If anyone here is an umpire, question about start times of baseball/softball

When I umpired and both teams were ready to go, I'd start the game within a minute or two of the scheduled start time. I don't ever remember starting a game early.

It was far more likely that a game would start late because one team was getting its ninth player to the field. I almost had to eject a coach who was arguing that his team was entitled to a 15-minute grace period when county rules clearly state his team wasn't because his game wasn't the first at the site that day. His team's ninth player was moseying really slowly toward the field and his team was within a minute or two of a forfeit.

To answer the question in the OP more specifically, I typically wouldn't be willing to start a game early unless BOTH teams had a damn good reason for me to do so.

 

Who said it was unpaid? I used that time to talk to coaches/ADs/players/fans/etc. The editor of the paper, who has never been on time for anything in his life and piles so much crap on the news department they are always running behind as well, never could comprehend how the sports guys knew so much of what was going on in town. We told him it was because we actually got out and talked to people in the community.

 

If you were a paying customer, who got off at work at 5 p.m. and rushed to get to see your kid hit in the first inning of a road game and missed his home run because the game started 15 minutes early, you'd be pissed.

As much as as I appreciate the extra 15 minutes for deadline/head hitting the pillow purposes, they should stick to the agreed-upon start time unless they're trying to beat an imminent rainstorm or something.

 

Here's the one that's bugged the you know what out of me for years:
Varsity basketball tournament doubleheader. championship night. First game tip-off is advertised as 7 p.m. Instead they set the 20 minute warmup at 6:40. So, after the player introductions and Star Spangled Banner the tip-off is more like 7:10. then you have the post-game awards ceremony and the next thing you know the second game is tipping at 9:15 and concludes around 10:45

 

OK, let's stick to agreed-upon start times, but it needs to go both ways. If the advertised start time of a basketball game is 6:30, that doesn't mean whenever the JVs get done, whenever we get done with the dragged out starting lineups, whenever we we get done dicking around; it means ball in the air at 6:30. Does that sound fair?

 

One of the private schools around here has bugged me for years with their basketball start times. They play girls and boys JV to completion, and THEN the two varsity games. I've gotten there around 6 for the start of the girls game before and had to sit through the entire second half of the JV boys game. Annoying as hell, because it's one of those situations where you're sitting there doing nothing (albeit getting paid to do nothing) for a good 30-40 minutes, but it's not really enough time to drive back to the office and get anything productive done.

Of course, that same private school also led me close to sports writer nirvana a few years ago. The girls team was go-winless terrible, and the boys team won a state championship. So the girls would get their heads kicked in and they'd often go to a running clock in the second half. The boys would do the head-kicking, and they'd go to a running clock in the second half. There was one doubleheader that started on time at 6 p.m., and I was out of there by 8.

 

That's in an ideal world. When we were fully-staffed, I used to be 15-30 minutes early for everything and did what you do, talking to folks and generating goodwill and story ideas. Baseball was especially great for doing that.
Now that our other writer got laid off and my SE left, not to be replaced? I'm doing well to pull up as the national anthem is being played.
With three or four pages to produce every day, usually anywhere from two to six stories to write daily (including call-ins), and all of the other miscellaneous stuff that we used to split up and can't any longer, I typically need to work until the last minute at the office or else it's more work to do at 10 p.m. after the game I'm covering and shooting is over, when I also have to write up another two or three stories from call-ins.
So, yeah, these days I'm in the "get there and get caught up" camp (although I don't dispute the value of getting there early).

 

The GHSA requires that we be on the field 15 minutes prior to the scheduled first pitch. Sometimes we get there, and the coaches see us and start heading to the plate. If they're ready, then we're ready.

I have had plenty of coaches ask if they can get underway ASAP. I've had coaches tell me they're going to wait until the scheduled time so parents can get there. It goes both ways.