[greymule]

I think many people assume wrongly that because the players are young, the umpiring must be easy, so why spend money needlessly?

The local league for 12-and-under kids is I think a Babe Ruth organization. All parents must volunteer (!) for various tasks or "buy out" for $75 each parent. (Maybe it's $100 by now.) Their "minor" league is umpired by "major" division players. The "major" players are in turn umpired by 13- and 14-year-olds. These umps do get paid, but it's not much (three or four bucks). A local umpire who does Fed for middle school games oversees these officials.

The 12-and-under umpires, as might be expected, know very little and are easily intimidated by the adult coaches. They also haven't developed the judgment necessary for officiating. For example, they grossly overinterpret the league's idiotic "must slide" rule, calling scoring runners out when the catcher is ten feet from the plate and the ball is rolling across the mound.

The 13- and 14-year-olds try to act like "regular umpires"—some of them immediately threaten coaches with ejection for any comment or question at all. But again these kids don't know much, and coaches who know how to "work" the umps get horrendously blown calls in their favor. The judgment of these umpires is also generally poor. Runners are called out for being out of the baseline on wide swings around 3B. Batters dive out of the way of a pitch and are called for a strike because the bat ended up in front of the body. Safe and out on the bases is anybody's guess.

But they've been doing things this way a long time. So if they're happy with it . . .