Quote:
Originally Posted by THoy
I did witness plays that were called incorrectly. One of those plays was mine. I owned during the game, after the game, and right now. There was not as many blown calls as people many want to believe. Maybe people should be offering possible solutions instead of ripping people apart?
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I don't recall ripping anyone apart. I do recall offering possible solutions multiple times. WTH are you talking about? I'm not even talking about bad calls - I'm talking about bad umpiring. Seriously - do you REALLY think the games were umpired well? No one else I know does.
As to solutions, I'll recap, but this thread is riddled with solutions.
1) Pay your umpires. Not just sometimes if certain places feel like it... Always. This will ensure you're talent pool is as large as possible and put your association on a level with everyone else.
2) Train your umpires. Not just an optional occasional training session. REQUIRED training that is tailored toward it's audience. I assure you that the first clinic I attend each year is completely different from those before District, State, etc. And it's constant... not just once, far away from anyone, held by some local yokel who has no clue (which was my experience in the 1 and only LL training I've been to).
3) Fix the selection process. This is a problem all over, but it seems worse at LL --- possibly due to 1 and 2 above. The rookie with 15 consecutive rookie seasons under his belt gets the call - but the 3rd year guy who attends everything he can possibly attend, reads posts here, etc - he gets nothing.
I'll apologize again for what appeared to be an erroneous broad brush ... I should not have assumed your statement that the umpiring at the LLWS was not bad was due to a lack of perspective. I don't know what it WAS ... other than that it was wrong.
As an aside ... if the best one can say about an organization's showcase event is that it "wasn't bad" ... don't you consider that a problem in and of itself? At such an event, one would hope that the impartial viewer (or the umpire viewer) would come away saying, "Wow, those guys were great".