diamond ball. I'll give you an example, I helped out a fellow colleague of mine who was scheduling for a particlar LL organization. One umpire behind the plate - $55.00 per game 6 innings approx 1 and 1/2 hr.'s work. Now that FEE depeding upon which part of the country you are from is equivalent to a JV FEE or higher and you work approx 1/2 the amount of time.

There's a Babe Ruth League (13/14 yr. olds) - 2 Hr. Time Limit on games - One Umpire $80.00 and you can work as many games as you like.

So while there's not a shortage in Wisconsin or Oregon, there is here. To put it this way, you can come out of retirement, move to NY and I'll almost guarantee you work everyday for the duration of the HS season. Now you might not get Varsity Games, but you will work.

The schools here in the NY Metropolitan area are huge and have 4 levels of baseball. Modified (7th/8th graders), Freshman (9th Graders) JV and Varsity. Therefore, many umpires are needed. It's not uncommon to be scheduled Solo in the modified and Freshman Games and even at the JV level sometime.

In addition the so called Small diamond games are paying comparable FEES as one receives doing a HS game. Therefore, some umpires opt for the small diamond as opposed to the HS environment and make a decent buck.

So you are correct, I should not make a blanket statement that there is a shortage of umpires, but say depending upon where one lives there could be a shortage.

Pete Booth