hile there are obvious advantages to our Texas method of choice vs assignment, recently another magazine noted the method might be less than ethical. Those umpires chosen may be headed for work for which they are ill prepared, comes the thought.

I was chosen for a high school playoff series. There was also another umpire from my association chosen, and together we traveled 850 miles over two days to work a series that went the full three games. In the newspaper one team won and the other team lost. We've got a different viewpoint. We think that we participated in an educational exercise that taught the lessons of success.

We wrote a letter

Here's a letter we wrote to the team and the coach who chose us. Whether they "won" or "lost" is immaterial. They were successful.

Dear Coach, Dear Players,

Continued...