I debated myself as to whether to post this or not...

Recent events during ASA softball clinics, games, etc, have left me extremely disenchanted with umpiring softball any longer. First let me say that I am in this for the girls and for the love of the game. Not the power, and not the money (the money is nice, but it's just an extra - not my motivation).

Here's what gets me.

I also officiate football. Here in Texas, football officials are required to complete (successfully) a closed-book exam to prove they actually understand the rules. Officials are also required to go to weekly meetings throughout the season. We have between 300 and 500 people at these meetings, which feature large group sessions (occasionally, an NFL or NCAA ref will address us, occasionally it's to discuss an overall issue - often we watch film, decide what we'd call, and discuss), as well as small group sessions where officials can hone their skills in specific areas. Specific attention is paid to newer officials as well.

However, in softball, any old yahoo (or young yahoo for that matter) who is willing to spend 4 hours in a meeting being given the answers to a test can officiate. Many "experienced" officials have no more rules knowledge than my 6-year old son. I've determined that the worst thing I can hear from a new partner is, "I've been doing this for 25 years" - those guys are INVARIABLY the dumbasses or the OOO's.

In the past 3 weeks, I've come across an umpire who's been doing this for 25 years (who is also IN CHARGE of umpires in his area) who, while coaching, practically ripped my head off for not calling an opposing player out for BOO, twice in the same inning, when he brought the matter to our attention A) after the BOO batter had advanced from 1st to 3rd on 2 passed balls, and B) after the BOO batter had stolen 2nd on a strike. (Worse, my partner, an umpire for 10 years, was ready to ring up an out until I stopped him.) I came across an umpire who's been working for 20 years that had never heard of obstruction (he thought the only obstruction was when a runner tries to break up a double play). I watched as a 10-year umpire called a batter out for failing to immediately run on a D3K, saying, "No - any hesitation and she's out".

2 years ago, I worked with the 25-year official who called Verbal Fan interference, and loudly called me a "F#&$#ing Idiot" for thinking that the batter can attempt to reach first on a 3rd strike that bounced, but was fielded cleanly by the catcher.

Last year it was the woman ("I've been doing this forever")who called an out and ejected a runner at 2nd during a tournament (I was watching, waiting to do the next game), when said runner failed to slide at second as the throw CAME INTO THIRD BASE!

Let's not even discuss the Dixie clinic I went to where the TRAINER told us that if the pitch bounced before it reached home plate, it was an illegal pitch, and all runners advance. Same guy recommended ejecting for first offense on catchers that obstruct at the plate (even without maliciousness or intent) if they cause a collision.

Where is the training? Why the horribly lax certification? I don't believe these guys are intentionally unknowing on the rules... it's the Softball Organizations that do not FORCE officials to know the rules.

I work at this craft, and I take it seriously. It is 100% disheartening to constantly run into this sort of nonsense. I don't consider myself an OOO --- but I DO consider myself a "rules-guy", and am constantly baffled by the lackadaisical rules knowledge out there by supposedly experienced folks.

Judging from the posts on these boards ... you all are seeing these guys out there too.

Why the lack of caring by our softball organizations to make sure we ALL have a solid understanding of the rules?

What is an "OOO?"

My thoughts....
 

I did basketball this year and am now doing softball,1st year in both sports. I ,too, am kinda taken aback by the shortcomings I see. I believe the quality of officials depends on each persons ability to self motivate. I am very self motivated when something interests me, such as officiating. I think it is human nature to do as little as possible to get the job done. I know in other areas of my life, yardwork, i could care less and my backyard is indicative of that attitude.
I come to the forums, go to watch more experienced officials, read the rule books, ask questions, etc, etc and quite frankly it shows.
for alot of people I think it is all about the money and it shows there also. My wife laughs that they send me checks each month cause I would do it for gas money.
I heard a cliche about doing 10% better than everyone else and you will be a superstar and in officiating I believe it rings real true.
After one year of basketball officicating I can go into a gym,, watch 10 refs BEFORE the game starts and point out which ones are the rec refs and which ones put the effort into learning POE, new Interps. etc. I am not quite there in Softball but I can smell a lazy umpire a mile away already.
Hope my post makes some sense.

