A Tale of Two Umpires

Mark's View: A Tale of Two Umpires

New York, September 15, 2000 -- Here is the story of two baseball umpires. The first is Mr. X, who umpires in the major leagues. Mr. X was fortunately enough to keep his job after last year's firing of umpires by baseball management. He also decided to boot out the old union and vote in the current leadership, who was given the right to negotiate contracts.

He was rewarded for his patience as a new agreement was concluded a few weeks back. According to documents obtained by USA Today and reported by sportsbusinessnew.com, the new agreement contains an annual escalation in salary for each of the five years. The range for 2000 is $81,704 for a rookie umpire to $260,345 for those with 26 or more years of service. In the fifth year, the maximum base salary is $340,505. Under the old agreement, umpires' salaries ranged from $75,000 to $225,000 and there was no annual escalation. Each umpire also gets $23,000 in a postseason pool. Other bonuses: crew chiefs, $8,200; All-Star Game, $5,500; Division Series, $13,750; League Championship Series, $16,500; World Series, $19,250.

Mr. X is under more supervision by his employer after the tumultuous events of 1999, but all in all, he is not doing too badly.

Now let's look at Mr. Y, an umpire in the minor leagues. He voted to form a union, which was approved in an overwhelming vote of 187-10. Mr. Y can only hope that the new deal negotiated by the nascent labor organization has terms better than what he was making.

At this time, a senior Triple-A umpire earns about $15,000 a year, according to Bloomberg News. Forced to stay often three to four in a room, not offered any meal money, minor league umpires have decided to form a union in time for the 2001 season. Let's see how close they will come to their big-league brethren.