Sunday, July 7th, 2024
** No decisions/votes were made due to only 4 towns represented at the meeting. The following are notes from the discussion. More discussions and votes on changes will happen in the spring before the season begins.**
- Matt admitted that the 2nd half schedules were not what was agreed upon in the spring. After going back and looking at notes at the end of the year, he saw that he should have moved teams up. Instead while building the 2nd half schedules, he thought the agreement was to leave teams where they were in their designated divisions but give a few games in a different tier.
- To help mitigate this in the future, notes from the meeting will be posted online and he asked that when town reps are looking over the 2nd half schedule that they know they can point out these types of things to help make sure this doesn’t happen again
- The first year implementation of the Comp, Mid, and Rec divisions for the most part went well. The average margin of victory was down from 2023, indicating there were closer games throughout the season.
- There were questions raised about why some teams didn’t play others (example: Why didn’t Colman 12U play any Madison 12U). The reason for that is the constraints on the fields. Certain towns need certain home dates, and then trying to work around softball schedules, sometimes that prohibits some teams from playing one another. Matt also noted that for the games that we play while school is still in session, he tries to keep the travel to a minimum knowing there is school the next day. He will put documents online in 2025 to show what all goes into the scheduling so that everyone can see everything behind the scenes. That way if there are any parent questions, they can see how it’s all done.
- As far as the 2nd half schedule goes for next year, Matt will take a closer look at the numbers behind the records to see if a team really should move down. There were a couple of questions raised about a few teams that dropped from Mid to Rec for the tournament based on records. While on the surface the records may have shown a drop down would be fine, the scores of their games told a different story. That will be a part of the equation for 2025.
- Matt is going to keep the lines of communication open with Harrisburg and Tea. Sounds like there may be more Harrisburg teams interested in joining next season after the successful year the Harrisburg 10U team had this year. There were also a few emails with Tea on trying to get some extra games scheduled with them around their SEBA schedule, but ultimately didn’t work out. Hopefully they have interest in joining next year. A fun idea if more teams down south join would be to have North / South Divisions within the league, and then the championship game of the end of year tournament be the North Champion vs the South Champion
- If the number of competitive teams doesn’t increase to fill out a full schedule, a couple of ideas were presented that will be discussed in the spring of 2025 when we know numbers:
- One game a week for competitive teams on Wednesdays between their tournament weekends
- 2-game series…either on Tue and Wed, or a doubleheader night….where the same two teams play each other the same week kind of like a mini Major League baseball series does. Pitchers used in game 1 could not be used in game 2. New opponent every week
- End of the Year tournament notes:
- The 10U and 12U mid and rec divisions had too many teams. Matt knew this after the brackets were drawn. If there are more than 8 teams in a division, Matt’s suggestion is to break into tiers within the same division for smaller brackets.
- 8U pool play went very well. Since teams may not play all the other teams in their respective Gold/Silver/Bronze tournament bracket, the pool play worked to get a good seeding system, and then a single elimination style bracket.
- There is a proposal to do a 2nd half schedule for 8U
- Mounds were discussed. More towns are going to the mounds, but there is no requirement forcing communities to use them. When Matt updates the Ballpark maps/location page, he will note which fields have mounds. That will give teams advance notice in case they would like to find a teener/legion/amateur field to practice on before playing their game
- There is a proposal to add a rule about noises coming from the dugout while the pitcher is in his motion. It’s similar to the below Little League rule. There were complaints of this happening in the tournament games.
- Rule 4.06(c), No manager, coach, or player shall at any time whether from the bench or the playing field, make any move calculated to cause a balk or illegal pitch. The ability for a team to cheer for their batter or runners should not be restricted, unless there is a definite intent to gain an unfair advantage as discussed in Rule 4.06(c). The chanting/cheering must be in good taste and be directed solely at their own team. A good rule of thumb is the chants/cheers may be as loud as the team desires as long as there is no crescendo or shrieking when the pitcher is delivering the pitch. No artificial noise making (i.e.- pounding on buckets, or fences or air horns) is allowed.
- There is a proposal to update our rule of only 2 innings in the field to at least 3 or 4 innings in the field and include some infield time (if not a risk to injury). There was an example of some teams not moving players around or only playing them in the field for the minimum 2 innings.