Let's face it. There isn't exactly a waiting list to become a softball umpire. Therefore we lower our standards. If you leave, that will increase the shortage of quality umpires and create a bigger problem for the sport. Which, in turn, would cause others to get their fill eventually too.

Softball umpires need to do a better job of marketing, recruiting, and yes training too. But instead of dropping out, why not recruit a few good prospects? Young people don't realize what a great opportunity they have to earn more on the field than they do frying chicken and flipping burgers. 2 of my teenagers are now eager to learn the rules and get started.

What if every good umpire got just one more good umpire to join the ranks? As the numbers increase, so does the opportunity to be selective based on skills and overall desire.

I don't want to hijack this thread, but I am appalled by the attitudes of many umpires who are knowlegeable and seasoned veterans who can't wait to get the game over and off the field. They ***** about the weather, the coaches, the players and any number of things that are just negative as hell. Well, in my opinion, these are B-players that eventually need to be weeded out. As I revealed in an earlier thread, I am a 15-year coach who has come over to the "dark side". I am very disillusioned with a lot of what I have mentioned. But I love the game, I love umpiring, I love learning, and I love doing it right. I have attended the National Umpire School, our Regional Clinic, our Association Clinic as well as a Developmental Clinic that was held. The number of A-players is definitley too low. So, in a lot of cases I am learning what not to do from other umpire's mistakes. OK I am off my soap box.

Dang Tcannizzo
 

After that speech i would be willing to go and impale myself on an illegal bat for you dude.. The motivating coach within came out om that one . LOL

I know that I got out of umpiring for a while and now I'm going back to it. I love the game and just couldn't stay away anymore. I'm hoping next year to maybe pick up Fast Pitch, came from a state with almost no fast pitch. I'm getting a late start this year and the rules have changed in the past six years. That is the fun of umpiring though, knowing the rules and applying them correctly and quickly. If we could recruit more young umpires and train them properly, eventually those who were not so good would either not get any good games, get better so as not to get shown up, or quit. At least thats my opinion.

mcrowder,

I've seen the same thing in my area. Becoming certified for FED baseball was like a freakin' boot camp! My local association goes to extremes to provide training, testing and evaluation.

Last month, I got my ASA certification- or, more accurrately, became registered by ASA. As IrishMike has pointed out before, ASA does not certify umpires. Rather, it registers them.

To become an ASA umpire all I had to do was show up for 3 out of 4 rules meetings, pay an ASA registration fee and pay the local association fee. No tests were required. I could be the biggest yahoo in the state, but I'd be registered just the same.

Aside from classes and training, I've spent countless hours studying on my own, in hopes of polishing my own game-calling skills. When I run into these misinformed "experts" you describe, or see other umpires with sloppy mechanics or poor rule knowledge, here's how it affects me:

IT MAKES ME WANT TO TRY EVEN HARDER TO DO IT THE RIGHT WAY!

[Edited by BretMan on Apr 7th, 2005 at 02:05 PM]

I've ran across that in Kansas. I have worked a total of 4 games so far and two of them by-myself.... Fast Pitch. And one of them I was the UIC with another rookie. Me myself being a rookie found this kinda frightining. Anyway my story now. Runners on first and third. The runner on first steals second but not before a pitch comes in and is tagged by the elbo of the fielder. I saw this clear as day, my partener had the angle and saw this clear as day, and you guessd it, OOOOOOUUUUUUUUTTTTTTTTT!!!!!. If anything I thought the fielder was in the way a bit much and had some obstruction. Oh well my partner was quasi-on-top of it so I backed him up. Thank god he at-least moved to get in position and sold his call.

Dunno what the world is comming to,

Kenny

Rookies or newer guys not knowing EVERYthing doesn't bother me much, as long as they are eager to learn and receptive to both negative and positive feedback.

It's the know-it-alls that actually know nothing, but refuse to listen or learn (and are further not REQUIRED to learn by our associations) that kill me.

PS - how did a pitch end up at 2nd?

