Sunday, June 5, 2011

Life As An Umpire

I just started umpiring baseball games for the local city league and did a tournament this weekend.  Man, I had a blast!  Made some pretty good cash too.  It's great to finally be out on a sporting field again ever since I stopped playing football a couple years ago.  The kids for the games I called were young (11-12) but they all played pretty well.  Saw some blasts, some diving catches and some solid pitching.

The one thing that bothers me is how everyone gets pissy when a close call doesn't go their way.  If I'm standing right next to second base and call a kid who is stealing out, what makes you think you had a better view and vantage point of the play than I did, coach in the third base dugout?  When I'm literally two feet away from a runner who is tagged out on a pickle between third and home, why does some parent in the bleachers on the first base line think I'm wrong and they had a better view of what happened?  I'm not out to screw anyone or fix the game for one team, I just call it how I see it.  So when I'm behind the plate, stop arguing balls and strikes with me third base coach.

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

RIP Atlanta Thrashers

Not sure how many of you are hockey fans, but something sad happened in the NHL.  The Atlanta Thrashers have been sold and will move to Winnipeg.  I never cared for them, but as a fan of another non-traditional market expansion hockey team (Anaheim Ducks) I feel for their fans.  Now, the reason they left is because they didn't have enough fans, but that had as much to do with crappy ownership (they were near the salary cap minimum every year and never attempted to sign big name free agents) as it did with Atlanta not being a hockey town.  Bottom line is if the ownership did a better job upgrading the team (they only made the playoffs once in their history) there would still be NHL hockey in Atlanta - everyone loves a winner.  To be fair, I've never been to Atlanta, so I can't give an accurate gauge on how much they cared about the Thrashers.  But I hold firm in my belief that they would've had plenty of fans if the front office gave a damn about winning.

Chalk up a victory for the sunbelt-hating Canadian media.  "Atlanta doesn't deserve a hockey team, the city doesn't support them!"  So why did the Jets leave Winnipeg in the first place?  It wasn't because they had too much fans or made too much money...