CNN Story
 

Here's another story about the smallest door in sports. It's vanilla but many of us enjoy reading up on guys we know, have heard or or aspire to work with. Enjoy or ridicule...

Long road to umpiring in the majors - CNN.com

Small door indeed. It is hard to see how anyone would go into the profession with the goal of becoming an MLB umpire unless your dad was one. Truly, it is done for the love of the game. My hat is off to you guys!

I watched this crew in Norfolk last week. They do a nice job and handled a very easy game well. Neat to see a story about them though.

There was a good long article about the travels and trials of MLB umpire hopefuls working the Northwoods League in the Sunday edition of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. I'd post a link but you have to be a subscriber to read the article. I picked up the paper in MN and saw the story - check it out if your public library carries the Star-Tribune.

JJ

That Star Tribune story will be available online later this week (they delay posting them online for a few days as a perk for their paying customers... which seems reasonable to me).

When it becomes available, I'll post the link.

Great story.
A guy from my association started just like that.

He's in his 4th year and is doing AA right now. So far so good on his evaluations. Got to see him do the AA Cards in Springfield. Fun time.

Richie or Matt?

Thanks!

JJ