Mispoke.... Throw after the pitch, catcher fumbled, and the runner tryed to steal.

I love having umpires at my games watching so they can critique me after the game. That is how I leart to "growl" when I call my strikes. So far noboy has criticized my strike zone because when I come up with one I loud and sure, lovly thing selling calls. Just wish I got to work with more veteran referees that knew how to call the game so I could learn.

TC,

Kenny

P.S. a quick question about a pitch. NFHS Rules,
Pitcher is on rubber and brings ball and glove up to the heart (mid chest), i believe this is called adressing home plate. Anyway. She drops the hands and goes back to like a bowling swing then brings the hands back up to that "adressing home plate" position and back down and back then around in "windmill" and releases. Does this count as 2 or 3 times around (there is 3 passes of the hip). If so there is an illegal pitch in there then.

[Edited by Gozer on Apr 7th, 2005 at 02:40 PM]

I'm a coach who would rather ump. Life's circumstances have just ended up that way.

But as a coach, I can say that the thing I appreciate the most is a good umpire, so that I can concentrate on other things. Here in Germany, not the softball capital of the world, things aren't so great. I have never, NEVER, seen an OBS call. I have asked for it and got it, but the umpires do not look for it and never call it.

The point is, we NEED dedicated umpires who know the rules and call them. If you give up, you are letting everything just go to waste. Maintaining high standards means being frustrated; quitting means letting us down. There are some coaches out there who just want the game to be played right and fair. We are not looking to trick anybody or seeking an extra advantage. We read the message boards not to come up with tricks but to learn the rules as best we can. We want good umpires. We complain about umpires who are idiots (and I've seen a few) but we don't complain about the occasional blown call, because we make mistakes ourselves. (I've umpired several times, and I know how hard it is. And I have experienced the occasion when I say "strike" and afterwards think that the ball was just above the shoulders. I blew it. But hell, it's just one strike, and that's not deciding the game. As a coach, when I'm standing on third and send a girl in to home and she's tagged a yard before the plate, I don't blame the umpire, I blame myself. Performance is not about mistakes, but consistency.)

Anyway, don't give up because those around you are incompetent. Do your best, because you are appreciated by those who love and know the game. Oh sure, I might come to you between innings and say something like, "Could you give the count verbally a bit more often?" And on a banger I might shake my head. But the truth is that I love you if you're good. And I don't appreciate the idiots.

I know this doesn't mean much, coming from a coach. But one should NEVER give up because one thinks "everyone else is incompetent." One should push for more competency.

jeffstone
goettingen

Gozer,

To avoid hyjacking this thread, I'll answer your pitching Q in a new thread.

Shouldn't that read "come over from the 'dark side?'" :D

Hang in there mcrowder, Our asso. does not do the training I would like to see. A lot of the time you are left to do it own your own. I study and go the umpire schools and check the web sites out to get other view points and to try to learn. I always try to improve and to help the younger umpires if I can. We have some very good umpires that I love to call with and some that need work. If you make it past the bad times, good times are that much better. Stay with it if you can, good umpires needed in this game.

FHSAA does a pretty good job of testing and a fair
job of training new high school officials. I currently
only umpire high school ball here.
The ASA here is a joke. Register and you get games.
I worked a few games and walked away from it here.
It was not fun.
Back in CNY we had all we could do to put bodies on
the fields for both high school and local rec games.
The better officials were overworked.
I wish there was a magic formula to recruit new
capable officials. Down here we have a small advantage
in getting experienced umpires who have relocated
to SW FL, but with the growth and addition of new
schools it is difficult to keep up with the need.
I'm sticking with the high school games as long as
my legs hold out !!

easy solution... Move to AZ..great training...great umpires....

Touche' Skahtboi

By the way, I will brightline what jstone999 said. As a coach, I always appreciated good umpires. And I was able to tell the good ones from the bad ones.

Mc,

Don't move to East Texas. Things are just as bad. There was one clinic
and that was for umpires to be State Playoff certified. 7 and 1/2 hours of
films and talk. No field training. Our chapter did not hold the first
field clinic and we have 7 newbies.

