Quote:
Originally Posted by IRISHMAFIA
That is good. I'm not suggesting umpires who worked games under such conditions would be "homers", but it only takes one close call made correctly or not and the rest of the game will only go downhill from there.
I ran into that when my brother started playing in a league I worked. There were only three umpires and eight teams, so avoiding his games was tough. But the concerns were quickly dismissed when I tossed him the first game.  Apparently, he was the only one who thought being my brother was going to get him a little slack. |
That reminds me of the time my dad gave me a warning for arguing balls and strikes.
Sometimes, the exact opposite thing will happen when an umpire knows a team. One of the guys in our local crew used to play on one of the teams. When he stopped playing and started calling their games, they initially thought, "hey, we've got a man on the inside." Unfortunately for them, this umpire had the reputation of being even harder on his former teammates. Now, I've called a couple of those games with him, and I'm not sure just how much I believe it. However, that was the perception that people had of him.
I say that it's a bad idea to umpire games where conflicts of interest could arise. No matter what happens, you're screwed.