Backyard BBQ
 

When I was there for the Men's A Industrial I was treated to an incredible backyard bbq...the steaks were awesome...and the beer was ice cold!

They took great care of us.

Although, if I remember correctly we went out until the wee hours of the morning on our last night there and I missed my flight on tuesday of the labor day weekend. Getting home was quite difficult.

Mobile took great care of all of the umpires.

That is exactly how I was treated when there for a Major. However, our tournament was so abbreviated, they also took us to a game at Hank Aaron Stadium with the offer of going a second night. Instead, we went to tour the USS Alabama and headed to Pensacola for a night.

They had steaks waiting after the championship game. The aroma of the Worcestshire marinaded steaks wafted over the field. The catcher says "Wow, that smells good". I told him that I'm going to miss my dinner because his team (winners) were still down a run in the fourth. He told me no problem and his team proceeded to put up about twenty runs and ended the tournament. Who says the catcher isn't our best friend?

But you are right, umpires are treated like kings in 'Bama.

Hey SRW! Lookit what these guys are doing. Maybe we should send a link to Don Ho, Nap and the Lock Box to show them that yes, we should spend more than a buck a person for hospitality at a national. ;)

Actually, SRW did a wonderful job at our national last summer. He pulled off a great dinner featuring Washington's finest: seafood from the Sound, and onions, corn and taters from Yakima. It's just that he caught so much crap from some of the, um, hierarchy. While foie gras and caviar might be over the top, it's really quite difficult to spend too much money and do too much for hospitality.

For those of you in 'Bama and elsewhere who do hospitality right, thank you.

(Mike, you're lucky. I DID miss dinner at a western national once. Went to the restaurant after my game was done -- kept telling my HP partner to hurry up -- and was told the kitchen is closed. No sorry, no kiss my donkey, no nothin.)

When I was there, it was all home cooking by the local association, no worrying about restaurants or outside concerns.

Yeah no schitt.

The crap I caught was about the budget. They only budgetted $2000 for hospitality for both nationals - and I spent about $1100 on the 18A. So they were giving me crap for only having $900 to spend on the Men's D. Nevermind the fact that I had 5 tournament days and they had 3... and that I had overbought on water and sundries that they used. Frustrating.

Even though it's almost winter, I figured that, if I want to umpire next season, I had better make connections with some of the important people in Alabama umpiring. So today I dropped in on the state UIC at his place of business.

http://i35.tinypic.com/x4kwie.jpg

Please tell me there was banjo music playing somewhere...