If you attended Vancouver Canadians
games last season, you undoubtedly saw your fair share of crappy
officiating. In fact, you probably saw more crappy officiating than you
saw great officiating. At times, it was dire. At times, it was enough
to make you actively angry. But you dealt with it, because you thought,
these minor league umps make crap money, and they’re on the first step
of a many-step process towards actually getting good, just like the
players.

So sure, your starting pitcher finds the strikezone getting squeezed.
And yeah, the occasional homerun shot is turned into a pole-curling
foul by a rookie ump with bad eyesight. And okay, you deal with the
fact that your second baseman’s successful sliding double has somehow,
miraculously, incredibly, been called as a rally-killing tag-out.
Mostly because it goes both ways, and also because it’s really not easy
calling plays at second base from a position at first.

That uneasy truce has been rocked this season in ballparks all over the
minors, as the umps have gone on strike for better conditions and
better pay, and rather than be negotiated with in good faith, they were
offered a paltry one-time pay raise of $100 a month (which the umps say
is offset by a rise in insurance deductibles), and when they asked for
more, they were replaced by scab labor.

Yes, that’s right. Oakland’s prized minor league prospects are being
officiated by high school umpires. LA’s million dollar draftee hitters
are having strikes called on them by guys who usually get $35 a game to
ump 15-year-olds. Seattle’s bonus babies are being buzzed by pitchers
while the rookie, unqualified umps wonder whether they should issue a
warning or just shut up and not rock the boat. And AAA catchers are
having words in the ears of officials that would be teaching dodgeball
in the gym if it weren’t for this strike.

According to the Minor League Report, the managers are noticing a real drop-off in quality:

"Down here, I don’t think you’ll see much of a difference–not at
the lower levels," said one high Class A manager. "But Double-A,
Triple-A, where the game is played on a different plane, that’s where
you’re likely to see the problems. And I don’t think it’s going to get
any better any sooner with the guys they have in place."

Let’s be clear - the guys breaking the strike are not doing it to further their careers. In fact, minor league baseball
is refusing to release umpires’ names so far this season so they can’t
be put on any blacklist, but you can bet they’ll lend up on exactly
that. The union will never accept scab labor in amongst its members, so
this is the one time these guys will ever see minor league action.

And so it should be. Strike-breaking is some kind of evil business at
the best of times, but strike-breaking for minor league umps - that’s
just cruel and selfish. I mean, the umps generally get paid diddly as
is - you really have to get to AAA to make any kind of living in this
business, and that means you have to officiate games in little league,
high school ball, college ball, rookie ball, and four levels of minor
league ball just for the chance at making what someone would make
working the drive-thru at In and Out Burger.

Okay, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration, but according to the minor
league baseball website, the official starting salary for a rookie ump
is just $1800 per month, or $11.25 an hour if you’re going by the
40-hours a week standard. That’s less than a first-day untrained
telemarketer makes selling insurance to grannies.

And if that still seems like a good deal to you, remember that part of
the job entails standing in the way of curveballs, sliders, change-ups
and the occasional 98mph fastball, before all squeezing into an economy
car rental, driving 12 hours through the night to the next series, and
then staying in a $40 per night highway motel room in glamorous places
like Spokane, Yakima and Boise. Not sounding so attractive now, huh?

So the umps want a little pay raise, and some better conditions. So be
it. The least that the minor leagues could do is talk to them about it,
but no, the minors think it so outrageous that someone on $1800 per
month who has left their wife and kids at home so they could ump rookie
ball in Arizona would dare pull an Oiver Twist and ask for more, that
they’ve decided to run scabs until the regular umps get back in their
cage and shut up already.

That is nothing short of reprehensible. At a time when the minors are
doing great, when franchises are selling for record numbers (the
Vancouver Canadians owners are in talks to sell 50% of the team for
numbers approaching $5-10m), you’d think there’d be a little scratch
for the folks who are so important in making sure the games are
entertaining.

But no. Instead we have scabs officiating in AAA, AA, High A and Low-A
ball, and you can bet if the umps don’t give in, we’ll be getting
umpiring in the NWL that sets the bar at a new low this season.

How the Major League umpires aren’t standing with their minor league
brothers on strike is beyond me. How other unions aren’t joining the
fray makes no sense to me at all.

To make matters worse, yesterday, Delmon Young (right), who was the Baseball America’s 2005 minor league player of the year, threw a bat into the chest of the scab umpire who called him on strikes,
and you have to think that kind of behavior comes from some REALLY bad
calling (combined with some really non-existant anger management), and
indicates that perhaps this isn’t just a financial issue anymore. Now
it’s a safety issue.

Minor League Baseball should be ashamed. And we, the people, should let them know we’re aware of it.

Mike Fitzpatrick is the Executive Director of the Professional Baseball
Umpire Corp, a subsidiary of Minor League Baseball which handles all
dealings with the umps. If you, like me, think the minor league umps
are getting screwed, drop him a note telling him so.

Trust me, 1000 emails from the people who come to see minor league
ballgames, threatening not to do so this season until the strike is
solved, will be a difference-maker in this whole sad, sorry episode.

Note: For a first hand account of Delmon Young’s bat fling, Rays Talk on MVN has a detailed account.