Standing on field with hands on hips?

[Andy]

Sorry guys, but how you are perceived is often the difference maker in evaluating umpires.

When you have a group of umpires that are all mechanically sound, know the rules and do the signals properly, there has to be a way to differentiate them to move to the next level or fill a finite number of assignments.

I once had a UIC tell me that he made decisions on what umpires received final day assignments at a national tournament by seeing who had cleaner shoelaces. A bit of an exaggeration, but the point is that he had too may outstanding umpires for too few assignments.

He had to use all of those "perception" items to make decisions.