[Tru_in_Blu]

Being from the northeast, we obviously host very few National level tournaments. There may be one occasionally in CT, but in scanning the book for locations, I didn't even see NY/NJ as hosting anything. (Looked @ JO only.) We must not have the venues to be able to attract large tournaments. When we hold our State Tournament each year, it's typically at 4 different locations that aren't even particularly close to one another.

Whatever National tournaments I've attended have always been as HE. I'm not a 20-30 year veteran umpire under the age of 50. As such, I wouldn't consider myself in that upper echelon of officials country wide.

I'm happy to be able to work a National and hope to increase my game and rules knowledge by working w/ more experienced officials. Those are the benefits I get from having to pay my own way to a tournament. As most of us are well aware, we're not working a National to make money.