[JRutledge]

Striker991,

It is great back to give to the community. It is great to want to help others. But LL Baseball or any baseball league is not the most important thing in life. I see many more issues that we can help in the community, and sports is not what I personally have in mind. Often times the kids that are playing them are more previledged anyway. Baseball is not a cheap sport to get into. At the very least you have to buy a glove (which are not cheap), baseball shoes and it helps if you buy a bat as well. So many of the kids parents are not struggling. That is one of the reason I do not see kids from the worst areas playing baseball at the level you see the middle class kids to upper middle class kids. So it is not like these organizations are struggling to pay umpires maybe $30 for one game. Not when you are paying the park to just hold the games in the first place.

And this idea of organizations like the Lions Club not paying member is a joke too. My Mother happen to be the Local Chapter President and had to pay a membership fee to join, they had to pay a site to hold their meetings and had to pay anyone that provided food for the meetings or banquets that they have. It is not like the local VFW said, "you are a volunteer organization, we are not going to charge you for our catering services." That I am sure never happen. But we can all dream can't we?

BTW, I do not believe anyone hates you for your opinion, we just disagree with your point of view on it. So I do not think their is a backlash, we just see it a different way. And because many LL organizations are making local decisions with local challenges, if you can find umpires that do not want to get paid to work your league, that is great. But there are many areas that would never do it for free. Especially when they can go somewhere else and umpire for some kind of money. I also think you might allianate younger umpires by suggesting they they do it for free. I do not know too many 20 year olds that can give $300+ and not see anything come back to them at all. This is one of the reason we have a huge shortage in umpires in my area.

Peace