Tournament this weekend...
 

Well ladies and gentlemen, we're only a few days away from the world's largest slow-pitch softball tournament!!! :eek: The 34th Annual Sam McQuade, Sr. Charity Softball Tournament has 433 teams signed up to play this year. I'm not sure how many umpires are scheduled to work but I have 15 games to do starting Friday night.

If any of you umpires out there would like to umpire in this tournament in future years, let me know and I'll get you in touch with the tournament UIC and I'm sure he'll be happy to schedule you some games.;)

How close are you to Lakota, ND.? I have a brother there.

Lakota is up between Devils Lake and Grand Forks so somewhere in that 225-230 mile range from Bismarck.

So, about a two hour drive. ;)

I have some umpire friends from Lincoln, NE coming up to work, and one from N.J.

Was invited up myself but for the 3rd year in a row could not work out the details. Wish I could be there with everyone. I hear its a blast and that they treat the umpires very well. Have fun and hopefully I will get to meet you...next year!!

Jeff Merriman

I used to go watch my dad umpire this tournament when I was a young teenager (mid-80's)!!!

I would LOVE the opportunity to "walk in his shoes"!!!!

Please do get in contact with me for next year!!!

Thanks.

I still have my dad's old indicator. That thing is probably 25+ years old...

Still clicks! Been repaired a few times, but it still clicks!

Get in touch with me for the future tournaments. Thanks!

Tonight was a rarity @ The McQuade's tournament. We had a huge thunderstorm roll through town around 8 pm. About 3 inches of rain came down in an hour and a half. I barely got my 3rd game done when the skies opened up and a waterfall erupted from the sky. Only postponed one round though and they'll try to make that up at 6 am tomorrow morning but I'm not sure our parks and rec department can work miracles to get all diamonds ready by then. I'm hoping they can. My first game tomorrow is at 11 am.

Closer to a 3.5 hour drive.:cool:

I would love to come up there and umpire this great tournament. When I was stationed at Minot AFB, this was the first "big" tournament I had the honor and privilege of umpiring. I would go every year. The first time I went there was my first year of umpiring (1988). Went every year til I moved out in '91. Met alot of great people there. Let me know! Thanks!

Serg

Serg,

You were stationed at Minot? That explains a lot. :rolleyes:

You were stationed at Minot? That explains a lot.

When I was in the AF ['69 to '73], Minot was where our "senior servicemen" threatened to send Airmen who goofed up. There and Loring AFB in Maine, which I believe is now closed.

I guess that was the closest they could come to the Russian equivalent of Siberia.

There are worse places in the world than Minot, ND. Can't think of any right now but I know they're out there. :) There's a reason we call it "Mindrot". Maybe one of the reasons I don't really care for Minot is because of all the chAir Force personnel (I'm prior Navy). :confused:

What is "prior Navy"? Is that before they learned how to build ships?