It is quite expensive to maintain the regional complexes in the 8 regions (2 are combined so 6 complexes) not to mention the International Complex. There are 8 World Series sites as well to maintain. The teams are brought to the Series on Little Leagues dime. The teams are fed 3 meals a day in the cafeteria as well. Russell Athletic covers the uniforms and Easton supplies brand new equipment for the Series. The other World Series have a few televised games as well as regional play coverage. There are International teams at those tournaments as well.

My apologies I misunderstood what you meant by inherently. If you watched the Series this year the umpiring was better than average if you were objective. There were some mistakes as with ANY tournament (BTW CB Bucknor botched a trapped ball last night and called it no catch (edit)- It wasnt clearly obvious, but I noticed it right away) then the RF 'er came up throwing to the plate to cut down a runner who wasn't tagging. I know we are talking about LL umpires, but it happens at every level. Some people just are not able to objectively admit this. Does it happen more often at LL...yes, but hopefully it can be improved. However, it is farse to say that payment for services rendered will accomplish the improvement.

Unless Little League has some kind of backwards bizzaro world business model, I'm sure that whatever expenses they incur to hold this tournament are well-covered by the television revenue.

They might be doing all this "on their own dime"...but it's a pretty big dime!

I did not mean to infer that Little League is struggling as an organization. Further, I did not mention the European regional sites either. That being said what is the problem with an organization such as LL making money and improving its product? If we are talking about paying umpires, whats to say we shouldn't pay the coaches, managers, scorekeepers, etc. It will be a matter of time before we are talking about paying the players.

Apology accepted. I did not say each individual umpire was bad ... I said the overall quality of the umpiring was bad. And if you feel the umpiring was better than average, I suggest strongly that you get out more. The umpiring on TV was an embarassment to those of us who do the job, and on the whole brought the perception of umpires across the board down. Go work a district tournament in ANY other organization (not to mention a regional or state) and you'll see better umpiring than you saw on TV. Given that you work LL, you are probably completely unaware of the HUGE number of poor positioning, poor (or unnecessary) rotations, etc that we saw. I'm not talking wrong calls... I'm talking wrong calls because the umpire was not where he should have been, or was making a call that belonged to someone else better placed to make the call.

Really? I'm sure he's aware since he was a *minor league umpire*.

And I work LL, etc. and I would like to think I'm quite aware, too.

Broad brush, again.

That's just awful.

Yup. Too bad, too. I always thought better of him.

We have 5 umpires in our district who I'd put up against any umpires. All 5 have worked college schedules and deep into the HS playoffs -- 4 of us have worked one of the LL World Series tournaments (2 at the LLWS). July and August are dedicated to LL for all of us. I guess we magically turn into crappy umpires the second they stop paying us to work games and we put on a LL patch.

I was at the LLWS. I worked with all the gentlemen, and one lady (who was awesome). It was a good group of veteran LL umpires I would be proud to work with anytime. So, I would have to disagree with you. And honestly, I would love to come and work with you sometime. Further, when we were done I would not rake you over the coals. I would buy you a cold one and a plate wings!

As far as positioning goes you have a point to a certain degree. The small diamond often limits the amount of angle you can get on a given play. I was blocked out on a play at first by the F4 (2ndbaseman), but I made an adjustment and got the play right. However, there we those that were out of position at times. As a whole, the umpiring was no where near the level that has been described in this forum. A few mistakes and some controversy, but nothing that cost any team a chance at the title.

It would certainly be nice if people could understand that umpiring, like anything else, requires constant self analysis and adjustments. You cannot position yourself in the same place for every play. You must react to each individual play. If you can see a play clearly from one position that may not be textbook, then what is the difference? If you are nailing the plays from that position then why change? If you are kicking plays from the proper position, what good is proper position?

I did witness plays that were called incorrectly. One of those plays was mine. I owned during the game, after the game, and right now. There was not as many blown calls as people many want to believe. Maybe people should be offering possible solutions instead of ripping people apart?

Obviously what I said is being taken in a way I didn't intend... but after rereading I'm not seeing it. I've repeatedly said that there are good umpires and bad umpires in LL --- just that the selection pool in general is worse. What did I say to make you think poorly of me?

(Whatever it was, I apologize).

Edit to add: I've not read every post this guy has ever made, perhaps not even every single post of his in this thread... I was not aware he is (or says he is) a minor league umpire. I based my statement on his direct quote that the umpiring in this year's LLWS was not bad... I think it's clear that it was bad - very bad. Perhaps my assumption of the reason he was unaware was wrong ... but I'm honestly flabbergasted then that ANY minor league umpire could have watched this year's LLWS and called that umpiring "not bad".

In any case, I apologize for the broad brush.

I've been milling over whether to say this or not, and I hope it's not taken the wrong way, but I don't think John Hosler was up to the task. He looked out of his element.

Tim.

That's not what I meant, and I think you know that.

I don't recall ripping anyone apart. I do recall offering possible solutions multiple times. WTH are you talking about? I'm not even talking about bad calls - I'm talking about bad umpiring. Seriously - do you REALLY think the games were umpired well? No one else I know does.

As to solutions, I'll recap, but this thread is riddled with solutions.
1) Pay your umpires. Not just sometimes if certain places feel like it... Always. This will ensure you're talent pool is as large as possible and put your association on a level with everyone else.
2) Train your umpires. Not just an optional occasional training session. REQUIRED training that is tailored toward it's audience. I assure you that the first clinic I attend each year is completely different from those before District, State, etc. And it's constant... not just once, far away from anyone, held by some local yokel who has no clue (which was my experience in the 1 and only LL training I've been to).
3) Fix the selection process. This is a problem all over, but it seems worse at LL --- possibly due to 1 and 2 above. The rookie with 15 consecutive rookie seasons under his belt gets the call - but the 3rd year guy who attends everything he can possibly attend, reads posts here, etc - he gets nothing.

I'll apologize again for what appeared to be an erroneous broad brush ... I should not have assumed your statement that the umpiring at the LLWS was not bad was due to a lack of perspective. I don't know what it WAS ... other than that it was wrong.

As an aside ... if the best one can say about an organization's showcase event is that it "wasn't bad" ... don't you consider that a problem in and of itself? At such an event, one would hope that the impartial viewer (or the umpire viewer) would come away saying, "Wow, those guys were great".

Whether that is true or not doesnt take away from who John is as a person or a LL volunteer. Further, be advised that I am not inferring ANYTHING! That aside Jon made some greats calls that others might have missed under the circumstances. You cannot begin to imagine what it is like to know that the calls you make could be reversed. LL did a great job preparing the umpires for replay and frontloaded the recommended approach to it. That being said, I think Mr. Hosler gave his best to the task. I came to know him as a person so I know this to be true. John answered the call and gave his best effort. Until you are standing on the field at Howard J. Lamade Stadium in front of 15,000 fans and on National televison you cannot assess Johns performance...that has been my point all along. Some will never have the opportunity to experience this because of their deploration of the LL program. I, myself, learned more about my own game in Williamsport...

I would work with John Hosler anytime!