I can understand your frustration. I'm actually a proponent of the OPPOSITE of what you are complaining about. Our association lets us wear (nearly) ANY of the combinations as long as our partner wears the same. If we were required to wear exactly one uniform all season, and that uniform changed, I'd be as upset as you. I like that our association offers options... not that it requires constantly changing uniforms with no options.

O.K., so the shops do well by selling more uniforms if the federations change every two to five years. But, at least here in Europe, most sport federations are having trouble keeping the head financial above water-level. They have less income and provide us, umpires, with the uniforms. So who's the idiot?

Let's have a look to law-men and the battle forces; they also wear uniforms. How often do they change the uniforms? Is that to give the officers a choice what to wear? I think not! Last time the dutch police changed the uniform was the first time in over 30! years. The dutch army, navy and air-force only add specific parts to their collection. Mostly only for safety reasons...

Two weeks ago I had two games at a tournament. One, of 8, umpire didn't found the time in 5 months time to collect his new uniform at the fed.'s-office. He mailed the complete group to bring also the old dark blue shirts. Then we got an extra mail by our UIC, to bring also our ESF-uniform. Since we were all ESF-licenced, we all have that uniform aswell. And we had to bring the new black. I ended up having 6 top shirts and 6 T-shirts to wear underneath. Only had two games. My 9 year old son declared me for a fool! During the games I wore only the black shirts! We ended up to have a split in 2 crews of 4 each. one crew wore blue, the other black...

I must look dressed well as an umpire. Ironed T-shirts, pressed pants, shiny shoes. I don't need to look cool. The best umpire, is a saying over-here, is the one you don't notice! After the games, the athletes mustn't know who the umpire was simply 'cause they had no reason to pay any attention to him (M/F). Do your job and still be invisible.
I don't need any choice in color to go with the weather. If it's cold: add the wind-breaker and extra shirts underneath. If it's hot, bad luck and enjoy the sun! Just add sun-cream/blocker and ditto glasses and lots of water. We have no Texas-summers, 25C is mostly the maximum temperature...

Mike, is this the high school chapter you're referring to? That is good to hear that they give you folks choices. What's the prevailing uniform? Still light blue with heather gray?

Teams, leagues, communities, etc., can affiliate with whoever they want to; with whoever works best for them. But, when to umpire the same community's teams or the same league's tournament over the space of a half dozen years requires 5 different shirts and hats because they keep changing their affiliations, it gets very frustrating (and a bit expensive).

I haven't really had that problem here, with leagues changing affiliations and forcing a uniform change. The rec league I work in the summer is independent, in that they aren't affiliated with any particular sanctioning body. They run both baseball and softball and as long as the umpires match, they don't care what you wear. Most guys show up with every color under the sun hanging in the car, then pick one depending on the weather or what his partner has.

High school baseball and softball here have identical uniforms, so one set works for both.

I did have a buddy beg me to work a few of his NSA tournaments the past few years. I had to pay to register with them, plus buy a shirt and hat. The first tourney I worked five games and netted about 25 bucks! But I've worked a couple more for him, so the new uniform paid off. And, of course, this was by choice, not something forced on me by some organization.

I joined the 'other' association, Slo Pitch National last summer, to work a quad every Monday ($88). In addition to registering ($90), I splurged on 2 shirts and 2 ball bags ($140). I was only clearing $13 a night over what I would have made doing 2 FP games, but the 2 tournaments I was able to work put me well into the black.