From the Presentation to the Softball Managers Meeting 3/16- 3/17/04

Good evening and welcome to the San Francisco Softball League’s 2004 Season managers meeting. My name is Dave Powell and I’m the Secretary of The San Francisco Softball Advisory Board. The Softball Advisory Board is made up of dedicated current and former players and managers with well over 100-years combined softball experience.

I’d like to introduce to you the league commissioners and Advisory Board Officers:

Chris Gaggero and Tom Sandoval - League Directors

Ed Barquero – The Advisory Board President

Mike Domenici - Advisory Board Vice-President

Ron Bourdon - Advisory Board Treasurer

Members of The Advisory Board represent all of the leagues that play here in San Francisco and they are:

Susan Einbinder - representing Industrial & Women’s Leagues

Dave Gallerani - representing The Umpires Association

Ed Tapia - representing Coed

Jon James - representing At Large

Rich Reinholdt - representing Open Men’s

The Advisory Board meets the first Thursday of each month to discuss a variety of topics concerning Softball in San Francisco . These include Rules and Rule Changes; Problems that arise during games; Appeals of player disciplinary actions or suspensions; and just about anything else concerning the smooth operation of our league.

We are frequently asked why we have manager’s meeting. To me, the answer is pretty simple. This is an opportunity for players and managers to get together with the league commissioners, board members and the umpires to discuss issues that are important to the success of our league. This is a dialog that serves to inform players and managers as to how the league operates the way that it does, and it gives us a change to hear from the teams. If you have questions about softball, I’m fairly sure that the people in this room tonight have the answers.

Obviously there have been many changes to softball this season. First off, we have been forced to increase league fees for the first time in several years. What you should know is that even with the increase we are still the lowest costing league in the bay area. If you had a chance to visit the website you would have seen the letter that outlines the changes and the reasons we had to take this action. We also included a letter in your manager’s packets.

Secondly, we changed the ball to a lower cor rating…44 instead of the usual .47 and the compression from 525 to 375 lbs. We feel that this is a safety issue as well as an availability one. We held on to the old balls as long as we could but were told that they wouldn’t be available locally in the quantities we would need.

We know that there are many manufacturers that produce the .47 cor balls, but there simply isn’t a way to monitor them over the entire league. The Evil balls for instance are extremely hot, while others don’t perform quite as well. Also, the single wall bats are getting harder and harder to come by.

Therefore, we have adopted the ASA bat list with the exception of composites. No composites will be allowed in S. F. City Softball. We may re-visit this in the future, but for now we’ll see how the league plays out.

So, before you buy a bat, make sure that it’s on the approved bat list on the website. Most double-walls are legal, and if you stay away from the composites or partial composites, you should be okay. It is the responsibility of managers to let your players know what bats are illegal.

Obviously we invite your comments either through the league office or through the website message boards about bats or any other topics. I monitor the message boards daily and I’ll be happy to address your questions. If I don’t know the answer, I’ll research it with the proper people and get back to you as soon as I can. I always use my real name on the boards so you’ll know who I am.

We are also proud of our website. It has become a central meeting point for league in formation and debate. If you’d like to have a photo of you team posted on the site, just drop us an email and we’ll let you know how you can do it at no cost. The website offers schedules that can be printed out so your players have no excuses about game times or locations. Our board has allowed many teams to hook-up with players, and players to hook-up with teams. Several new teams have even been formed through the site. So, we know that it’s a great tool for teams and players.

We do our best to keep the site current with standing and information, but don’t forget that we are all volunteers and we do the best we can. Standings are up-dated on a weekly basis for the most part. We’d like to post scores and game highlights, but it’s just not possible at this time due to the volume of teams that play in this league.

We have continued to offer credit card payments and the response has been great. It’s around 60% of teams using it now and we feel it makes it easy for managers to get the money in on time. Of course it’s up to you to chase down you team mates to get their share of the cost but it keeps teams from paying late fees or possibly missing out on a season.

Finally, we’ve been able to maintain our standard of awards for division, runner-up and champions. This year we’re bringing back an old favorite. We pride ourselves on handling out awards teams can be proud to wear.

So, that’s a run down of the Softball Advisory Board. Once again we meet on the 1st Thursday of each month, and if you’d like to come to a meeting you’re more than welcome to do so. If you’d like to make a presentation before the board, or bring any issues to our attention, just call Chris or Tom at the league office and get on the agenda.

-Thank you.