We have also received 7 letters from coaches wanting rule interps that were
in most cases misapplied. I think three of the seven were handled correctly.
I started by 46th year this year, and will continue and until the coaches
players and counterparts tell me I am not hacking it anymore. Stay
with us, for from what you saying, things can only get better.

Man, I am singing that same song right along with you MC. I won’t give up umpiring, but I sure think about walking away from the training responsibilities because so few give a sh_ _ t.

I am the SB training director for our 200 member HS association; a little over a hundred do SB or both SB and BB. I spend hundreds of hours preparing rules and mechanics classes, including handouts and website materials and props and H.S. players and PowerPoint presentations, etc, etc, etc. We had a Saturday Rules Clinic for rookies and less experienced umpires. We had 90 minute in-depth evening classes for critical subjects like Obstruction, Pitching rules, DP/FLEX. Even our Saturday Mechanics Clinic is focused; this year we worked on base/runner responsibilities under all types of hit/runner situations for 2-man systems.

For the same 18 to 25 attendees each time! Sure, they get their money’s worth, but what about the other 80% that don’t bother to show up? What dumb things are they doing on the field? (Unfortunately, I hear about too many of them!)

BUT – what are you going to do when there is no penalty (nor reward) for attending or not attending training? Regardless, you are going to get scheduled the maximum number of games that you want to work. Our Associations contracts with 50 area schools and we supply BB and SB umpires for 6,000 games each spring. We need every body we can get to cover the fields.

The major problem with BB and SB is that the games are played after school. Around here H.S. lets out about 2:30 – 2:40 and those kids are ready to play ball by 3:00. Allow for travel time and warm up and umpires to arrive and we try to get going by 4 – 4:15pm. Fact is, unless you are working 3rd shift or are in a professional or self-employed position to get yourself free mid-afternoons, you are not available for umpiring H S ball.

Note that most kids rec leagues start play at 6pm or later; most SP leagues play in the evening; and fall/winter H S sports typically play in the evening. There is obviously a bigger pool to pull officials from for evening games.

Thus – unfortunately, high school BB and SB probably has more clods on the field than do the other sports. All that we can do, MC is keep chipping away. Keep the training classes going; keep spreading the gospel on internet boards, and take time to teach a little between innings when you are with a less experienced umpire.

WMB

newbie
 

first time on the softball forum...been doing basketball 4 yrs. had my first softball game today with another newbie offical but thankfully she played ball in hs and college. seemed strange with all the players, batters and chanting from the girls that it was more distracting than i thought it would be...read the rules book and re-read it but until you have to apply it...seems to take a different type of focus to have the confidence of taking control of the game...our assn. asked for us to step up and HELP fill the need of officals for these games...a learning curve is steeper for some than others but please veterans help us to learn the right way, some patience is much needed and very much appreciated. Excuse the rambling just some thoughts after my first game...hope to use this forum as much as i use the basketball forum.

WMB
I sure would be interested in any PPT's you have on Fed Ball.

Do you make them avail?

I sure would be interested in any PPT's you have on Fed Ball. Do you make them avail?


Yes. It fits with my philosophy expressed above; chipping away, helping any umpire anywhere get a little better.

Email me and we'll talk about it.

WMB

I will say that we have more than our share of great umpires here in AZ, and especially the Phx area, (Darrel included, of course!) but I still see plenty of the same things that have been mentioned in this thread.

I have taken the stand that I will work to make myself a better umpire, and try to help any other umpire that wants help. It irritates the he** out of me to go to one of my daughter's HS games or league games and see umpires on the field that are just there to pass time or collect a check.

It's no wonder that most people think all umpires are idiots after watching some of these guys!

Yes, we do have great training opportunities here and access to one of the best umpires and umpire trainers in the world, but when only the same 15 - 20% of your umpire population takes advantage of the opportunities, it get disheartening.

Meanwhile, in Seattle...
 

Do we have some clods in the Pacific Northwest? Absolutely.

HOWEVER...

