Need Advice.......

[Gulf Coast Blue]

I got a phone call from a friend of mine who is our District Slow Pitch UIC.......(I coached his daughter a few years back)

He is hunting umpires for a Men's D National Qualifier tournament that he has been assigned UIC.

He asked if I would be interested in calling in this tournament.........

My first response was............ARE YOU CRAZY?

I told him that any umpire who had called 1 slow pitch game had called more than me.........but he said that they often have FP guys call at the Region/National level tournaments that have little experience with the SP game......and that he would make sure I was paired up with an experienced SP guy...........he said he had seen me work and would not have a problem.....(easy coming from a guy who has been doing SP for 20 years)

I told him I would think about it.........and to be honest......the thought has intrigued me a bit.......

He also said that this would give me a National level tournament under my belt.......which would look good even from a FP standpoint.

My question is..........

Should I stick with my first response?
Consider it?
By all means jump at the chance?

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks......

Joel

[oppool]

Joel

I know your probably looking for opinion more from the vets but me being mister slow-pitch think you should try it the play in D level will be fair but not great hopefully it will be held at enclosed fields homeruns over the fence will be outs games will go quick usally. The real fun will be calling balls and strikes I would let the expierence slow-pitch call the plate the 1st couple of games your at to try to catch on to the strike zone and remember at the end of each play when all action has stopped you call time!!

The other thing under those Rule Myth's in slow-pitch rule#s
6,13,21,27,28,34, and 35 are all true


Try it, You might like it
And if you really do like it next year 2002 up here Plano will be having the National Finals in Men's D let me know I will tell my UIC to schedule you in!!

Don

[Edited by oppool on Mar 31st, 2001 at 12:58 AM]

[Steve M]

Here's another reason why you might want to help this uic out - you made need a favor from him in the future. After I took over as the local assignor here, I found that not only was I running short of umps - so were the slow pitch folks. Some of these slow pitch folks were calling high school games, so I knew they had seen fast pitch and would do all right. It became something of you help me & I'll help you and this has worked pretty well for several years. Previously, there was always some sort of antagonism between fast pitch & slow pitch umps - at least around here anyway.Knowing fast pitch and our mechanics, you will not embarass yourself on a slow pitch field - if anything, you'll do too much and look to the players as if you're really hustling - they like that.