The Merrimack Valley Umpires Association (MVUA) announced today that the umpiring clinic for adult men, women, and teenagers (over 16) who want to be trained as certified(patched) baseball umpires, will be held on Thursday, July 10^th 2008 and continue on consecutive Thursday’s for the next seven weeks. The 2007 official Major League Baseball umpire’s exam will be administered at the end of the class.  Since Major League Baseball had recently changed the MLB rules, the new rules will be covered.  These new rules include speeding up the game of baseball.

“I am amazed that even though the MVUA has grown to over 200 members, we still do not have enough umpires to do all the games we are asked to cover,” said Steve Collins of Hampstead, NH, President of the Merrimack Valley Umpires Association.  We are constantly being asked to provide umpires for leagues and we are not sure we have enough umpires to cover those games..  We need more men, women, and teens to umpire games.  There is a critical shortage.” 

The clinics will be held from 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM at St. Mary of the Assumption School in Lawrence, Mass (301 Haverhill Street, Lawrence, Mass) The cost for the seven-week program is $125. Anyone interested is urged to contact 2^nd Vice President John Silva ((978) 462-4599) Rules Interpreter Ron Annand ((978) 681-8927) or go to WWW.MVUA.ORG.

The MVUA provides umpires to all levels of baseball from college games, Massachusetts and NH school games, AAU, Babe Ruth to Little Leagues in the Merrimack Valley. The MVUA has been providing quality umpires to this area for over 50 years and is the oldest umpiring organization in Mass.

Umpires have the option to work as many or as few games as they like.  They make their own schedules and make some extra money in the process.  Some of our umpires do as many as 150 games a season and some do as few as 10 games at an average game fee of $60 for a typical 2 hour game.” 

The MVUA supports candidates of all genders, all ethnic groups and teens (men and women over age 16) to become umpires. 

This year the MVUA has taken steps to ensure that anyone who wants to be an umpire and attends the clinics, but due to language or learning difficulties may have trouble with the written exam, will be assisted as much as possible. 

Anyone interested should contact the Merrimack Valley Umpires Association 2^nd Vice President John Silva (978-462-4599) jsilva1020@comcast.net for more information or email Joel@JSaren.com .