After a tenuous opening weekend to the Gulf Coast high school baseball season, veteran umpire Tony Combs is hoping to avoid any more game cancelations moving forward.

An umpire pay dispute in recent weeks in the Mobile/Baldwin County area threatened to disrupt the season. Teams could officially start play on Feb. 16.

However, as of last week, a pair of organizations – Combs’ South Alabama Baseball Umpire Association and a new Gulf Coast BB103 – appeared ready to call games at the regular rate of $80 per official for this year.

Combs’ veteran group had contracts with most of the private schools in the two counties along with Satsuma, Gulf Shores, Orange Beach, T.R. Miller and W.S. Neal. The new group, started by Johnny Thornton, had contracts with the Mobile and Baldwin County public schools and with UMS-Wright.

However, umpire shortages still interrupted this weekend’s schedule, leading to what Combs termed a “productive conference call” last week that included himself, AHSAA director of officials Ken Washington, Mobile County athletic director Brad Lowell, Baldwin County athletic director Marty McCrae and UMS-Wright athletic director Terry Curtis.

Since that call, Combs’ group has received a signed contract back from Baldwin County public schools to call their games. UMS-Wright also planned to return a contract to the South Alabama Umpires Association. Combs also said he has sent a contract to Mobile County public schools but hasn’t received anything back yet. Lowell did not immediately return a phone call or text message. Mobile County schools are out today for Mardi Gras.

“As far as I know, we are good to go with Baldwin County,” Combs told AL.com. “We are covering some Mobile County games today. We covered some games over the weekend we didn’t have contracts for just to help out. We are doing everything we can so we don’t have any more games canceled.”

Combs said he had been “virtually guaranteed” that officials in all sports would receive a pay raise for the next school year. Any raise for officials would need to be improved by the AHSAA’s Central Board of Control.

At its January meeting, the AHSAA Central Board heard a report from Washington on the issue and decided to form a committee to study the request and seek data from other Section 3 states. That committee is expected to bring back a recommendation to the Board at its April meeting.

“We’ve been told in April that it will be approved, and that is what we are hoping for,” Combs said. “We didn’t want to shut down baseball around here. We could have held out, but nothing good was going to come out of that and I emphasized that to our group. Everyone wants to umpire. Coaches want to coach. Certainly, the kids want to play. So, the mindset was, ‘Let’s get back to work and, hopefully, get a raise next year.”

While Combs’ group waits on a decision from MCPSS, he said they will still help as many teams as they can.

“We are doing this to help our coaches out,” he said. “We have a great relationship with all our coaches. If a coach calls us from Alma Bryant or Theodore and needs an umpire, we are going to try to help them out. We are doing it strictly for the coaches and the kids.”

Combs said the South Alabama Umpires Association stands at 90 officials, “maybe a few more.” Combs said he has a positive feeling about the remainder of the season.

“There are some guys who foster hard feelings against the guys who left,” he said. “There are maybe four guys who left our group. Everything else is totally positive. We are working Baldwin County games, and we are ready to go forward with Mobile County. Our group has stayed strong I’m proud of them.”

AL.com reached Thornton briefly Monday morning to check on the status of the Gulf Coast BB103 group. He said he would call back but has not at this time.

This story will be updated