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I grew up in a small rural Ohio town and when I hear the term volunteer umpire, what comes to my mind is the high school kid or parent who had the evening open and agreed to help out by umpiring that night. Those are the umpire's I grew up with when I played. Although I do give them many kudos for doing what they do, most of them do not know the game. Now that I am a licensed umpire, I dread working with them. I, being the certified umpire, take the crap for their calls and find myself having to make calls that my partner should have made. Most of the time it is do to thier mechanics; they find themselves way out of position. I'm sure that in some areas there are very knowledgable and very talented volunteer umpires, and I'm sure some are better than myslef but, from my past experiences, I have developed a negative stereotype against them. I think many people share these same feelings towards them also.
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