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TOPIC: 2014 Season Ending Thoughts |
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| Dewey B
September 9, 2014
11:13:00 PM
Entry #: 4144833
| Well another season in the books. I thought it would be a good idea to throw out any rules/issues ideas while they are still fresh in our heads. That will give us a head start into next years first meeting.
To be honest, I don't have much to say on this matter. I like the rule changes we have made over the last few years. My only opinions are:
1) I think we have to be one league. I just don't think we have enough teams to justify having two separate leagues. Five teams in one league is really not enough (in my opinion).
2) A major change in the way umps are handled (on both sides). I have begun discussions with a few umps on how to get the more experienced umps working our games again. But in turn, I am suggesting a zero tolerance policy for players complaining about balls and strikes and illegal pitching. They should be able to call it the way they see it, and not hear it from everyone every call. If we can act better as a league, we can get the more experienced umps coming back to Harborcreek. Again, that's just my opinion.
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| Timeout
September 25, 2014
3:08:22 PM
Entry #: 4146786
| In response to your thoughts above:
1) Not sure how I feel about this one. If we have any less than 10 total I would say we have to move to one league for sure. If we have 10 or more, I currently don’t see a problem sticking with 2 leagues. I guess the make up (i.e. strength) of all the teams involved could play a part as well though. If we were to consider 1 league, in my opinion we would seriously have to implement some type of bat limitations which I’ll talk about more below.
2) I agree that it would be nice to get more experienced umpires to work our games and I think as a league we need to act more mature. Constantly nagging them about balls & strikes gets old so we just have to realize going in that they are human and are probably going to miss a few. I’ve found that most umpires don’t have a problem discussing calls if you go about it the right way. You don’t always get the answer you want, but at least you can talk to them about it.
One to add
3) Bat Limitations– I mentioned this last year and so I’ll do it again. It probably isn’t a popular idea but I think it would be great and better for the league overall. I don’t think the change to the balls we used really had much of an impact at all. I think we should seriously consider a wooden bat league, or single wall only non-composite bats. The first reason is for safety. Balls are just flying off the bats and someone is going to take one off the face one of these days. I know that could potentially happen with any type of bat or ball used, but the odds are decreased with wooden or limited bats, etc. The second reason is for competitive reasons. Bat limitations make pitching and defense part of the game again. I personally enjoy well played modified games that end 10-8 rather than 28-24. In my opinion the bat technology has made the modified game start to resemble slow pitch scores. The better hitting teams will still win most of the time, but it would probably help bridge a little bit of the gap with a lesser hitting team and as mentioned above I think this would be extremely important if we are going to consider moving to 1 league.
Andrews
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| Michael K
October 19, 2014
11:38:04 PM
Entry #: 4149621
| We (Park Tavern) used wooden bats for our final regular season game against Dempsey. The final score was 5-0. Dempsey scored their runs by stringing together base hits and bunting to advance runners. Infielders played on the dirt not the outfield grass. Outfielders played halfway between the fence and the infield not five feet from the fence. We finished the game in less than an hour. It helped that we had two good umpires (Joe Dolak on the bases and Joe Rocco behind the plate). What really helped the pace of the game was the fact that the pitchers (Brian Dewey and Jeff Nichols) could challenge the hitters without the threat of every pitch over the plate being hit out of the park. We did the same thing several years ago again against Dempsey and it was just as fun.
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