Gotta be said...

[fwump]

I attended the first annual North Texas Umpire Clinic at Southwest Christian HS in Ft. Worth earlier this year. Teb Barrett and Rob Drake were instructors as well as AAA, AA, and A, level umps.

It would be presumptuous for me to ascribe a motive for Rob creating his web-site which I really enjoyed. However, in my opinion, based on the three fantastic days at the clinic, I am confident that his motive was merely to create a place for umpires to learn about the life of professional umpires and also possibly learn something in the process of visiting the site.

I believe this because Rob and Ted and all the guys were professional, patient, friendly, and a heck of alot of fun to be around. I learned more in three days about umpiring than I learned in my entire carreer previous. Great Guys!

We all went out to dinner that Saturday evening and I brought my wife and my 17 yr old son who also umpires. Rob sat with us and told stories and really encouraged and inspired my son to keep up with umpiring. I'm going to bring him next year to the clinic.

Rob Drake is a super guy and a phenominal Umpire and doesnt deserve the shabby treatment he recieved on this forum. My 2 cents.

Rgds

Mike

[canadaump6]

I'm afraid I don't understand what shabby treatment you are referring to. MLB had Mr. Drake shut down his website for reasons that didn't revolve around this forum.

You may have been referring to the post in which fitump56 came across pretty strongly towards Mr. Drake. I personally did not understand the reason for the outburst, but it may have been that fitump thought Mr. Drake was referring to himself and InterestedUmp when he told the forum body to stop acting like children. I think fitump's post was the result of paranoia on his part, but who can blame him? He's been called every name under the sun since he came here and is often the victim of insults and cheap shots.

I do not have any other answers as to what constitutes this "shabby treatment", because other than the one incident described above I haven't observed any acts of aggression towards him.

[SAump]

These MiLB umps kept asking about trying those damn Mizuno and Nike masks that I can't afford. I suggested that they contact Rob here or on his website. I didn't think of the harm it may have done. My apologies.