Associations feud

[thumpferee]

Texas baseball playoffs postponed because of feud between umpire groups | Prep Rally - Yahoo! Sports

Would you back down for the sake of the kids?

[JRutledge]

Problem would be solved if you took associations out of the equation for assigning. When groups that have an interest in the assigning to give to their members, I am not surprised this does not happen more often. Official's Associations should not be assigning any post season anything.

Peace

[jwwashburn]

The schools know who the good umpires are. the athletic directors should ask the coaches and call up guys from a list supplied by the coaches. Plenty of guys would be willing to work the games.

Either that or bring some in from Oklahoma. These guys think they are more important than the kids playing the game. They are not needed.

[rbmartin]

feuding officials groups, injunctions, right to work...

This is a union issue, not an officiating issue.

[jwwashburn]

Right, so some umpires should go officiate the games.

[cbfoulds]

All too typical for news articles that deal with legal issues, this article lacks clarity about what, exactly, the problem is.

"Injunctions" are typically not "filed" by litigants [Petitions for Injunction ARE], rather they are granted by a Judge after some form of hearing on a Petition or Motion. And they are not, typically, granted where what you have is, in essence, a breach of contract suit where money damages [lost umpiring fees, for example] are an available and adequate remedy.

Similarly, it is not clear how the jilted TASO claims the "right" to umpire these particular games. Do they have a contract granting them the exclusive right to supply umpires for all games at a particular venue? Does their contract [presuming they have one] explicitly cover or include post-season/ "playoff" games?

I don't see assigning by an Association as the source of the problem here, nor removing it as a solution. In my area, HS post-season games up to the Regional level are assigned by the association that supplies umpires to the host school(s), and State games are assigned [typically] by the State assigning a particular Assn to supply a crew for a certain game, with the Assn. chosen to be "neutral" to the teams playing, but selected from the group of those Assns who have a team they serve during the regular season in the State Tournament(s). Seems to work fairly well.

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by cbfoulds

I don't see assigning by an Association as the source of the problem here, nor removing it as a solution. In my area, HS post-season games up to the Regional level are assigned by the association that supplies umpires to the host school(s), and State games are assigned [typically] by the State assigning a particular Assn to supply a crew for a certain game, with the Assn. chosen to be "neutral" to the teams playing, but selected from the group of those Assns who have a team they serve during the regular season in the State Tournament(s). Seems to work fairly well.

The reason I said this as my state does all post season assigning at all levels comes from the State Office. It eliminates this entire issue all together. Now we are in a big state as well and our state has every single time make the playoffs which has to be a nightmare on many issues. In baseball there are play-in games that are not located at the Regional site (or first stage of the playoffs), so that can be difficult to find people to cover all those games. Associations assigning have inherent interest in who gets those games and IMO if it is not defined who can work those games, this is the problem. Either the state should take over the assigning to prevent this or give it to people that are to be objective that have no direct association ties hired from the state. This would never happen here because if you do not get a playoff game, you cannot run to your association for help. And based on things I have heard about other sports and how Texas assigns, that sounds like a nightmare. Just because something has been done for a long time does not mean it is right or the right way to do things.

Peace

[MrUmpire]

Originally Posted by jwwashburn

The schools know who the good umpires are. the athletic directors should ask the coaches and call up guys from a list supplied by the coaches. Plenty of guys would be willing to work the games.

Either that or bring some in from Oklahoma. These guys think they are more important than the kids playing the game. They are not needed.

Yeah, let's end the feud between associations with coaches competing to bring in homers.

[johnnyg08]

Originally Posted by MrUmpire

competing to bring in homers.

this is a lot of it!!

[DG]

Originally Posted by JRutledge

Problem would be solved if you took associations out of the equation for assigning. When groups that have an interest in the assigning to give to their members, I am not surprised this does not happen more often. Official's Associations should not be assigning any post season anything.

Peace

Disagree. See no problem with the home team official's assignor assigning umpires. Problem is when this is not understood.

Here, state finals are assigned by an assigned association that is known before year starts so it is possible for a team's home association to officiate, and always a state selected neutral site. The state finals officials work 4 man crews for several games before the finals.

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by DG

Disagree. See no problem with the home team official's assignor assigning umpires. Problem is when this is not understood.

Here, state finals are assigned by an assigned association that is known before year starts so it is possible for a team's home association to officiate, and always a state selected neutral site. The state finals officials work 4 man crews for several games before the finals.

Something appears to be wrong. Bottom line get playoff assigning away from associations when there is a clear conflict of interest if teams are not playing from the same conference or games are assigned by the same association.

Peace

[Rich]

Originally Posted by MrUmpire

Yeah, let's end the feud between associations with coaches competing to bring in homers.

It's amazing the stupidity on this board tonight. Let's have each coach pick an umpire and have them change gear after 3.5 innings so each coach gets *his* guy on the plate for half the game. Let's flip a coin to see who calls the plate first, too.

Sheesh.

[CT1]

Our state has eight officiating districts, each of which has several hundred officials and is administered by a District Director. The State Office assigns playoff series (best 2-of-three) to the DDs, who then pick the crews (all 3-man, BTW) to officiate.

Although coaches may "scratch" 3 umpires statewide, they have no other input into the selections.

[MrUmpire]

Originally Posted by GROUPthink

It's amazing the stupidity on this board tonight. Let's have each coach pick an umpire and have them change gear after 3.5 innings so each coach gets *his* guy on the plate for half the game. Let's flip a coin to see who calls the plate first, too.

Sheesh.

In case you didn't notice the sarcasm, you repeated me point.

[MD Longhorn]

TASO IS the state organization. Why in the world these schools thought to use COLLEGIATE umpires is beyond me. UIL and TASO don't get along perfectly, but the current contract is for TASO to provide umpires for all public school games under the UIL.