Umpire Update

Guys,

The season hasn’t got off to a very good start. The lack of permits and weather have certainly caused us to lose a lot of games already. So far we have lost close to 50!  The assigners job has now become a full time employment for me. All I seem to
be doing is rescheduling games.

I am still waiting for 4 team schedules to come in.  

Assignments: I have attempted to contact several of you with no response to your availability. Unfortunately, it doesn’t make my job any easier that is for sure.  Over the next week I will be assigning for the remainder of the month and into June. Once you have received your game assignments, please confirm them with me ASAP. Once I have the next day assigned and all umpires have confirmed it will be posted on the spreadsheet. Our Tuesday evenings are extremely busy, for some reason everyone wants to play this evening.

I have also sent out several reminders to those who have yet to do their Level 3, and for those that are eligible.  The due date is May 15, and they will no be reminded anymore.  

Schedules: As you can see the spreadsheet is changing daily with game changes.  With the amount of games that we have lost already there is limited diamond time to make these games up. These games added in light blue as you can see. With these add-ons I will be scrambling to find umpires so keep an eye on these and if you see something on there and you are available please let me know. League rules will also be updated on the website. Please refresh yourself with the new Baseball Ontario Rules.

Umpire Rule Quiz: Chris Marco sent out an email to most of you in regards to the 5 question rule quiz. The quiz was available on our website. We thought that this would be a great opportunity for you to review the rules and be ready for the upcoming season. Unfortunately, only 2 of you took the time to take the quiz. This was a huge disappointment as we expected more of a participation from the membership. Chris will try again shortly and we hope that more of you will have some fun and answer the quiz.

Recruitment/New Umpires: The HBUA worked with the HDBA and held 3 umpire training work shops and we had over 60 participate! Following through with our Level 1 and 2 clinics which we had really good attendance. Chris Walters put together a recruitment flyer and so far I have received feedback from over possibly 10 new umpires.  I will be assigning them with our senior mentors. A couple of you have expressed an interest, I would like to start out using these umpires on Rookie Ball and Mosquito bases. If you are interested in helping out please let me know. We already have several new umpires that have joined us and we would like to welcome you!!

Let’s all hope for no more rain, and maybe have some warmer temperatures along with it.

There will be more to come.

Regards,

Bill