No, he's expressing an opinion based upon his observation of you and your comments here. He's not alone. If we can read your comments, your own justifications, your own opinions, and come to a conclusion that you might be the type of person that makes things difficult ... isn't it possible that your assignor had already done the same, even before the final incident?

Just from this thread... you asked for advice and then argued with it... you were given options to solve your problem, dismissed those options as something you weren't willing to do out of pride, and then complained about having no options... you espoused such disdain for the job of an assignor to assume that you, a self-professed rookie, could assume these duties easily... Ditto the task of mentoring and training umpires...

Are Rich's "conclusions" really a jump?

Back at ya. Have you read the biography of Steve Jobs? You want someone on the board that doesn't protect his fellow (newcomer) comrades?

Why in the world would they want to do that?

Wow. Rich is right.

Nothing worse than a cocky rookie. You have NO IDEA how difficult it is to assign games, and if you think you can run a softball clinic and teach umpires how to be umpires after just a few games ... well - there are no words.

Based on this conversation alone, I wouldn't work with you. Do you think this attitude of yours has not filtered it's way to your assignor? I'm sure it has. People talk. You act like this with your partners, I GUARANTEE your attitude is known by your assignor. Now we can see the reason why he was seemingly overly harsh in his reaction to you canceling on him. Whether what he is doing is right or wrong regarding unsanctioned games - I can completely understand him looking for a reason to part ways with you.

What board?

Yep. I wasn't born yesterday. LOL

Board = the folks that run the association

I fail to see what that has to do with what I said...
PS - don't be that guy who LOL's his own comments. That's like the obnoxious guy at the party that tells jokes no one laughs at, and then laughs himself into a stupor.

He knows nothing about me other than my polite and level-headed emails. LOL

I didn't bring up the subject with my fellow umpires.

Again, jumping to conclusions ...could this be because you too are taking some heat for something you did? LOL

Don't bother replying back. I got some quality advice mixed in with the smack to run with it....

From reading the posts, I'm not sure your education extends to how the officiating racket works.
:D

I trying really hard not to pile on here...

But what did your comment have to do with Hugo's observation? Not following. The last 3 posts seem to be non sequitur time.

You remind me of the 'softball guy' Jim Rome talks about.

Again ... trying very hard not to pile on... but it's getting more and more difficult.

You've completely missed my point. I was not saying you had THIS conversation with your fellow umpires. However, it is clear there are a great many things you don't know and don't understand. Normally, rookies are expected not to know these things --- but the issue here is that you don't seem to understand what you don't understand. That is the attitude that would come through loud and clear to your partners ... and that is the attitude that would get filtered in to your assignor.

His seemingly harsh response seems obviously to be more than just to the one incident. It's clear that was not a single problem, but a final straw.

If you really do want to work in this business, find some humility, realize that you are not smarter than everyone else in the room, admit when you are wrong and learn from those you can learn from. You're currently on the opposite road on all of these.

You're probably not the guy that should be participating in this discussion.

You're already mad.

I never revealed the identity of the people of the association or the assocation itself.

You're making claims that I mouth off about everything. It's laughable because if you knew me you'd be like 'ummm...forget that stuff I said about you earlier.'

None of that is true. Good grief. Later.

The non sequitur parade keeps a'comin'.

Seriously, other than some incredulity toward your inability to "get it", I've been trying to help. These one liners aren't adding anything to the conversation. If you really want help, please ask. If not, we don't have to keep going with this. There's no purpose in making this a battle of witlessness.