Bad Umpires are Bad Umpires...

[rwest]

Originally posted by Andy
This is a subject that is near and dear to my heart. Actually, seeing bad umpiring just pisses me off....

My daughter has played two years in a rec league sponsored by a local church. The quality of play is not good.

The league co-ordinator uses whoever he can get for umpires. Out of the 7 or 8 guys that he regularly uses, only one shows up in a uniform and when it get hot, he ditches his pants for denim shorts. The rest of the guys just wear whatever. These guys don't know the rules, have no clue on the proper mechanics, and generally appear disinterested.

I have known the league co-ordinator for several years and have offered to do a clinic for the umpires, but he won't take me up on it.

It just irritates the h*ll out of me that I bust my butt to learn and apply the rules and do the job the right way, but people judge all umpires by what these types of clowns do. Is it any wonder that we almost always have an automatic bias against us?

I understand where you are coming from, but let me share with you a different perspective. Having been the Umpire Commissioner for my local church, I have some experience with what the league co-ordinator probably was going through.

First, the umpires were volunteers. They are not getting paid and they are doing it as a service to the Lord and the local church. They are also doing it for the kids.

Second, in most churches 80% of the work is done by 20% of the people. There may have been more qualified individuals in the church, maybe even former or active umpires, but did they volunteer? Probably not. I'm not judging them. They may have valid reasons that they didn't volunteer. That's between them and the Lord. My only point is you get what you get when you are dealing with a volunteer staff.

Third, most churches can't afford to pay for qualified refs.

Fourth, training is great if you can get it but is hardly long enough to do much good. We have training clinics at our church. But they are very limited in content and time. It helps, but you are not going to get the results you would from a national clinic or even a regional clinic that your association may put on. These volunteers aren't for the most part interested in an avocation as an umpire. They just want to help out and most churches are desparate enough to tak anyone that has a pulse.

If more people in the church volunteered, instead of the 20%, then you'd probably have better umpires.

Sorry for preaching, but that's one of my pet peeves.