Game fees.

[Rich]

I made $115 for a 1:35 HS game today. Gotta love the state playoffs and 40¢/mile roundtrip travel money.

[zm1283]

I still haven't been paid (And probably won't) for a game the first week of May. It was supposed to be two games for a tournament at Team B's field, but Team A was actually the host of the tournament. My partner and I get there about 45 minutes or so before the scheduled start....no one at the field at all. It was a Saturday morning. We call the assigner's answering machine (He leaves cancellations on there), and it had been updated on Friday afternoon, so nothing about Saturday. We finally get ahold of an A.D. from another school that was in the tournament and he tells us the games were all washed on Friday. (It had not rained since Thursday night)

I emailed the A.D.s from both Team A and B. B's A.D. told me that even though they were having games at their field, A's A.D. was in charge of paying umpires. I got no reply from A's A.D. and the assignor tells me that he doubts I'll get paid because "They'll say they called the cancellation in". (Which even if they did, it never made it on the answering machine)

Very frustrating. I should be getting mileage and one game fee because they didn't call us when the games were washed.

[Matt]

Originally Posted by zm1283

...the assignor tells me that he doubts I'll get paid because "They'll say they called the cancellation in". (Which even if they did, it never made it on the answering machine).

Methinks your assignor owes you some cash...

[zm1283]

Originally Posted by Matt

Methinks your assignor owes you some cash...

Methinks you're right, but I don't want to push it too far in fear of pissing him off and not getting games.

[Matt]

Originally Posted by zm1283

Methinks you're right, but I don't want to push it too far in fear of pissing him off and not getting games.

Just from experience (thankfully not mine,) an assignor that doesn't give his umpires what is due is going to keep getting his unearned pound of flesh, and if you seriously worry about getting games because you try to get what is due you, why would you want to keep working for such a person? Try to find an association that has integrity.

[zm1283]

Originally Posted by Matt

Just from experience (thankfully not mine,) an assignor that doesn't give his umpires what is due is going to keep getting his unearned pound of flesh, and if you seriously worry about getting games because you try to get what is due you, why would you want to keep working for such a person? Try to find an association that has integrity.

I get what you mean. I might try and pursue it one more time and see how it turns out.

[Kevin Finnerty]

Umpires are paid ridiculously low fees. It's an insult to be paid what little we're already paid for going through what we go through to do a game. Measured against most vocations, it should pay three times what it pays per game. So, when we get squeezed, it is an insult tacked on an already insulting compensation rate.

I work in and around L.A. I sometimes drive as many as 80-to-100 miles round trip to do a game. Sixty miles is about average. We get zero for mileage. I have an SUV, so the gas mileage is rather poor (12-14 m.p.g.). When gas was $4.50 per gallon, I had some games that were costing me $20 just for gas.

We do this because we love it. I can think of only one thing that I would do for less money than I accept for umpiring. But in order to keep umpiring, the costs and sacrifices must be allayed somewhat by a reasonable fee. It needs to go up, not down. These guys who try to go on the cheap deserve the umpiring they eventually get.