PSA for whatever it’s worth for those in the baseball scene: you can tell what kind of umpire you will have based on whether or not you can see his shin guards and the direction of his hat (if he’s even wearing one). If the shin guards are exposed and the hat is backwards, don’t expect great calling or knowledge. The guy with his hat on straight with shin guards underneath the pants will be more experienced. Side note, if you get a guy that is dressed correctly and holds his indicator in the left hand and takes the mask off left handed as well, then you’ve got a shot at decent calling.
In our association you would get run off for wearing shin guards outside of pants and a hat on backwards. Lol. That’s ridiculous. I’ve umpired with a few doozies in the travel ball circuit though. Especially these throw together travel ball tournaments way out in the middle of nowhere. They will let any warm body call those games. I had one partner get us in a real bind one time because he got the count wrong. Long story but it got us in a bind.
I called the first round of the High School playoffs last night and it went smooth. No issues but did have a few loud mouth daddy’s from the south part of Mobile county. They be loud down there sometimes. Haha
