Health & Fitness
What Team Do You Ump For? And A Few Others!
Many baseball questions are asked of me throughout the entire year. I will try and answer some of them, that you might just be unaware of!
Whether it is during the off-season or regular season I get asked a wide variety of questions pertaining to my job.
One of the main questions I am asked when people find out that I am an umpire is,"What team do you umpire for?"
Many people do not realize that as an umpire I do not umpire for one team exclusively. In fact, I umpire all 30 Major League Baseball teams around the country. When I was hired, I was hired by the National League; however, in 2000 Major League Baseball combined the two umpiring staffs and formed MLB umpires rather than American or National League umpire
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Another question that I am frequently asked is, "How many umpires are there?"
Believe it or not, there are only 68 major league umpires. I feel very fortunate to be one of 68.
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The questions keep coming.
"How do you become an umpire?"
As far as becoming a professional umpire, you must attend one of the two umpire schools. Both former major league umpires Harry Wendelstedt and Jim Evans have schools in Florida. They are both approximately five weeks long.
If you are chosen from umpire school to continue, you must then attend a course conducted by PBUC (Professional Baseball Umpire Corporation). If after that course you are chosen, you begin your path to the big leagues by working in the minor leagues.
The minor leagues are broken down into different classifications. They are Rookie, A, low A, AA, and AAA. As a minor league umpire you will begin your career in Rookie ball and, hopefully, advance your way up to the big leagues.
One of the main differences between an umpire compared to a player working their way up is that, as an umpire, you must work in every level; whereas players can jump from any level straight to the big leagues.
One thing to remember if you aspire to become a professional umpire, there are no guarantees of making it to the big leagues. Statistically speaking, I believe there is less than a 1 percent chance of making it to the major league level.
So my advice to anyone thinking about taking the plunge into professional umpiring: get your college education first. That way if you are not one of the fortunate few, you have something to fall back on.
Even if I had not made it to the major league level, I could always say that I received great instruction from umpire school, which would have been very valuable in working high school or college baseball. Also, I can say I really enjoyed my experiences and friendships I established in the minor leagues. Many of those friendships I still have today.
