Mentoring

[Ump20]

See Garth Benham's current interview with an umpire who does pro in the Northern League and also does games with his local association. He mentions three particular senior officials who helped him Chad says

I want to make sure to emphasize how important in my life those three guys were. I might not have stayed with umpiring at all, and for sure I wouldn't have gotten better and moved up without these guys. They were the greatest and I'll never forget them.

I am convinced, they convinced me, we all need mentors and it's the job of every experienced umpire to become a mentor. We owe it to umpiring. If we all help one or two other umpires to move up, or just become better, the individuals we helped benefit, the activity benefits and we benefit. I just can't say it strongly enough or thank those guys enough.

If you get anything down that I'm saying, get this down. This was probably the most important thing to happen to me in umpiring. And I hope it happens for everybody.

I had the opportunity at our association's annual dinner at the end of last season to say thank you to #92 - Joe Valenza. My first season was 1992 I had the privilege to be working my very first Connie Mack game on the same field as Joe. We worked a number of times after that. I listened to Joe because he did college ball and was one of our "senior guys". His pre-game required a note pad for all the "special mechanics". I had the bases that first game and Joe told me to "always look like an umpire" no matter what you are doing.

Joe was very surprised when I stood up to thank him this past year. He didn't realize the positive effect he had on me.

Any stories of people who had an impact on your officiating career or those you've helped along the way? If I posted this a few months ago I don't think there were too many responses.

[BJ Moose]

Originally posted by Ump20
See Garth Benham's current interview with an umpire who does pro in the Northern League and also does games with his local ************ociation
I had the opportunity at our ************ociation's annual dinner

This is TOO wierd. Why does my screen show

f---f---f---ociation, but when I quote is shows
************ociation? Anybody? Is this a virus?

[Ump20]

Originally posted by BJ Moose

This is TOO wierd. Why does my screen show

f---f---f---ociation, but when I quote is shows
************ociation? Anybody? Is this a virus?

I want everyone to know I did not type that word. I typed "************ociation" and when I attempted to EDIT it the post appears as I originally posted it. If this is sabotage by someone purporting to be an umpire you are a sad individual. I have brought it to RightSports Administrator.

[Dakota]

Apparently, someone has inserted a script into the board that finds the characters a-s-s in any word and changes them to profanity. It caught me on the Softball board when I tried to use the word c-l-a-s-s-i-c. Until this is fixed, insert hyphens or underscores, or use the $ sign for the letter s in words with "a$$"

[Ump20]

Originally posted by Ump20

I want everyone to know I did not type that word. I typed "************ociation" and when I attempted to EDIT it the post appears as I originally posted it. If this is sabotage by someone purporting to be an umpire you are a sad individual. I have brought it to RightSports Administrator.

I am now running virus software. What else is new. My apologies. Jim Simms/NYC

[Brad]

Guys - my fault on the board problem...

I was attempting to turn on the board's censoring function and instead caused it to replace the letters of censored words with another word that should be censored!!!

Mea culpa!!!

Sorry for the inconvenience!

[Brad]

Also, it is fixed now so that *** (a-s-s-) by itself is censored, but assign, assessment, etc. are not.

[Jim Porter]

Originally posted by Brad
Guys - my fault on the board problem...

I was attempting to turn on the board's censoring function and instead caused it to replace the letters of censored words with another word that should be censored!!!

Mea culpa!!!

Sorry for the inconvenience!

Brad,

I must admit that after I read your response - - I laughed for nearly 11 minutes. That has got to be the funniest blunder I've yet seen on the Internet. A classic!

I'm sure we all know it was an innocent mistake. But, by gum, it was one funny mistake.

[JJ]

I have to agree it's funny - nearly laughed my a$$ (did I spell that right?) off!

[Dakota]

You have my respect. You could have easily hidden behind some mysterious hacker or some such. Who would have known?

I agree the mistake was hilarious. You didn't just insert the f-word once, but three times. ROTFL.

When I posted the message where it first hit me, and I saw what it did to the word "classic," I wasn't laughing however. I was frantic. I quickly edited the message, and reposted it before anyone saw it (I hoped), and there it was again...three f's.

After I figured out there was an evil script at work, I searched the board for other examples (just to be sure it wasn't my computer only). Know what was really funny? Over on the Basketball board, and whole thread was full of f's, and all the posters went on with their discussion as if nothing was happening!! Now THAT was hilarous!