Travel Time?

[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?

[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

[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.