As the weather slowly turns toward spring, thoughts of baseball are in the air, and for Baseball Manitoba, there is a need for umpires in almost all communities across the province.<\/p>\n
Optimistic times<\/p>\n
VP of Umpire Development for Baseball Manitoba, Ashton Liskey, says overall, they are in an okay spot, but they are preparing to help more people have the chance to become an umpire. “Things are looking all right. It’s a little early to tell exactly how many umpires we’re going to have this year or how many umpires we’re going to need. But we’ve already had about five online virtual clinics. They’ve all been well attended with between 30 and 50 umpires per clinic.”<\/p>\n
Why become an umpire<\/p>\n
When it comes to reasons why someone should look into becoming an umpire, Liksey says there are a multitude of reasons. “So what drew me to umpiring was learning the game of baseball, learning the intricacies of the different rules and how I get to as a player, maybe bend the rules a little bit to favour myself. Also just being outside and enjoying the fresh air, and getting paid for something you enjoy doing and being a part of. That’s a couple of reasons why I started out partying. It’s pretty rewarding. Personally, myself, I’ve been through about nine nationals across the country of Canada. I’ve seen every province from BC to Newfoundland, so it’s been rewarding that way. It’s been a lot of hard work, but yes, it’s been very rewarding.”<\/p>\n
Liskey says that moving up as an umpire comes through hard work, but that hard work gets rewarded. “So your basic level one, level two, that do community club baseball, they earn a nice modest, you know, roughly $30 to $40 a game. Then, as you progress and rise through the levels, you can earn up to $80, $85 a game from junior and senior baseball.”<\/p>\n
Keeping the game respectful<\/p>\n
Baseball Manitoba has worked hard to curtail some of the issues when it comes to abuse of umpires, including starting a program to help identify younger umpires, which Liskey says has been a big success. “The yellow band initiative is kind of a copycat of the green arm band initiative across the hockey world and across Canada. It’s to help provide a visual aid for coaches, parents, and even players to know these are kids, these are you know they’re all under 18, those would be wearing these, they’re still learning the game, just as the player or the coaches would be, as well. So it’s an individual aid to kind of like, hey, check yourself before you, you know, like fool yourself a little bit by yelling at a kid.”<\/p>\n
“The feedback’s been pretty positive,” Liskey continues. “Last year was our first year doing it.\u00a0We struggled a little bit early on with umpires wearing the wristbands, the armbands. However, once we kind of realized that there was like a little bubble around them, I think we grew some confidence in making their decisions, which helped me very much. Parents of the umpires absolutely love it. As they sit and watch, most parents now sit and watch their kids because of the armchair umpires and the lawn chair umpires, I should say. So we noticed that some of the kids haven’t been harassed as much. But then again, you do still have your scenarios where you know, with the lawn chair umpire, no better way of putting it, yelling at us on a strike, or he was safe, or he was out, and so on. But yeah, it’s definitely helped a little bit. We hope that it’s been helping more this year. We’ve introduced some signs around some ballparks across the province just to remind parents, fans and spectators that these are kids and they are just learning how to fire, just like their kids learn how to play.”<\/p>\n
Growing a strong group<\/p>\n
The work is being put in across Manitoba to help build a base of umpires, and Liskey says the game doesn’t happen without them, so the job is an important one. “If there’s no umpire, there’s no game. It is the impartial or impartial person of the game. The umpire has nobody to cheer for.\u00a0It’s very important for our young umpires to stick with it. I know it’s tough when you get yelled at sometimes, but if you stick at it, you can see the country, you can see the world even, as we have a lot of umpires that are national umpires in our province, and we even have a couple of international umpires in our province. I’ve been to the Olympics, so it is a great way to have a great hobby and get rewarded with it as well.”<\/p>\n
Getting the information<\/p>\n