Ease of umpiring games

[briancurtin]

sal is right on the testing part, from my experience. i work college in the fall, while im still in college. i played here freshman year and got hurt, now i do most of the fall games (as stated earlier) and fill in in the spring on rainouts and if we run into problems and need a guy. im qualified, i do good work, but people dont want to believe it when they come up to the plate conference and see that im 21. this will be my third fall working college ball. a couple of times ive had coaches come out in the first few innings to see whats up, see how i handle things, and it usually goes well and they see what they wanted to see and i dont hear much after that.

as everyone already knows, or guessed, the expectations are much higher than LL games or stuff like that. thats one of the things that drives me to do it. they want perfection (as close as you can get). they want it typically both ways, and i like that. players notice when you mess up even if its goes their way. you wont hear it when it goes their way, but they definitely see it, and most often they dont forget. LL, HS, and summer traveling teams just want to win no matter who gets screwed (for the most part, im not grouping *everyone* here). i know this because i have class with some of these guys, i eat dinner with them, i live down the hall from them, and i room with a pitcher and my two other suite-mates are pitchers.

[JJ]

I'm asked the differences as you move "up the ranks", and most often my answer is, "As you move up, the hitting gets a little better, the fielding gets a little better, the pitching gets a little better, but the catching gets a LOT better." Overall that makes the higher levels easier for me. You can't beat a good catcher!

[cowbyfan1]

I gotta agree, the higher the level, the easier it is to call. Less errors, players know what they are doing, managers know the deal better, especially over the little league Dad's living thru their kid whilest having never opened a rule book in their life.

Miss a call the $hit storm will be bigger but overall it is easier to not miss a call as things go more as expected unlike the lower levels where you can never predict where the ball will end up.

Don't even get me started on the difference in the catching.