Motivation Quote by Jim Evans

Gatekeeping, dressed up as career advice. Jim Evans’s line reads like a simple informational notice, but its real function is to draw a hard border around who gets to call the game and who doesn’t. “Anyone interested” sounds open-door, even democratic; the next clause snaps it shut. “Must attend one of the two” turns aspiration into a funnel, and “sanctioned by Major League Baseball” tells you exactly who controls the funnel.

The intent is practical: Evans is describing the official pathway to pro umpiring, and he’s protecting would-be umpires from chasing dead-end routes. But the subtext is institutional authority. Umpires aren’t just trained; they’re certified, branded, and filtered. The word “eligible” matters as much as “professional.” This isn’t about learning strike zones in a vacuum; it’s about being recognized by the same system you’ll one day be asked to arbitrate. The league’s credibility depends on umpires who share a standardized language of mechanics, discipline, and deference to protocol.

Context turns that bureaucracy into cultural commentary. Baseball loves to market itself as timeless and folksy, yet its officiating pipeline is closer to a licensing regime: centralized, expensive, limited in seats, and implicitly protective of the league’s labor market. Evans, an umpire educator as much as an on-field figure, is also signaling legitimacy: if you want the badge, you go through the gatekeepers. In a sport obsessed with “tradition,” this is tradition as infrastructure - not nostalgia, but control.