Travel Time?

[SAump]

Close proximity: How far are you willing to travel to accept an assignment? I am especially interested in hearing from those who travel more than one hour, one-way. What level of game would you accept and which do you turn down? All responses from amateur umpires about travel milage and lodging fees for "longer" distances are welcomed.

[bluezebra]

Maximum distances traveled..No milage, no lodging paid

Softball......150 miles
Football.......85 miles
Baseball.......40 miles
Basketball....40 miles

Forgot about volleyball...(to Shoshone [Death Valley])...170 miles (milage was more than match fee). It tied in with Baker (the day before, or after, Shoshone)...114 miles...seperate travel fee.

Bob

[DG]

My HS assigner knows where I live and work and generally assigns me games that can be reached in 30 minutes or less. But I will occassionally get a game that is up to 1.5 hours away and when I get it I work it. This past season I only had 2 games that were more than 40 minutes away and these were 1:15 away. Turning down games is not popular with my assignor. I trust him to treat me fairly.

[Toadman15241]

For HS, the furthest that I would have to travel was 1:10. I never turned down a game from my HS assignor because of distance.

For summer ball games I'd travel up to 15 min for LL and up to 45 min for Pony-American Legion. There are cases that I turn down summer ball games because of distance.

[SanDiegoSteve]

Usually about once a year or every other year, my assignor would send me and a partner to Borrego Springs to work the varsity game, which was usually about the quality of a JV game. Everybody took turns going out there. Borrego Springs is about 100 miles east of San Diego (but still in the county) in the Anza-Borrego Desert. The temperature was usually somewhere between 90 and 100, and the desert wind always blew straight in from center field. There is no outfield fence. When the grass ends, the desert begins. It didn't matter, as most balls couldn't get that far with the wind.

Loads of fun. We did get travel pay for whoever drove, but it wasn't much.

[Rich]

Where I live, we have no "assignor." We contract with league commisioners, who all assign their league games and schools, which assign nonconference games.

I have a radius of 100 miles for basketball (I only work hoops at the varsity level) and varsity football. I'll go up to 40 minutes or so for JV/frosh football and for baseball (varsity). For college baseball, I'll drive up to 2 hours.

[SAump]

I heard an ugly rumor that the newer varsity umps end up with many of the smaller district games in surrounding counties. Varsity games start at 7:00 or 7:30. Would I be looked at differently by my peers for asking for games limited to less than 45 miles or 1 hour from home? Would I be wrong to turn down any more than 2 or 3 of these "further" games in a 13 week season, or 20 to 30 games?

[GarthB]

Our HS associations (baseball, football and basketball) cover games in towns that are as far as away as 90 miles to the north, 80 miles west, 80 miles south and 25 miles east. We get mileage at the government rate and since our assignments are based on availability we provide the assignor, we do not turn down assigned games.

The most interesting drive is to Inchelium which is 90 miles north on two lane country roads and requires good timing to catch a ferry across the Columbia river. The trip takes 2 and a half to 3 hours.

Our college assignments can include sites over 300 miles away. This occurs more often in football and basketball than in baseball.

[Toadman15241]

Originally Posted by SAump

I heard an ugly rumor that the newer varsity umps end up with many of the smaller district games in surrounding counties. Varsity games start at 7:00 or 7:30. Would I be looked at differently by my peers for asking for games limited to less than 45 miles or 1 hour from home? Would I be wrong to turn down any more than 2 or 3 of these "further" games in a 13 week season, or 20 to 30 games?

I would not do this unless there you didn't get off work until 5:30 or you start work at like 4 AM. I know, for example, that in my HS association there was a guy that didn't get off work until 2:30 (our games start at 3 or 3:30) and he would always be assigned a game at one of the schools very close to his work. None of the fellow umpires had a problem with this, becuase they understood the circumstances.

As for newer varsity umps getting sent way out there, in my experience the newer guys get the smaller classifications and the games between horrible teams. The older guys get the more "important" games.

[JRutledge]

I usually will not accept any HS baseball assignment it takes me longer than 30 minutes from my house in the area I currently live. Before I move to my current address, and hour away was common place. College is a different story all together. I have gone an hour and a half for college assignments and will. In some of those college assignments they pay mileage. In the HS assignments there is just a flat fee. During the football and basketball seasons I will travel much further because of game times and you work fewer times during a week. It is much harder to get to games that start at 4:00 to 4:45 during every day of the week. It is a lot easier to travel 2 or 3 hours away for a basketball and football game when they start much later. Also many football and basketball games are on Fridays and Saturdays.

Peace

[Justme]

Originally Posted by SAump

Close proximity: How far are you willing to travel to accept an assignment? I am especially interested in hearing from those who travel more than one hour, one-way. What level of game would you accept and which do you turn down? All responses from amateur umpires about travel milage and lodging fees for "longer" distances are welcomed.

50 miles r/t max. unless a DH (then I'll go little further). Or if I can pick up another game on the way home, which I often do during the HS season. Work a HS game 3:30 - 5:30 (or so) then an Adult League game @ 7pm, I'll drive further.

[pdxblue]

I go where my assignor tells me to go. For high school age stuff, that can be up to about 100 miles. But we get milage.

For college, we service a couple of schools that are about 300 miles away. Fun trips those are!

[Lawrence.Dorsey]

I agree with the other posts. I go where I am asked to go...We have one HS here that I get about 2-3 times a year and it's 1.5 hrs on a dead run. Normally, every other school I cover is within an hour's drive. But I am not a snob about where I get assigned, my assigner has been really good to me over the past couple of years. For legion, it's about the same but the distance can be a little farther overall. I don't work any summer rec ball games that are farther than 25 minutes away.

We get no mileage for any league where I work in NC. It's strictly a flat fee.

Lawrence

[PeteBooth]

Originally Posted by SAump

Close proximity: How far are you willing to travel to accept an assignment? I am especially interested in hearing from those who travel more than one hour, one-way. What level of game would you accept and which do you turn down? All responses from amateur umpires about travel milage and lodging fees for "longer" distances are welcomed.

The ultimate answer lies in one's umpiring goals. In other words do you want to umpire at the collegiate level and at the HS varsity level.

As for me, I keep my commute at 2 hours ( 1 hour each way) for my "day" job so I am certainly not going to travel any farther for my hobby.

In addition, if I am going to travel an hour's distance I want at a minimum 2 games assigned preferably 3 to make the trip worth while. If you travel 1 hour or greater for one game your net amount will be peanuts with gas prices the way they are. Also, the "hidden' cost is the wear and tare one puts on your car in addition to one's normal driving back and forth to work plus family driving.

The other factor in traveling is: The Entire day is basically "shot"
Example: This past week I had a 9 inning mens game assigned to me in a 5 mile radius. They have a 3 hour time limit on 9 inning games. The game started at 9 AM and we were done just before noon meaning I still had basically all of Sunday to do "other' things.

If you have an hours travlel time as mentioned your day is basically "shot", therefore, if you are going to 'give-up" the day you should have at the mimimum a "Double Dip" scheduled otherwise it's not worth it.

Pete Booth

[gordon30307]

If you agree to work a certain Conference ( High School) you have to take the good (easy schools to get to) with the bad (hard schools to get to). I'll take my turn going to the bad. Most assignors that I work for are pretty good about keeping me reasonabley close to home. On weekends I'm willing to "go on the road" to work schools that I rarely see during the season. In generally the higher the level of play the farther I'm willing toi travel.