All prospective new umpires:
Attend at least six 90-minute classroom sessions
Participate in gym/batting cage clinics where we have a strike zone frame so they get plenty of reps
Score at least 70% on the ASA and/or FED test(s)
Work at least two fast pitch and two slow pitch games with close, direct coaching by a member of our training committee (we try to do more COACHING than TEACHING at this point...they are expected to read, study and learn the umpire manual of the ASA book at least as much as the rule book)
Work at least six other games with an observer on hand to evaluate and offer immediate feedback

At that point they are released to work games at levels at which they can succeed.

We also require that transfers from other associations also go through the training program.

Is it foolproof? No. But...not only can it work, but it does work. We have well over 200 umpires in our association. In the past three years that we have been doing this, we have successfully trained and welcomed in about 75 new members.

Additionally, all umpires - rookies and vets - wishing to work FED ball at the varsity level or ASA championship ball (qualifiers, championships, etc.) are required to attend at least four of six general membership meetings at which training is the focus. We tackle no more than one or two topics per meeting. And, the vets have to make at least a 70 to work school ball, and at least a 75 to work ASA ball.

As I said, it doesn't eliminate all of the clods...BUT it helps.

I joined so late this year that I missed the rules clinics. If anyone knows of some training possibilities in the Chicago area, please let me know.

Brand new umpire here. 36 years old with a wonderful wife and a 3yr old son. I've gone back to school part time to finish my teaching degree, and watch my son 4 days a week while my wife runs here own business. Yes, I know, I'm very lucky on many levels.

Well, I was finally talked into trying this stuff by a long time family friend who has been Umping for 6 years now. She's really helped me along, and when we took the test together, did not spoon feed me the answers, but rather, made me give her the answer and then help me find in the book where I went wrong.

So far, from what I've seen of the NCUA the Umps are very professional, curtious and knowledgable. I pray I don't run into any of the above described 'veterans'.

My only point is, not all of us Rooks are old or young OOOs (whatever that is hehe).

I love this stuff. I've emmersed myself in it. Heck, last night after working just my 4th, 5th and 6th games of my career, I was up 'till 6am thumbing threw the rulebook and searching websites, making sure I got my calls right, etc. That's when I stumbled onto this forum as a matter of fact.

Keep the faith Blue, we Rooks need vets like you.

The game needs you even more.

I have been in associations like you describe and I have been in good ones.
Some things you can change some you can't

I worked hard to be involved where I am now, and love it.
My association is primarily Fed ball but we are also ASA.
We do a lot of training.
In our association, if you don't meet the minimum training sessions, you don't get any (let me say this loudly...ANY) post season play.
We also cut back the number of games you get.
In other words, if you don't show some effort you don't get the good stuff.
We offer at least 12 training sessions each high school season of which a certain number is required. You can get up to 10 promotion points (one for each session attended) but out of the 12 or so sessions, some are mandatory.
Don't show up, don't plan on getting assigned.
It can be tough and we do have an absence policy to help out.
Our association decided to do this at the same time we banded together and voted out our old Board of Directors.

Things have been moving along nicely the last few years not all is smooth as glass but it works for us.

The reason I am telling you this, is so that you can see it can be better.
You might have to provoke change in many ways or in a few ways and it will take more work on your part than what you have now.

Have fun with it and stick with it.

mcrowder,

Without being too repetitve, my association has the same problems that yours seems to. It doesn't really make any difference if you come to meetings, clinics or even take a test. When the season comes you'll be on the field because bodies are needed. When the association bids for the contract and gets it (generally through the good ol' boy network) they have to put SOMEONE on the field. Often those someones can be the guy who had "more important" things to do than go to the clinics, or the baseball guy (baseball guys please don't take offense) who is "doing us a favor" by appearing on a softball field with obvious disdain for the game, or the vet who hasn't opened up a rulebook since 1979.

This is my 7th year doing this and the one thing I can say, mcrowder, is that I want to work with guys like you. You may not have all the the answers(who does)but you seem to be willing to keep trying to do it right. I know it's frustating out there but I bet when some newer guys in your association see that they're working with a vet like you they breath a sigh of relief.

I think that normally the good things in life outweigh the crap. Try to keep up the good fight.

http://officialforum.com/thread/19574