NEW ULM — High school baseball and softball are gearing up for the start of the spring season.

And while numbers are up in both sports in participants, numbers in a very essential area of both sports are down. By quite a bit for umpires.

“When I started last season, I had from between 45-50 umpires,” Al Flor, who assigns umpires locally said. “But this spring I am starting with only 25.”

Flor said that COVID during last season caused numbers to drop along with some umpires relocating out of the area.

“And this year we still have umpires who are concerned with their health and we have umpires who are aging up,” Flor said. “And for summer baseball only, we went from between 18-25 down to eight.”

Obviously, this throws a curve to both sports to where there may come a time — especially if a rain-out occurs and games have to be rescheduled — to where there may not be an umpire available.

“As of right now I am going to be very tight with my coverage area,” Flor said. “Right now all of my umpires are healthy and we should be able to cover the games. That is barring rain-outs and what happens with COVID and everything else, it could become very difficult, especially for college and high school. So it is a big concern.”

Flor said that finding umpires “has been a trending problem since last fall. There have been times where we have not been able to supply officials.”

So Flor is looking for people who may have an interest in becoming umpires.

“People do not have to necessarily have to take a test (to become an umpire),” he said.” “But it would be nice if they had some sort of background — a little bit of knowledge of the sport — and having been around the sport.”

Flor said that he really wants to be able to supply umpires this year (Varsity baseball requires two umpires per game). Besides being outside, it is also a good way to make some pretty good extra income.

“You are looking at between $50 an hour to somewhere from between $75 to $80 an hour,” Flor said. “All that you need is a little knowledge of the game — a like for the game — and good work ethic.”

Flor said that it would be nice to have younger people get involved. As of right now, the youngest umpire Flor has is 30 years old.

“The majority of umpires we have now are 55 years of age and older,” he said.

Flor said that trying to find officials for other sports is also a concern that he runs into.

“I had a difficult time this year assigning officials for football and basketball is a very difficult as they are limited because if they do get any kind of rescheduling — and this year because of COVID — they had to cancel games or move games because officials cannot be found.”

Flor said that right now for summer baseball (legion and amateur) and softball, the games will have one umpire.

If you are interested in becoming an umpire, you can contact Flor at 507-217-9947 or you can talk to any umpire.