What is going on with ML baseball umpires

[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.