[QUOTE][QUOTE=Multiple Sports;902937][QUOTE=PeteBooth;902878]Disagreeing is all part of the Internet Umpire Doscussion Forum setting. If we all agreed it would be boring.

IMO, you are comparing Apples / Oranges

In the example you gave College officiating is a paid job and that's the way it's done. Same in HS once you get to the sectional / state level. You are chosen because of ratings.

LL is a Volunteer Organization and is different. It's ok to use "so and so" during the reg season but because the "stakes" are now higher we don't need them anymore?

What message are you sending? In the example you gave there is a plethora of officials waiting for their chance.

During a regular season LL game, try and find umpires. I was once one of those "parents from the stands umpires" , enjoyed it and took it a step further.

IMO, cannot compare college or even HS officiating to a volunteer organization. Like I said can't have it both ways.

Pete Booth

Except that LL insists on trying to do exactly that.

Like I said before, you get what you pay for. If you disagree, watch another game on TV until you agree. It's a mess. If you don't see the mess, you have put your blinders on and refuse to see.

This umpire also pounded his fists together and then touched his mask with two fingers (not all the time but often enough that I picked up on it). Probably doesn't realize he's doing it - but it looks bad.

There's a lot of talk here about volunteers Vs higher quality umpires.

Bottom line is the vast majority of umpires I've seen have demonstrated a complete lack of training. There are, of course, exceptions but I would not trust most of these guys in a HS JV game.

That's because you're mostly seeing untrained volunteers, or 20 year guys who have one year of experience repeated 20 times, rather than 20 years of experience. It's a monkey show, but who cares - they can replay everything.

I will say this, I took pride in my work when I volunteered for little league, and I take pride in my work when I get paid. It makes no difference to me. The little league umpires who I know and worked with all thought the same way. At the district level, we took pride in the clinics we ran and I will put any of our volunteer umpires up against any of these LLWS umpires across the board.

It is insulting to me that Little League would let things get so bad, and then hide behind the "they are only volunteer's" excuse and put in instant replay to fix the mistakes of the umpires they use. It's a sad state of affairs, in my opinion.

The plate umpire on the Panama-Chinese Taipae game was wearing the +POS chest protector with all the plastic studs that show through the shirt. Great protection but boy was that thing heavy! He did a nice job with the strike zone, even though Nomar accused him of tightening up in the 6th inning.

Agree. From what I saw he was pretty consistant in his strike zone.

Some finish to this game......poor Taipea third basemen. :(

I did appreciate the sportsmanship at the end as the team from Chinese-Taipae bowed to the crowd in thanking them.

I watched him do another plate game a couple of days ago, and saw him do this. I think it's some kind of quirky ritual to get him locked in.

MLB now will have instant replay challenges. Joe Torre says that there is an average of 3 blown calls for every 15 daily games or 20% of the games played. 89 reviewable plays vs 11 non-reviewable.
Does that make it a monkey show?
Is the difference is money for the teams and players when Little League only pays for transportation and housing for either to the show?
ABC pays 10's of millions of dollars to broadcast Little League every year. They and their sponsors obviously like the product because of the ratings it gets.
Granted, there is too much politics involved in the assignments, but Volunteer Umpires are part of Little League's overall program.
The only poor officiating analogy I can see make is why, unless a NBA Team is more down by more than 20 points with 5 minutes to go in a game, why do they end up so close? Did the players "dog it" until then or do the referees have poorer judgment?
JMHO

[QUOTE=PeteBooth;902943][QUOTE][QUOTE=Multiple Sports;902937]Pete -

You are right, Being it is LL, the comparison may be a bit different. But ultimately, if I am responsible for umpires and you "volunteered" 20 dates
and someone else with 6 state championships under their belt is available and
has met LL qualifications and worked 1 game, I am taking him. If you don't like that, then you have to become a better umpire.

To be completely honest, I see a real trend in officiating today, where guys
are stepping out on the field or court poorly trained or not trained at all and are either in it for the money or are volunteering and then when "better" blues come along they are upset that they are getting pushed to the side.

Ultimately you are responsible for your own schedule........have you done everything you can do to ensure a good schedule.

Are you in the best shape / Is your uniform dry cleaned / do you know rules inside and out / do you have the best people skills (game management) / do you turn back game during the season.. All the above affecct your schedule in ways you have no idea....

Hope I didn't go off on a tangent, but nobody is owed anything in officiating.....

[QUOTE=Multiple Sports;903047][QUOTE=PeteBooth;902943][QUOTE]You are absolutely correct of course and that is the way we would all like it to be.

Maybe in your assigning life, you haven't come across this just yet, but if constantly keep pushing aside the less talented, but always available guy for the more talented, less availability guy, the always available guy eventually won't be available. It's a fine balancing act you have to walk as an assignor.

[QUOTE=Multiple Sports;903047][QUOTE=PeteBooth;902943][QUOTE]Paying everybody the same begets poor officiating. Why would someone invest in training if they're in it for the money, and training does not result in a return on that investment? If the 3-year dropout rate is any indicator, most people who step on a court or field don't think officiating is all that enjoyable, so people who want good officials need to make getting better a worthwhile proposition.

Nobody is owed anything in officiating, sure. That cuts both ways: Game participants aren't owed good officials, either. I'm so sick of hearing how 'X' team or league "deserves the best officials." They all get pretty much what they deserve, and nowhere is that more apparent than the LLWS.

In both my observations and experience, in amateur baseball, generally, the better you pay the umpires, the better the umpires you get.

No. Having crappy umpires makes it a monkey show.

I only normally try to explain a rule to some people in the stands for the most part. I asked him a question, and it was obvious he knew his stuff. His team were defending state champions in their classification, and they did repeat.

Not all coaches are mentally challenged.

So keep shaking there, boss.