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Ok, just got back from Evans Annual Desert Classic. About Roland; he works for Ray Leuty, Jim's Academy Director. Ray DID find 14 copies of the Annotated in a newly found box. They WERE sold for $65. What Roland stated wasn't intended to mislead anyone. You just weren't given all THE information. All of the Annotateds are, indeed, gone. There are NO immediate plans to reproduce any more of them, either on disk or hard copy.
This Union/Umpire/MLB business is still not over. Nothing will happen until the Arbitration process is concluded.
It's POSSIBLE that the resigned umpires are, indeed, done. Or maybe not. It's POSSIBLE that the new hires could be demoted. Or, maybe not. Probably not.
Which way is the training gonna go? Discussed previously.
This years Desert Classic drew 84 students, 7 or 8 of which are from Japan. It was highly successful. The classroom work was done at The Hampton Inn, in Peoria, Az. The mechanics portion was conducted at the Mariners facility across the street. An outstanding facility!!
A lot of the students had a Youth/LL background, others, adult and college backgrounds. A couple of the students were 16 years old. Some of the older chaps were in their 60's.
In regards to communicating with the Academy, When it moved from Austin, Tx to Peoria AZ, the whole system broke down. They were supposed to be in business on the 12th and were still having problems when I got there on the 15th.
You're probably thinking, "Jesus Christ, this guy is a Jimmy disciple/fanatic." Well, yeah, I am. An example of Jim's work ethic: The Class starts at 8a and continues until dark most days with a 45 minute lunch break. After the training day, Jim disappears for awhile to eat, recharge, meeting with his instructors, whatever. He then will search out students, his friends, instructors, whoever, to just talk basebal rules, mechanics and game management with them. An example: Jim was taking me to the video room to show me his training tapes. Our path took us through the main lobby where a lot of the students hung out. That was it. He got onto his imaginary stage and started performing. The students loved and so did he. He is a passionate man. I got the message; I went back to the motorhome (The Batterman Hilton) and spent the rest of the evening with some of his instructors.
This note is too long already. If you want some more stuff about Jim's Academy or the Arizona Fall Ball Season (where the high strike zone was employed), let me know. These games were umpired Major League Umpires, for the most part and they were all evaluated by the veteran ML Umps.
Dave Davies
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