When the strike is over

[GarthB]

Originally Posted by BlueLawyer

Just out of curiousity, what happens to the replacements/scabs when (I know, many of you think it's IF) the strike ends? Will replacement blues just walk back into their regular assignments as if they had been there all along? Will they find the guys who took THEIR places eager to give the slots back?

On the other hand, what if the strike doesn't end with AMLU umps coming back? Do the replacements/scabs plan to take three or four years out of their lives to do minor league ball? Maybe two of them will get MLB jobs, but you have to forgive me if I think that idea is far fetched. What happens, say, next year if the AMLU strike is still ongoing? Will the D1/high school/Legion umps who have been working minor league ball forsake their regular assignments to go to work MiLB for good? When these umps lose their regular jobs and their regular baseball assignments, do they expect their fellow umpires to welcome them back with open arms into the "brotherhood"? Why should an umpire who has filled in for a replacement willingly give that slot back?

Things that make me go "hmmmmmmm".

Strikes and outs!

Most replacements I know did not stop working association games, they added MiLB to the mix. Since most work only in their areas and do not travel, this was easy to accomplish.

If this strike results in the death of the current A and AA umpiring system, that may be the result...the minor league games become part of the mix for some umpires.

I would bet that AAA will remain staffed by "full-time part-timers" who will be groomed for MLB. There would probably be some kind of "auditioning" process for umpires to move from A/AA to AAA when openings occur.

Should something like this happen, umpires in A/AA would no longer be slave to MiLB and would definitely be working by choice. Organized baseball would have to deal with the AAA umpires and their issues. It would, for management, be much cleaner to deal with the smaller number of umpires.

The other question is: what happens to the two schools?