Appearance

[Dakota]

Called my first games with my daughter this past week.

We did a 12U league double-header on Thursday, and four 10U games in a tournament on Saturday. (More on the DD experience in another post.) All ASA.

The point of this post is I spent a lot of time explaining the importance of a professional appearance - proper uniform, shined shoes (even though they are covered with dust soon enough), etc.

But what did we see at this tournament?

Several umpires wearing long-sleeved shirts under their powder blues - one black, the others white (yes, it was a bit chilly - but for gosh sakes, this is MN - how can you expect to umpire in MN and not invest in a proper umpire jacket)? One of the "white shirts" even had the long sleeve pushed up above the elbow.

One umpire with a bright red mask with tan pads. From a distance, it looked like he was wearing a red hat.

One clueless umpire with his chest protector OUTISDE his shirt. Thank goodness (I guess) he was wearing a jacket over the protector (not an umpire jacket, natch).

Sigh.