I have been given the dubious honor this year of being our Assignor for ASA ball this year, so I know exactly what is going on here. Now, our commissioner (and former assignor) has pretty much standardized our contracts, but we can be flexible when needed.
Example one: We have a small women's slow pitch league on Mondays that we have worked probably for 30 years. They hardly ever give us trouble, they pay up a half season at a time, and they are pretty much there for a good time. So this year, they asked, instead of our usual two umps a game (something we INSIST on, for both safety and problem prevention), that only have one - at our usual fee and half rate for one ump. We said okay - but with the stipulation that of ANYthing happens like arguments, or an injury that might have preventable, we have the option of going back to two umps. Now understand, our usual per ump fee for a game is $42 - so they are only saving $21 a game! As an assignor, I really do not mind, especially in May, when high school ball is in full swing, and it is VERY difficult finding enough people on weekdays. But it IS less work for our people....
(and yeah, $42 a game - we are basically the only game in town - the U-trip group around here is VERY tiny.)
On the other hand....
We have a Sunday morning men's modified league (all of the men's ball here is modified pitch of one stripe or another) which is a genuine pain in the a**. It's 6 doubleheaders - and every team.....moves to another field after the first game!
Not just to an adjacent field, but they actually have to travel!!
So yeah, it makes for a very long Sunday morning, and we - no surprise - have trouble getting guys to work there. Oh, and did I mention that about half the teams are real idiots? So a couple of years back, we actually forced them into a time limit situation, and its worked ok, but we are still trying to work on the actual DH with both teams staying thing. As I said, U-trip could never handle them, so we have leverage of a sort.
Its gonna be a fun year......
