I love the way BB umpires bleat about individualism in their uniforms and then follow, sheep-like, the latest thing the MLB umpires are wearing. :)

Just like you, I wear what I'm told.

NCAA - black shirts or polo blue, black jackets, black plate coats

HS - Navy shirts, navy jackets, navy plate coat

But nitpick over an N on a shoe? Nah.

What about all those photos of those scabs last year wearing 18 different colors of grey pants -- AND light blue shirts?

In softball, the only scabs I know of are from a skinned body part.

AND, you can get those NB base shoes with a BLACK logo.

What are you doing over here Rich??? And besides, the N on both my NB plate and base shoes looks gray actually. I have association mates that consider themselves SB umpires only, and would never be caught dead with any thing but black shoes. They still assign me my 3 or 4 softball games a season and never mention my evil baseball shoes. I make two concessions to SB though, no number on my shirt and a gray ball bag.

Dat's okay, I sin the other way and do an occasional BB game -- 3 or 4 a year -- just to remember my roots. And so far when I have gone to the dark side I have remembered to do my BB strikes and outs.

Had an interesting thing happen to one of our SB umpires who is working with a new-to-us umpire who has come over from BB. He told my SB buddy that when HE (the new plate ump) does BB he NEVER goes to third.

After seeing him work SB, I can believe him.

Oh yeah...I wear my all black NB shoes over there if I do bases...and no flack so far. I have thought about getting some White-Out for the N but have resisted. ;)

What a ridiculous comparison. If I go out and take pictures of bad softball umpires can I use them to paint a broad brush of all softball umpires?

Silver-ish, actually.

I'll work a softball game, but I'm not sure how my black shirt, number, silver N, black ball bags, and point-to-the-side strike mechanic would be received. Oh, I wear a helmet with no hat, too....is that a big deal in the world of softball? :)

(Actually, I worked softball for a while and had good success and enjoyed it when I had good pitching. Once I started working college baseball, though, something had to give, and softball was it.)

What, exactly, do the Major League softball umpires wear?


Yeah, that's what I thought.

Well the black shirts a probably a no go. I do wear my black shirt in Rec League at times. Youre obviously not talking high level Softball.. so the rest would probably fly.


Theres a few that do this.. it looks just as bad in softball as it does in baseball, so not the "authorized" mechanic. Probably not much would be said for the typical game.

You'll see em occasionally. I almost bought one myself a few times. I couldnt find one that felt right and I tried several.

I think it is a good thing there is no big time professional softball. It keeps all of the wannabes over on the BB board.

Tom,
Now I have to clean the Diet Pepsi off the monitor.

Thank you. :D

Rich, from what I can tell, everything matters in softball. We were told to examine the softballs to be sure they have the proper coeffiecent ratio or some such nonsense. They take this so seriously around here that if they have the wrong balls we are to postpone the game. Imagine that.

When I do softball I trade in my point to the side strike call for a modified hammer. Not the big, stand-up ASA hammer, just a little jab. I don't paint my "N" black and I still wear a number on my jacket (navy with red panel). I have yet to be told to stay home, and I'll work my NCS playoff games in baseball and leave the softball to the nit pickers. LOL

The difference between genius and ordinary is the attention paid to every little detail. That's not original to me, but it's close to my heart.

That's why many can do baseball, but only the really good umpires get to do softball (especially fastpitch).

If you're not too lazy to shop, you can get those base shoes with a black N. If you ever have to do more than one game in a day, you might consider getting some SuperFeet for your shoes. When you get them and want to remember who suggested them, you'll thank an umpire who once was proud to work at a high national level - likely doing NBCWS while you were doing Little League - but is even more proud to work with thousands of good umpires and good people. Ninety-five percent of these guys and gals check their egos at the door.

But don't think it's just a few baseball umpires. Ran into two BB umpires the other day, both of whom I worked with in HS basketball this year. BUT, since they were now BB umpires, they couldn't dare talk to a couple of softball umps

I hate to derail this thread even further but it seems to be already quickly spiraling.

I'm sorry to see that, unfortunately egos aren't limited to one sport. When I joined ASA, after being a baseball ump for about 5 years, I caught a lot of crap from my fellow softball umpires because I chose to work both sports.

After a few years of doing softball I decided to go back to just baseball. It wasn't anything major, I just prefered working baseball games. It's what I know best and the game I grew up loving. I've met a lot of great people on both sides and I respect the job of a softball umpire, I know it's not easy.

FWIW, I've found softball fans in my area were louder and more obnoxious (ASA girl's fastpitch) yet I never had cause to eject a softball coach.

Just my $0.02.

John, I firmly believe that you have to have a healthy ego to umpire. Softball/baseball it really doesn't matter. Check your ego at the door if you must.

I have worked with many good umpires doing both softball and baseball, don't get me wrong. Rules must be enforced and we can't choose to enforce only the ones we agree with. My quarrel is when the enforcement of rules takes away from the enjoyment of the game.