I was supposed to be down at Tuttle tonight, but just got word that we've been rained out. I've got two varsity games at Moore tomorrow, but the rain predictions are high all the way through Sunday, so there's no telling if I'll actually get any baseball in this weekend.
Pro umpires have no fear of weather; they get paid regardless of how many games are rained out. Of course, they have to make them all up, too, making for some very long days toward the end of the season, so it's not all wine and roses for those guys either...but then again, a Major League rookie umpire DOES make $300K base salary, so they probably shouldn't complain.
Football games go on regardless of the weather; about the only weather phenomenon known to stop football in its tracks is lightning, and even that isn't always guaranteed. This philosophy has its bad points, especially when you're standing out there doing a Pop Warner game in rainy, windy, 40-degree weather.
As a semi-pro official (I'm not an amateur because I get paid, obviously, but I'm not a pro because it's only a second job), I love rain-outs...and hate them. Rain-outs are great because it's a day off. I work my butt off doing games, usually taking games 5-7 days a week. Getting a rain-out usually means that I get to go home and just relax, or take that valuable time to get other important things done like work on the cars or clean my gear or do laundry, or just spend extra time with my incredibly-patient-and-understanding wife and kids. I won't deny that I miss the days of only working one job, and not having to rush around to games and worry about when I was going to have time to get important things like yardwork done. A day of missed games can provide a bounty of time to catch up. A weekend rain-out is even better this way, providing a rare full day off.
On the other hand, rain-outs mean money that I'm probably not going to get back. Rained-out games rarely get made up, and even if they do, I'm not guaranteed to get to work the make-up games. This might not seem like a huge deal, but a plain vanilla rain-out of a Jr High or JV doubleheader means that's $70 I have coming. If it's a varsity/JV double, it's $95; if it's two varsity games, that's $120! Weekend rainouts are worse; I am usually scheduled to do between 4-6 games on a weekend day for the local youth league, and that means a loss of $120-$180. That's no small bit of cash. Complicating things even more is that rain-outs usually come in clumps, like storms themselves. Storms don't usually come in, do their damage in a few hours, and go; a bad weather pattern in the spring can see storms stick around for 3-4 days. That can really add up.
So I'm happy and sad this afternoon. Here's hoping we get some ball in tomorrow. I'll be ready.
No comments:
Post a Comment