Umpire Excellence
 

My school just finished hosting a district tournament. We used five different umpires throughout the week. I just filed complimentary reports on all five of them with our state assocaition. There was one player ejection in the championship game that was handled perfectly and no othere issues throughout the tournament. In case you were wondering, my team did not win the tournament.

I think that was a very admirable move on your part. I am sure that the State Association and the umpires involved will appreciate this.

I've been umping on many levels for 30 years, and I must say that the overall quality of umpiring has GREATLY improved over the past ten years. There are so many clinics with highly trained instructors out there, and they are being taken advantage of by new officials who want to improve and move up.
Kudos to those officials you saw for working hard to be good officials, and a big thanks to you for recognizing that. Not enough coaches do.

JJ

Thanks for taking the time to fill out positive game reports for your umpires. Too often, all of us are probably quick to complain, but slow on taking the time to recognize a job well done. I'm sure the umpires appreciate it.

[QUOTE=harmbu;678268]

While I commend you for writing a complimentary report I have some questions.

1. How many games were in the tournament?
2. 2 or 3 man crews?
3. How were the 5 umpires selected in the first place?

AND

If there were many games in this tournament why only 5 umpires selected?

Thanks

Pete Booth

[QUOTE=PeteBooth;678360]I will be interested to hear, but my guess is 4 man crews, PU from previous game takes a break in the next, and rotate clockwise. I have seen this done before, although I don't know why a district would use 4 umpires.

Pete, I love ya man, but when are you going to learn how to use the quote feature???? It's not rocket science, dude.

[QUOTE=DG;678558]Only six games total spread out over three days. Two man crews the first day and three man the last two days. Some guys worked multiple days/games and others just one day.

man, but [/QUOTE]
Quote
What do you mean?

Mike, can we quote you on that?

JJ

[QUOTE]
You had 1 day of 2 umpires and 2 days where 3 man crews were used. Seems to me there was "enough to go around" yet ONLY 5 umpires selected. Also, you said some guys worked multiple days.

Was there a "discussion" amongst the other umpires in this association who were NOT assigned any tournament games?

Was it strictly based upon some sort of rating system etc?

Reason I ask:

The aforementioned is why it's difficult to get HS certified umpires. There is a tournament somewhere yet only a select few are chosen.

I would guess this type of scenario would be brought up during a meeting.

Pete Booth

Pete, if there were only 6 games spread over 3 days, we're obviously talking about a single field here. If there were 2 umpires on the field on day 1, and 3 on day 2-3, then only 2 umpires worked more than a single day. The MAX umpires you could have had for this, without calling people out to work 1 game of a doubleheader, is 8 (two Friday, 3 Sat, 3 Sun). Seems to me 5 is plenty, and I suspect a lot of places would have used 3 total. If I'm only getting 2 games a day, I better be working more than one day, or I'm finding a better tourney to work.

[QUOTE=PeteBooth;678644]The district and state playoffs in Missouri have NOTHING to do with any association. The district host selects the umpires with recommendations from each coach who has a team in the district. For the state playoffs (Round of 16 and round of 8), the host school hires two umpires and the visiting school hires one umpire if desired. For the Final Four in each class (Four classes), the state governing association picks the umpires with input from evaluators in each area. (The problem being here that ZERO evaluations are done in baseball)

Yes, most districts are single fields, but some play at multiple sites to help with travel problems and if weather comes up. There were only six games total in the tournament.

Around here, 2 games a day is very common. Sometimes in the summer we'll work 3 if need be.

Umpire Schedule
 

Seven teams in the district tournament. One first round bye.

Day 1 (First Round)
Game 1 (KD & ZnM)
Game 2 (KD & DS)
Game 3 (ZnM & DS)

Day 2 (Semi-Finals)
Game 4 (DS & JG)
Game 5 (JG & DS)

Day 3 (Championship)
Game 6 (ZaM, ZnM & JG)

The umpires were selected by recommendations by the participating coaches and then contacted by me (the district manager). We were rained out on the first scheduled day and had to do some shuffling since some were sheduled to work other places on the make-up days. My team was the #3 seed. We lost to the #2 seed in the semi-finals 14-6. The tournament went as seeded with the exception of the #5 upsetting #4 in the first round.

There was one player ejection in the championship game. The way I saw it, after being called out on strikes, he had some sort of comment. PU did not follow him to the dugout or even watch. As the player neared the dugout, he threw his bat to the ground, threw down his helmet, kicked his helmet, sat down and said in a very loud voice, "Come on guys! You have to swing even if it is a foot outside!" At that point he was ejected. Not a quick trigger by any means, but a well-deserved ejection. After the ejection, the player sat in the dugout with a smirk on his face for the remainder of the game. As justice would have it, his spot came up as the tying run in the top of the seventh and struck out.

That PU would be me. :D I hadn't posted that story on here yet, but I put it on another board. That's just about how it happened though.