umpiring at a higher level

[Stan W]

I thought I would pass on an experience I had this past weekend. It all came about from advice on
this and other boards that if you wanted to move to a higher level contact the coaches and offer to do some
scrimmages...ect.."get your name out"...I have umpired youth ball from 8-16 and FED ball..I had
always wanted to try and move up to the JC or college levels, but time and opportunity never came
about..I was asked by a local coach to do a game between a travel team of High School age players
and a Baseball Academy team of college bound seniors and a handful of recently signed rookie
leaguers.....older team to use wood only..younger to use aluminum...but other than that straight
OBR...I wont bore you with the details of the game, but it was a great experience....teams were
good, level of play was good....it was a real eye opening experience for me...its not enough to just
pass the test....the speed of the pitching was far greater than anything I was ever accustomed
to....the pace of the game, the gamesmanship, the term "keep your eye everlastingly on the ball"
never had more signifigance.....mistakes in mechanics hurt you tremendously in the speed of this
game....it did expose some glaring weakness in my game ability....fortunately noone seemed to notice
my errors...only beef seemed to be that the HS team thought my zone was too low and the College
age thought it was too wide.....how do I know this..? I asked each team after the game was
over....now I dont know if I will move up to that level, but at least now I know what I need to expect
from the game and myself if I do.....