Why We Don't Have Umps

Friday, January 19, 2018
Rachel
Creative Design and Website Admin

Some players may be wondering why umpires are not making the calls at your ESSC Slo-Pitch games. Although having umpires might help with those tough calls there are a few reasons why they won’t be calling balls and strikes at your games.

A big reason would be there is no umpire association that can provide 50+ umpires each night. With the amount of teams in our league and all the diamonds we use each night we would have to fly in umpires from all over the province to call our recreational slo-pitch games. We just can’t do it!

We would prefer to spend money on our field maintenance program. We have a crew who visit diamonds all week lining, mowing and raking to help maintain and improve the quality of the diamonds. Our crew’s goal is to keep our diamonds in the best possible shape so our players can have a better experience at the games. Also making sure to line as many fields as possible to make those foul ball calls that much easier! To learn about our recent equipment upgrades Click Here.

Accountability is another reason we don’t have umpires. When umping, players and teams will learn the rules more quickly and have a more thorough understanding of the game. Click here to read through our rulebook. Teams also must work together to ump their own games. So, if there is a wrong call due to the umpire missing the play or not knowing the rules then the team captains should get together and quickly discuss and resolve the issue. Having good communication between the two teams help keep the games more social, recreational and most importantly more fun!

We emphasis the “fun-first, winning second” mentality in our leagues. So when umping make sure to have fun with it!