Quote:
Originally Posted by chapmaja
Yes, we get paid to make those calls, however I have to disagree with your comment from below
"they need to stop umpiring... discerning what happened first between two nearly simultaneous events is a large part our job."
Telling someone they need to stop umpiring because of something like this is what I see wrong with umpiring all over right now. We have old officials having this type attitude with other officials.
I don't know about your area, but in my area of the country we are running into serious issues with being able to fill officials assignments in multiple sports. Having officials with that attitude towards other officials is not helping bring new blood into the profession. There are enough issues with parents and coaches already driving people away from officiating, we don't need other officials being part of the problem.
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If an umpire cannot decide whether one event happened before another, his ability to do his job is nearly zero. Relying on crutches like those posted above (if I can't tell which happened first, bang out the lead runner) is the sign of an umpire who has stopped trying to do their job correctly.
"something like this" is a skill that is inherent to an umpire's ability to do the job in the first place. If they can't do "something like this", they can't umpire.
I'm sorry that you work in an area where you must accept warm bodies just to fill the assignments. That's not the case here. Most good umpires don't get as much work as they want, because there are so many good umpires.
Then again ... just 60 miles from here, I was asked to come help out because they were short, and my partner literally yelled, "TIE!" on a banger at first... (I guess he could not discern which event happened first...
) - so I recognize that there ARE areas where they are just trying to fill spots, by any means necessary.