Do the participants really care how we are dressed

[Emperor Ump]

Originally Posted by piaa_ump

I took this thought to heart...I applied this to my 2 associations....man by man with my regular partner and our assignor...The 3 of us went down the roster and almost to a man we agreed that the umpires that are consistently rated as the best are also the better dressed umpires...

The only few (3) exceptions were very senior umpires who have allowed thier uniforms standards to lag as they transistion out ...

This is a great point...

It goes to pride. Those who take pride in their work are going to dress better, work harder on their mechanics, study the rules more in depth and therefore be better umpires.

Back to the original post do the participants care? I believe yes, to a lesser extent than other umpires, but they do still care. Maybe in my area and it sounds like in SoCal too (based on SDS & Kyles comments) the expectation has been set and the participants and parents know what an umpire should look like. I do also agree that they will probably be able to set aside their prejudices once an umpire demonstrates his ability, for better or worse.