Umpires

Do umpires get better with experience?

I was a at a varsity high school game the other day and a young kid, just a freshman, hit the crap out of the ball and it was a line drive to left. The left fielder had no chance because it lined right over his head. The ball bounced and went over the fence for a ground rule double. BUT WAIT!!! The umpires are signaling home run. That couldn't be because I saw the ball clearly bounce over the fence. Granted the fence was white and it was a night game. The only thing the umpires had to do was watch the ball. There was nobody on base so their only worry was to watch the ball.

I tell you this story because I play professional ball and the same thing happened to us about 4 times this year. Someone, either on our team or theirs, would hit a ball into the left center field gap and it would CLEARLY bounce over for a ground rule double, but every time they would signal home run. We always argued the call and got it changed back to a ground rule double. I know that they are on the opposite side of the call, but when a whole team is out on the field arguing that it bounced, don't you think that it might have bounced?

My point is, is that these high school umpires are probably 20-30 years old. The professional umpires are maybe 35-55 years old and they are all making the same mistakes. We even watched last year as the umpires completely destroyed the playoffs. I am completely against putting cameras into baseball, but it seems to me like the umpires just don't care to get any better. Everyone grows and learns with experience, but from my experience I believe that umpires just aren't growing and learning like they should. Let's be honest, have you ever gone through a whole game without seeing a call that you knew was completely wrong?