Part III of Why Youth Sports Umpires and Referees are Calling it Quits!

Since so many parents and spectators don’t “bite their tongues” when they disagree with calls officials make, their unacceptable behavior causes problems. One of the biggest problems that poor behavior by adults at kid’s games has caused is the severe shortage of umpires and referees that all youth sports are experiencing. The shortage of officials is nationwide, and is especially dire at the high school level. Here are some observations I made during the past year of measures that appear to have been taken to try to deal with the shortage of officials which many are saying has reached crisis proportions.

I noticed this past year that high schools with lights on their diamonds played most, if not all of their varsity baseball games at night. Since most youth and high school officials also work full time jobs, more umpires would be available to work games at night than at 3:30 on a weekday afternoon. I also don’t remember so many high school games in prior years being played under the lights other than on Friday nights. This past year night games were played all during the week. It seems this was done as a reaction to the limited supply of umpires.

Sub-varsity (junior varsity and freshman) high school baseball games were almost all played with only one umpire, and sometimes, without umpires. Schools were grateful to have even one umpire. Once when I walked past seated spectators to enter the field before a game, spectators applauded and thanked me for umpiring the game. They had no idea if I even knew what I was doing, but were so happy to just have someone show up that at least LOOKED like an umpire that I received a nice round of applause just for showing up. You know the umpiring situation is pretty bad when that happens! When no umpires were available, assistant coaches would stand behind the pitcher to umpire games.

All sports have a shortage of officials. Football requires more officials than baseball, and football leagues appear to be taking desperate measures to have enough officials for their games. High school football games that used to be played exclusively on Friday nights are being played other nights during the week as well as during the day on weekends. Now high school football games are being played whenever crews of officials can be put together.

Next time I’ll discuss why we have such a serious umpire and referee shortage, and how we got into this mess that shows no sign of improving.

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Randy Corwin is a veteran Massachusetts youth baseball umpire and author of the book, OBNOXIOUS PARENTS AND RUTHLESS COACHES, which is now available at Amazon Books, Barnes and Noble’s online bookstore, and at An Unlikely Story Bookstore and Cafe in Plainville, MA. This post is part three of a series of articles based on the book.