Coach JM:
-Rude remarks in this thread: *"Newbie posts link to youtube video of 10 yr. old umpire"
*"I mean, at least he didn't "drop trou" in front of a bunch of 1st Grade girls"; come on, how long before I live that one off?
-You mentioned: *"Did you notice the 1st video you posted said it was the kid's 1st game on 9/18/2008? And the 2nd has a date of 10/04/2008? That's a little over 2 weeks elapsed time".
*Response: The kid in the second video was bigger, but had the same voice. My guess is it's the same kid, a couple years later.
-*"What makes you think I was upset? I wasn't.":
*Response: Post 24 in the thread led me to believe you were upset, but I could be wrong.
-"Do you have any idea how foolish and petulant it makes you look to post links of videos of this kid umpiring and berating his appearance? (That remark was "impartial", not "rude", BTW.)"
*Response: I was making a point. Age is irrelevant in umpiring. Uniform standards apply to the level of baseball that one works, not how old someone is. If the person in the video is going to call himself an "umpire", a profession I'm sure most of us here take great pride in, he should try to look the part. I have no sympathy. Many people here nailed the uniform standards into me, so I smartened up and bought the right stuff. Now everybody is defending this kid's poor attire under the premise that he's young? Come on. No excuses in umpiring. I coach pre-teeballers and I would want them to have better than what this kid is providing when they move up to teeball.
-Why did I change my name? I felt representing my country on every post I made was a bit much. I made my new username similar enough to my old one so that I wouldn't be hiding who I was.
Kyle:
-Yes I posted a video of myself in full gear in my parent's basement. I guess that makes me an umpiring geek, but that's not something I'm ashamed of. I don't find anything embarassing about working on plate mechanics. On the surface it might have looked silly, but I thought it was a good way to work on technique when the weather wasn't even close to being good for baseball (about -15 celcius at the time I believe
).