can't get games

[BornToReferee]

Originally Posted by Manny A

You're willing to set up your own association, but you weren't willing to spend about two or three game fees to obtain the appropriate insurance coverage so you could work for the existing association?? Wow.

You're a rookie umpire by your own admission, and you've managed to alienate yourself from the president and assignor of the association, as well as probably gained a reputation from at the very least one coach (who may very well inform other coaches) that you won't live up to your assignments. Even our most senior umpires in my association wouldn't be looked at favorably for future games.

Honestly, if you really want to umpire softball, you may need to look into something outside of your town and start doing some serious driving. That, or just eat crow and apologize profusely to the association leadership.

The issue of other insurance wasn't know over that time span. I had to make a snap judgement call ...and the assigner was of no help.

There was no animosity in the days leading up to the games.

[Manny A]

Originally Posted by BornToReferee

The issue of other insurance wasn't know over that time span.

Hmph. For someone who is much more concerned with adequate insurance coverage and potential litigation, I would have expected you to be able to teach a class on the subject at umpire clinics.

I think it speaks volumes that there isn't anyone here that feels you did no wrong. I'm not suggesting that the assignor was completely in the right here. But there is a reasonable expectation that the scheduling of umpires for games is a shared responsibility. The assignor is responsible for making the assignments, and the umpires are responsible for knowing they are fully qualified and capable of taking those assignments. You failed in making sure you were qualified--at least in your mind when it comes to insurance--and dropped the ball on giving the assignor a proper heads up. And now you want to sue. You're not going to get any sympathy here from people who have been on both sides of the fence for much longer than you.

[robbie]

I would not hire you either.

There were 2 "should I sue?' comments and 1 "grevience" comment.

Sorry - next..........................

[Moosie74]

I can understand that you feel the need to have insurance coverage and that's been rehashed here over and over so I'm not going to address that issue.

If you're unsure about taking a game for whatever reason you need to tell the assigner that you're not available for these games, please let me know about games next week or whatever their assigning period is.

This buys you a few days to do your research. As a rookie softball umpire you may feel like there's a chance something will happen that you will be sued for, for myself as a 20-year official, I quit worrying about that a long time ago knowing the odds are in my favor there won't be an issue.

When you wish to officiate, you're at the mercy of the assigner who controls the available work. S/he is your entry to doing the games and you need to respect that situation.

It's really not fair to the rest of your officials to take a game and then not show for it, it makes everyone look bad. If I'm in your association and know that you've taken a game and I'm sitting at home watching the grass grow because there are no other unassigned games and I decide to go down to the local park and find that the only umpire assigned to the game or there's now a single umpire because someone failed to show, I'm not going to be impressed with you especially if there is an umpire and they say, oh, Jim was supposed to be here, don't know where he is....not ok.

[REFANDUMP]

There's a major issue which I haven't seen addressed here. For sake of simplicity, let's assume the organization you normally umpire for is ABC. Is this tournament sanctioned by organization DEF or is it totally unsanctioned ?? If it's sanctioned by organization DEF, why wouldn't you have just paid the fees and umpired ??? If it's totally unsanctioned, I can understand your concerns about working, however I would have still worked after giving my word to the assignor. I also would have however, made sure the assignors superiors were made known that he was assigning games for unsanctioned tournaments. I don't think this would have gone over well for the superiors in organization ABC.

If you're not willing to apologize, I would start checking to see if there are any youth baseball organizations that need umpires, or be willing to jump in your car to work softball games. You don't have any other options that I see.