As you wish.

You're wrong.

I decline to get into what amounts to a pissing contest with someone who does nothing but whine and complain and spew emotional claptrap here. All you have ever done here is bitch and complain, usually about things that have people here asking themselves, "Just what the hell is he talking about?"

BBC, I was fortunate to be halfway decent in some sports in high school, and after going to a small college, I had some Little League umpiring under my belt and enjoyed it. I was a member of an association that had several outstanding alumni in both MLB and MiLB, so I gave it a shot and the rest was history.

The fact that the umpires are okay with the fact that one of them was the sole reason Michael Young hit a 3-run home run in a playoff game

Thank you for proving my point about you doing nothing but whining like an emotional child. Never mind your baseless accusations and stupid assumptions.

I have no problem discussing professionally and rationally every aspect of Major League Umpiring (critiquing, commenting, complimenting, etc.), but I do so with others here who (a.) make sense, and (b.) don't rant like screaming lunatics, hurtling insults across the bow.

You will probably be my first person here to be put on the ignore list, and not for the reasons about which I am sure you'll assume and complain.

For a while, at least, the annual bowling party for the Jim Evans Academy for Professional Umpiring was a typical company outing. Employees drafted teams, concocted humorous names and went to the local alley to compete for bragging rights.

It did not stay normal for long. Over the course of that evening last month in Kissimmee, Fla., one team of employees bowled under a name that invoked the Ku Klux Klan. The team had entered the alley wearing costumes that played off the racist group’s distinctive regalia.

In the following days, one of the school’s instructors, the lone black employee, expressed unease over the night to his superiors. He also circulated photographs of the evening to a colleague.

This week, the black employee’s unease has led to this: the president of Minor League Baseball informed the Evans Academy that it would sever ties with the school and no longer accept its students into the professional ranks.

"We conducted an investigation, made our queries, and we uncovered behavior that we found to be reprehensible," said Pat O'Conner, the president of Minor League Baseball. "It was shocking, it was offensive, and it was disgusting to me."

Evans's academy, which opened in 1989, was until this past year one of just two schools from which baseball drew recruits for its umpiring program. This year, 14 of its 117 students were selected by Professional Baseball Umpire Corp, a subsidiary of Minor League Baseball, to be evaluated for potential employment.
* * *
According to employees who attended the event, one group of instructors chose a name that referred to the racial makeup of their four team members using well-known slurs. The team was composed of three white instructors and one Latino instructor. The white instructors wore shirts decorated with the words "Border Patrol."

Another team, after briefly calling themselves Klein's Klan — incorporating the last name of one of the members — settled on the name Klein’s Kleaning Krew. They entered the alley with the team name silkscreened on their shirts and cones on their heads.