ASA Tournament Disappointed with Vandalia

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Went to watch my youngest play in the Vandalia Windmill today and I must say I am disappointed. Not with weather, you can't help that. Not with the effort of the grounds crews, they had a lot on their hands. Not with the format change and reduced games, I understand travelball weather issue. My issue was with the fact that they decided to use only one umpire and the umpires were not very good at that. I hope for bracket play they have two guys. One man behind the plate can not provide a quality game, I don't care how good he is. This is not a case of sour grapes, my kid's team won handily. Please if we have to accept reduced games and game length, at least provide us quality for the time we are on the field.

 

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Ringer this is not the first tournament this year that has only used 1 umpire. I think this comes down to greed on the TD's part. These tournament cost keep rising and we teams and coaches keep getting the short end of the stick. I don't know what to do about it but I do know that something needs to be done. Just like the smokey baker tournament changes the format 2 weeks before the tournament to one less pool game because they took more teams, why take more teams, oh yeah - GREED!!!!!!!

 

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How's that tournament rating system coming? Need an "Angie's List" for tourneys.

 

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Vandalia usually uses 1 umpire... last time we were there the one umpire was a JH/HS kid why never went back even to watch.
I couldn't believe Danger Memorial Day tournament only had one umpire... very surprising.

 

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Teams need to stop going to tourneys that use one ump and the problem will go away. It is NOT the TD's at fault here, they put it out there and people keep buying it, why stop? It's the COACHES who keep sending them our money and signing up for their tourneys. Me thinks.

 

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@Musty:

I'm not sure that tournament directors DO put it all out there at a point in time when we are making decisions about schedules for the team. I'll just have to make a checklist of things that I will publicly (that is, on here) ask the TD before the BHeat 95 makes its decision.

@ALL:

Another issue that really concerns the Buckeye Heat '95 coaching staff is the degree to which Friday early play is being considered "routine". When the TD has the option to limit the field, the decision to require early Friday play could be influenced by several factors. It could be that the tournament is an invitational and the TD has received many applications from extremely talented teams. It could be that the tournament is first-come, first-served and the TD decides to increase the bottom line by letting in additional teams. It could be, as with ASA/USA National qualifiers, that the tournament has very little choice about the number of teams that can attend the tournament.

BUT ONE THING IS CLEAR: early Friday and Thursday play will continue to separate the haves from the have-nots for Ohio fastpitch. Families with limited economic resources face very, very hard choices about funding Friday play. That funding includes missed wages.

As the players get older (I'm thinking the older 12U's), I actually think that a good response is to have a few parents cart the majority of the girls to the Friday play, with the rest of the parents being allowed their normal work days. The parents responsible for getting the girls there would rotate from week to week. It's hard for the parents to have to skip games, but some players would definitely benefit from having a few games without the pressure of parental review AND the family stress level would be reduced. Of course, after the players have their licenses, they can always get themselves to local and perhaps even more distant tournaments.

I understand that there will always be families that have more economic resources to devote to the game. I'd just like to see TD's take into consideration the impact on middle class families of extending the tournament fields to such a degree that early Friday play is required. If such an increase in the number of teams is based primarily upon the economic return to the tournament, at that point I'd have to question priorities.

And I'd certainly expect that there would be two umps available when the choice has been made to expand the number of teams.

Since this is essentially a hijack, I'll open a new thread.

 

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As you well noted.... TD's do NOT have anything to say on the limitations of the amount of teams for an ASA/USA National Qualifier. ALL are welcomed. It's open.

I've always said I never understand the mindset of coaches sometimes.

In a 24 team tournament... a 3 pool and single elims....1/2 of the teams see only 4 of the 24 teams all weekend anyway. So what did it matter getting into the MEGA tournament.. except getting in a 24 team event.. gives you less playing time (time limits) and when it rains... it's easier to get up and going with less teams versus 24 teams in ONE age group. Let alone the other age groups that are there as well.

So advantages to big tournaments... I don't see any personally. All I see is limited play time and in case of rain.. a big headache.

Less amount of teams in any given tournament give the teams their bang for their buck versus the MEGA events.

 

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I am more concerned about the consistency of the usage of the umpires yesterday. We played our first game with one umpire who looked seasoned...then we played another game an hour later with two kids as umpires.

Not that any of them were horrible...I guess I just didn't understand why one pool play game had one and the next had two.

 

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Clydesdale1 I was at the usssa states tourney in Beavercreek over memorial weekend so I do not know what was going on at the Danger tourney put on by our 10u team as a fundraiser for them. I can tell you though that I would be disappointed with 1 umpire if it was not stated for sure. I played in the 14u Danger fundraiser tourney and knew there was only going to be 1 umpire and of course I was still disappointed. One umpire can do a scrimmage good enough but one ump cannot do tourney games near good enough and everyone knows that.

 

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As you well noted.... TD's do NOT have anything to say on the limitations of the amount of teams for an ASA/USA National Qualifier. ALL are welcomed. It's open.

I've always said I never understand the mindset of coaches sometimes.

In a 24 team tournament... a 3 pool and single elims....1/2 of the teams see only 4 of the 24 teams all weekend anyway. So what did it matter getting into the MEGA tournament.. except getting in a 24 team event.. gives you less playing time (time limits) and when it rains... it's easier to get up and going with less teams versus 24 teams in ONE age group. Let alone the other age groups that are there as well.

So advantages to big tournaments... I don't see any personally. All I see is limited play time and in case of rain.. a big headache.

Less amount of teams in any given tournament give the teams their bang for their buck versus the MEGA events.

Not a coach but I think the advantage that coaches see is the prestige of winning a bigger event over a smaller one. Beating 24 teams verses beating 12.

 

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The problem is they didn't beat 24 teams anyway. And the MEGA events offer less and less play time and more chances for "changed" rules based on too many teams in a tournament and a little bit of rain.

We are seeing more and more of these MEGA events have a hiccup and all heck breaks loose.

 

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How's that tournament rating system coming? Need an "Angie's List" for tourneys.

Tony, you are definitely on to something. It would help out the teams and families, if we knew the past track record of tournaments. The 10u's are the new kids on the block and any suggestions or help on past incidents would be greatly appreciated. I have talked to a couple fellow 10u coaches that are in Vandalia and they were very happy with how the fields were being tended to. If you want to hear or read some horror stories, look over on the Bat Wars thread. Wow, that one could fill up a server on feedback. Unfortunately, all negative feedback and deservedly so.

 

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I've found it "not uncommon" for there to be one umpire on pool and then two on Sunday. We had a few calls on Saturday that were incorrect only because the home plate umpire had to make a call based on his angle. He was wrong, but he had no way to see the play any differently. I was right there coaching a base but clearly saw the situation but I didn't even say anything because he was doing all he could.

 

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@Musty:


Another issue that really concerns the Buckeye Heat '95 coaching staff is the degree to which Friday early play is being considered "routine".

There is tournaments which do not play on Fridays, but if Fridays are included in the flyer you better be ready to play at 8 am. As a coaching staff you have to select your tournaments carefully and just include a couple of tournaments which includes Fridays. The Friday game times will never change, it is and will always be a part of travel ball.

 

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Heat Man Heat, there is a whole separate thread on this. I'm not an innocent when it comes to Friday play.

 

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Hey Carol, is this your first year of coaching,lol.

Jeff

 

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@Jeff: missed seeing you this spring. Hope we cross paths soon. Best of luck to you and the Danger team.

 

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Thanks and same to your team. I am sure we will pass somewhere