A LLWS Observation

[Mrumpiresir]

Originally Posted by KJUmp

Don't tell me what's "in my book." Don't presume you know what I look for from myself as an umpire, or what I look for from partners. You have no idea what type of umpire I am. One thing that you should know, it's not my style to trash other umpires or to not treat them with the respect any fellow umpire deserves.

JM, Pete, Rich have all posted replies that I think put the whole LLBB regional and WS umpiring in the right perspective.

My point is that this is an organization (LLBB) who's leagues and post season tournaments the large majority of us here on the board do not work. It's a level of BB we may have been involved in at one time, but we no longer work small diamond BB for whatever reason.

So unless there are some of us here who harbor some deep desire to be working an LL regional of WS, to be standing in the place of these guys are this week, why all the criticism?

They're Little League umpires. LLBB is a different gig, we all know that (or should anyway), it's why we don't/won't work it. That's our choice. The guys we've seen on ESPN made the choice to work LLBB, let them umpire.

You want to slam LLBB and the powers and the whole replay thing fine, have at it, they deserve it....not the umps.

Fact is, those umpires did not perform well and as a result we will all have to live it down. There is no way you can defend their performance.

So, all the criticism is due to the lack of basic umpiring abilities exhibited by some of these guys. I think it has been correctly stated that getting a gig like this, even though they are volunteers, does not excuse their lack of basic mechanics and rules knowledge.

If you think this is ok.... well that's a sad statement of the expected qualities of those umpires.