What is going on with ML baseball umpires

[tballump]

Joe West is originally from Asheville, NC--attended East Carolina and graduated from Elon---He was quarterback for 3 years at Elon and led them to the NAIA bowl game in Shreveport, LA in 1973 where they lost to Abilene Christian 42-14. Joe Worked the Western Carolina-Carolina League in 1974-75 with Drew Coble, another Elon College Graduate who was in the American League(Crew Chief) and was fired in 1999 as he was home nursing his wife who had terminal cancer even though he never signed any papers whatsoever. Judge Symonic reinstated Joe West and Drew Coble because they had been unfairly terminated, and Drew Coble decided he had enough and retired while Joe continues to this day. Joe was named Crew Chief upon his return (pretty darn good for a guy who is so terrible and was fired). He worked the 2005 All-Star game, Division series and World Series.

The above is all on the internet in various places, including the trials from 1999-2002 strike and firings although I might be hard pressed to find them now.

[tballump]

Joe was one of the last umpires who did not work a full AA season before being called up to AAA in 1976 (Tim Tschida is one of the others)(Montague and McSherry skipped AA altogether) and also worked his first NL game in 1976. Joe worked AAA and NL in 1977 before signing with NL in 1978.

MLB has plenty of time to scout and evaluate every umpire in AAA for their compentency as a MLB Umpire, so Blake Cullen or whoever was National League President in 1978 was never forced to hire Joe as a NL Umpire.

I'm sure Joe's umpiring reputation and no-nonsense style was known long before he was hired and I'm sure that style fit well with umpiring supervisor Al Barlick (Hall of famer) at the time, along with his outstanding plate and base work on the field. So, when the National League hired Joe, they knew what they were getting and therefor condoned all phases of his umpiring and competency or they would not have hired him, and this is true for all the AAA Umpires that are hired by MLB.