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As an umpire, I have not taken on a mission to feed the poor or heal the sick. I deal with drunk obnoxious adult games and I deal with overbearing obnoxious parents and undertrained obnoxious coaches who think they know every rule in the book.
There is a shortage of good umpires available and if "working" was my only priority, I could work every night. My time is too valuable and I have other interest in my life so I pick and choose where and when I want to go some where.
For me, money is not the motivating factor. Tonight I will be driving 120 miles round trip to call a double header between two very good teams. I will be paid $50, no travel. That is because the way I pick and chose my games is by wanting to watch the best games. If I don't want to be assigned to a particular game, then I turn down the assignment.
Whether it is higher dollars, good games or avoiding obnoxious parents, I have no problem with umpires that pick and choose their games. Again, I don't think any umpires pledged to do missionary work.
But, that is just a side issue that was raised above.
My opinion on the original issue is that it is simply a matter of payment on a contract. If a roofer was working on my house, I would expect that if for some reason that roofer felt reasonably sure that he would not get paid that he would walk off the job site with the job unfinished. I would suspect that these umpires had similar feelings. As stated above, "Normally, out of state umpires get paid after their games, but...". I can see where I might have had valid concerns of non-payment, but I think there are too many unknown variables to say what I would have done.
We are expecting these umpires to honor their agreement of being there for all the games when the TD and assistant are not honoring their agreement of being there with the pay?
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Dan
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