Do the participants really care how we are dressed

[bigda65]

Post this question on a coaches board, or players board and I would bet that 99.9% of them could care less about what the umpires wore.

They want a consistent strike zone, hustle into positions, confident calls etc. etc.etc.

And way down at the bottom of the list "appearance".

As we all can see, post this on an umpires forum, better than 80% think you cant go anywhere without dressing the part.

I personally do not dress the part, for a couple of reasons:
The main one, is that I am confident enough that my umpiring abilities will overshadow my dressing abilities.
I do not wish to advance at this time. I do mostly volunteer games anyway. I have done some V and JV high school games, where there is pay, but I can assure you, in my area, they could care less about how you dress.