|
| Conley
August 16, 2007
12:00:02 AM
Entry #: 2320493
| You stated you don't need any help from "Conley" which obviously is me and with that being stated I have the following to offer.
If you are an umpire, not that I am or ever would be the messiah of the umpiring BROTHERN but you organizations need guys like me to get into umpirng.
I have dabbled in it the past couple years and was told I would need to do some JV high school games in order to basically get started...are you kidding me? I WILL NEVER UMPIRE A JV HIGH SCHOOL GAME EVEN IF IT MEANS I WILL NEVER UMPIRE AGAIN EVER!
Throw me out to some town ball non league games, then advance me from there to se how I do. If I can umpire a towsn ball game then I sure as hell can umpire a District 10 Championship or State Legion Tourney...if I neer umped at that level and only did town ball I would not be depressed about it.
I have expressed interest in umpiring but I have been so down played it was nearly comical. WITH ALL DUE RESPECT TO ALL UMPIRES BECAUSE I HAFVE DONE IT AND IT IS NOT AS EASY AS IT LOOKS but you guys need guys like me why make it less appealing to get involved?
As a case in point I offer two of them....last year I actually umpired a game between my team and another and the comments from my team were all positive...I had a couple questionable calls to make, a couple no calls, and worked a very solid strike zone. If I can work a game that includes my own teammates against a fired up club and do well what scenarios would I fail in; or rather how many scenarios would I fail in.
As another point of reference I had the privalege of umpiring one of Coach Dennings fall ball under classmen/upper classmen games and all I have to say is Coach Denning stated I should be doing MIASC games right now....yet Northwest tells me i have to run around and do a dozen or more JV high school games?
In 15 years of coaching I guestimate I have been in the box, or dugout for over 600 games. In the last 15 years of playing (minimum) I guestimate I have been on the fied or in the dugout for another 600 games.......my point? I have seen too many plays nd part of too many things on the field to not get it.
In closing we play recreational baseball guys don't throw 88 mph sliders, they don't run like deer down to first base...the routine calls are easy for the most part....99.9% of us are not going on to the next level and all we care about as baseball guys is having a baseball guy ump games......make routine cals, call a decnt strike zone, hustle, not be a confrontational idiot, dont be a lion out there and a few other minor things.
You want to make your organizations better? Well then when a guy like me states an interest don't tell him he has to umpire fricking JV high school games in order to begin to get into the mix. Throw me out there.....see what happens and note that there are few other older players with similar backgrounds to my own that may have some interest in umpiring to stay around the game and make some extra monoply money....don't alieniate us with all this "running like an umpire," doing JV high school games, and all the mumbo jumb you guys care about that non of us give a rip about....all that stuff is for Sports Center and the big league level...we just want guys who get it, hustle, don't get confrontational and a plethora of other things.
We don't really care after it starts and see how it goes if a guy comes out with a pillow and sweat pants on as long as he gets it and make the routine calls without making them too early because he has only seen 500 games in his entire life of watching baseball on his couch...my 16 month old son has probably watched half that many many games to date.
Concluding....UPIRES....talk to some key guys outside of your organizations to get some feed back, learn from it, build on it and let us help you so it helps all of us.
Respectfully,
KC
|
