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Interesting Umpire Analysis
J.C. Bradbury: Overhauling Umpires
Umpires begin their careers the minor leagues, where they earn extremely low wages. Minor league umpire salaries range from $1,800 to $3,400 a month, which translates to about $11,000 to $20,000 for six-months of games. I could hardly believe these numbers when I read them, because this is an extremely important age for acquiring skills that will be used for life.
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Not only must you suffer through many years of low pay, but there exists the possibility that even if you excel and do everything right, there won’t be a spot for you when you rise to the top. Thus, the major-league salary probably isn’t high enough for most people to justify enduring the low-wage employment. This means there are two types of people who pursue umpiring as a career: those who love baseball so much that being in the game compensates for the low pay and people with low opportunity costs because they have few other valuable skills.
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How does the league allow Doug Eddings and Derryl Cousins to keep their jobs? Maybe one of them is enforcing the true strike zone (though, I doubt it), but both of them cannot be doing so—they are seven standard deviations apart.
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