Fellow Officials,
One of the advantages of being president is that I get to see the inner workings of our association first hand. Let me tell you, I wish you could see the association from my vantage point. Let me try to paint a picture of our incredibly diverse group of professional umpires. Some of what goes on you can see. Two examples are the editions of Blue Crew News led by Robert Fobian and his crew and the weekly rules quizzes from Josh Cooper. There are lots of things going on that you may not see. Let me take a second to remedy that.
We stretch (roughly) from Columbia, Maryland to Fredericksburg, Virginia and from St. Mary’s County to the Shenandoah Valley. That’s a big area! We have guys who started with us who are now working in the World Series, the College World Series, the World Baseball Classic, the Little League World Series, and lots and lots of college regular season and post-season assignments. Our core focus; however, continues to be our high school umpires, whether it’s Reservoir v River Hill or Madison v Battlefield or anything in between. We cover more than a hundred public and private high schools each year.
With that much coverage and that diverse a group, you know how critical things like training and mentorship are to the success of the association. I’m here to tell you, these things are in great hands right now.
In Northern Virginia, our first year training has just wrapped up. Our classroom training featured Tom Russo and Anthony Mayer doing their dog and pony show. The field work at Fairfax High School saw Paul Porto doing his best irate coach impersonation. The number of trainers at Fairfax and Prime Time before that are just too many to mention here. Our first year guys also have access to an on-line chat with some of our senior leaders who can assist with simple things like how Arbiter works and what happens if a batter bunts the ball foul on a third strike (he’s out, BTW). Our thanks to John Blaeuer and Russell Scott for spearheading that effort.
Down the Fredericksburg area, leaders such as Dale Fitzpatrick, Matt Sauter and others maintain a dedicated chat room for local umpires to discuss game situations, rules, and mechanics. This platform has been instrumental in maintaining camaraderie and heightening interest in professional improvement. The chat is also a good tool to help officials with last minute assignment changes from time to time.
In Maryland, trainers conducted rookie training in January and February. In all 20 new umpires stretching from Baltimore to St. Mary’s County completed rookie training in the classroom, in the batting cages and on the field at multiple locations in Howard and Prince George’s County. Shout out to the trainers in Howard County – Ben Wilson, Dustin Fields, and Adam Trader. In Prince George’s County, the trainers were Anthony Hemmans, Dwain Montgomery, Mel Simon, Tim Johnson, and Josh Cooper.
In all three areas, our assignors schedule our newer umpires to games with veteran partners so the newer guys can learn from their senior brothers.
We’ve been talking for a bit about changes to the ratings process, and I know folks are anxious to see something new. The ratings review team is close to demonstrating a newer, simpler ratings form that captures information for not only our assignors, but our ratings committee, our trainers, and the individuals being evaluated. Shout out to Matt Van Parys and his team for working with me while we navigate the seemingly endless twists and turns in this process.
While we’re at it, let’s give a shout out to the person who runs our web site so professionally. That would be Jim Clayton.
We have completed our uniform and equipment donation and pick-up program in Northern Virginia for the year. In all, six full bins of uniforms and equipment were donated by members and picked up by new members. Thanks to Ron Adamczyk for coordinating that effort.
Sometimes in the fog of the season, the amount of time and effort the assignors put into making sure things run smoothly goes unnoticed. Please don’t make the mistake of thinking that coordinating an organization this size and this complex is anything but a constant struggle. Shout out to all the assignors for what they do. Think about how easy assigning would be without rain, coaches complaining, turnbacks, last-minute changes and all the other things that make life complicated for an assignor. Shout out to Chris Williams, Rob Porter, Sean Cassidy, Randy Rosenburg, Tom Honec, and of course, the guy that made all this possible – John Porter.
Finally, I want to shout out to one person who has done quite a bit for us behind the scenes. Tom DeFranco practically re-wrote our constitution and by-laws last year. He found the site for the banquet for us and did all the coordination for that event. This year, he managed the transition to handle our finances and brought a new rigor to the management of the association. In short, Tom did all the stuff I didn’t want to do. It’s not an exaggeration to say that we are in a better place because of Tom. Thanks.
That’s it for me! I’m sure I left a lot out, but that’s only because there is a lot going on.
