[greymule]

My association enforces only the paying of dues and the taking of tests. Every year, they remind everyone of the proper uniform and hand out the umpires' manual, but nobody actually enforces dress or mechanics.

We may be unusual in that most of our umps concentrate in certain areas and seldom move outside them. Each of the various domains (girls' FP tournaments, individual township rec leagues, SP tournaments, modifed, etc.) is covered by a certain group of umps who seem to set their own standards, and that's it. The standards are high in some places, low in others.

Problems do arise when umps move outside their group. Last year, for example, to cover a very large (350+ teams) SP tournament, we had to beg people to ump and had to bring in people from outside our area. So on one field we'd have two well-dressed umpires, and on another we'd have one guy in black jeans, a blue sweatshirt, and work boots working with a guy wearing shiny blue gym shorts, complete with drawstring hanging down, combined with a blue dress shirt and white sneakers. Some wore not a single piece of ASA uniform, and the clothes they did wear looked as if they had been in the center of a turnpike toll booth lane for a week. Some mechanics fell under the category of "rocking chair."

We have about 125 umps in our association. However, if you take out the ones who refuse to do SP unless it's the Unitarian Church versus the Montessori School, the ones who can work only on Wednesdays but have to leave by 7:30, the ones who will do only "cake" games, and the ones who work their one evening a week in their one league, there are really about 35 conscientious full-time umps who make an effort to dress and work professionally.

The local Fed association does enforce dress (with small fines), and they emphasize mechanics heavily.