Quote:
Originally Posted by mbcrowder
It's not kids baseball so much as it's LL baseball. LL goes out of their way to exclude a lot of umpires
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I would disagree that "LL goes out of their way to exclude a lot of umpires" LL does not exclude umpires, umpires exclude themselves. LL's policy is simple, If you take money for umpiring Little league baseball, you are not eligible to umpire in any post season tournaments including regional’s and World series assignments. I umpire various levels of baseball from college to high school and little league. I have aspirations of umpiring one day at the little league world series. So out of the 200 + games I umpire every year, I take payment for everything except little league. So for 30 or so LL games I do every year, I donate 100% my time so the kids can have quality umpires for their games. LL strives to be the premiere "volunteer" youth sports organization. When LL reaches the part of the tournament season that is televised, they want to be able to say that everyone participating is a 100% volunteer. Unfortunately some of the “better” umpires are “disqualified” because they refuse to give their time for free.
Granted, there are some poor umpires that can be seen this time of year umpiring LL baseball on TV. I would be the first to agree that some of the umpires have never seen or been to a umpire clinic....but these umpires have "paid the price" of volunteering their time through their local leagues to be there. So getting to umpire on TV is their reward. Any umpire can decide to volunteer their time to LL if they so choose. Those that do, get rewarded, those that don't are left to criticize.