umpire qualifacations

Question
My question is are umpires in the Cal Ripken league (10yo) required to take any courses or training of any kind before they umpire a game? in our town the we use the players from the high school team and have found that they either have a younger brother or a friends little brother on a team and they tend to help the team that they know best. this has caused many of the players on the opposing teams to get very discouraged, I asked the umpire at our last play off game if they need any kind of training or if they took any couses and I was told they do not and if the shirt fits then they can become an umpire. if you could clarify this for us that would be greatly appreciated. we spend alot of money to play in our league and would expect to have qualified umpires at least in the playoffs

         thanks
         Bill

Answer
Bill,

I cannot speak directly about the required training a Cal Ripkin league requires. However, I suggest you ask the person responsible for the umpires at the park, whether it's a Director or Umpire-in-Chief.

If you have direct proof of favoritism toward a specific team by the umpires, the management of the field needs to know. You need to be careful about this, though, as "his strike zone is different" or "all the close plays go toward a certain team" are judgement situations and are very difficult to prove. If, however, you've witnessed blatant disregard to rules, these should be discussed.

In addition, every group I've worked for has had rules on umpiring for teams you could be biased toward. These should definitely include teams in which a younger sibling plays for, and in my opinion should even expand to other family ties. In fact, the association that schedules my high school-level games doesn't allow us to work for schools we attended; they also forbid us to work for any high school in the same conference as a school our children attend.

In the end, you have to remember it's just a game for 10-year-olds. If you're constantly arguing about the quality of the umpiring (which is usually fairly low for a 10U league), you can always sign up to umpire yourself. I think you'll find the job is much more difficult than you think. Additionally, by being vocal about how bad the umpires are, you're teaching the children that it's okay to argue to and about the umpires -- something that shouldn't be tolerated at any level.