Thursday, May 6, 2010
fields
To whom it may concern? I have been in this league for a little while now. I was wondering to having fun and fellowship. In the last few years it has been all about rules and more rules. Everyone arguing myself included. I was hoping to be able to just be like the old days of playing behind schools and churches. Remember Marantha's nice thick grass and parkland 's shade trees. Also what about all these bye weeks and double headers. When there are other fields available to us. I guess I am all over the place but this was on my mind. Lakemoor has a great field with lights. we used to put down the bases not have a problem were the pitching rubber was and play. Sometimes not even have a pitching rubber. I miss the old days. One more thing lets hope the 102 years comes to and end soon.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Yes, I remember putting bases down in the grass at East and at Maranatha, the horrible field at Parkland and playing at West and Lakemoor.
I also remember arguments because we did not have set rules or adopted rules from ASA. Umping ourselves is great but it does help to have a framework and for us as managers to make sure the framework is learned by our people that ump with us.
As for arguing, we ALL have signed a Code of Conduct, which is in place to COMPLETELY eliminate arguing since one of the stipulations of the COC is to NOT argue any call with any umpire, or you are subject to ejection!
Enforcement is incumbent upon;
1.) Managers apprising the umpires of this.
2.) Asst. Managers reminding the managers to remind the umpires of this.
3.) Managers and Assistant managers leading by example by NEVER arguing a call. You can have a discussion with the umpire on a point of order of a rule, but do not argue!!!
4.) Umpires following through with this!
I also point out that EACH year we have had the winter meeting, a call goes out for agenda items. Usually no one responds. The league has become what we have collectively collaborated to let it become.
I for one think things are running great because I have not gotten complaints such as this one. To the contrary, we continue to get MANY compliments on how things are running and running well!
As to the fields we used to play on.
1.) East. No longer exists. It is now a parking lot, literally.
2.) West. Athletic director Drew Potthoff would NOT allow us to rent these fields. That's right, RENT. They are no longer free as they used to be under the previous AD.
3.) Parkland. Not on my watch. The place was and still is a DANGEROUS playing surface.
4.) Lakemoor. Remember the one homer rule because the porch was so short? Remember losing balls in the swamp right next to the first base dugout? Remember leaving QUICKLY at the end of the game because the skeeters in the swamp would become so thick? What would field lights do to triple that effect and effectively make it impossible to play a 7:30 or 8:30 game?
5.) Maranatha. We can look at bringing this back, but would you join a work crew to help bring it back? :-)
I think those answers are good. However playing at the field 3 and 4 after a week of rains is no different than lakemoor. The one homerun rule is just like the ground rule double at shamrock. We could also see if the village plans to spray. The main point I had was it seemed much easier before. IT seems with so much focus on rules and the "COC" we forgot to behave as believers. Before we had a player who could not run but loved the game. It was never a question if someone could run for him.
We do have sub runner allowance from ALL bases. The sub from home allowance was specifically geared towards players who can no longer or never could run.
BTW, who is Mudslinger? :-)
...a late thought on the COC. The COC is primarily targeted towards outreach players that play as welcome guests on many teams.
For many, this is their first exposure to a church league, or for that matter, a church anything! So this offers guidance on how we expect them to behave.
The other side of that coin is that the COC also reminds us regular church folk too that the bar is high.
We need to protect the general witness of our local church. We also need to protect the witness of the greater church at large with Christ as our Lord and King over all.
Post a Comment