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Online now: 1 member: TABLE SETTER 11; 75 anonymousDetails for the wood
Real name:
Bob Woodroof
Location:
San Clemente, CA
Division:
Men's 65
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| April 27, 2015 the wood | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: Major plus problem then win one big event and then break up. Don't equate winning with sponsorship. They are not the same. The Old A's won quite a bit with minimal or zero financial help. I use them as an example because they're in your neck of the woods. I get it... more often than not, sponsored teams win... it isn't 100% of the time. But it would be 100% if all of the unsponsored teams had your mind set. But this is still moot until SSUSA puts your idea on its rules committee agenda... or have you forgotten that little factoid? |
| April 27, 2015 the wood | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: Major plus problem Tim, why don't you build a M+ team, win two straight years (in order to comply with your definition of dynasty teams) and then voluntarily break it up? That would be the ultimate in 'putting up'. No amount of key board filibusters will make the nearly the impact of an actual demonstration. BW |
| Feb. 17, 2015 the wood | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: How to get more teams willing to play in the Major-plus division What part of 'my only issue is breaking up M+ teams' is the most challenging for you? I can't speak for 'all the plus guys'... Tim, I have zero interest in discussing what I perceive as ancillary matters... most notably with you... for the reasons previously stated. If I wish to retrace my steps I'll take up dancing. |
| Feb. 17, 2015 the wood | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: How to get more teams willing to play in the Major-plus division Tim, you either don't get it or just choose to ignore significant info... I'm going to take the high road here and presume it's the latter. Earth to Tim... the 2nd thru 4th comment was about M+... not about the other divisions... surely that didn't slip right by you. Yes, when we win I do feel good about it... don't really care how u feel about it now or when you were 30. My attitude toward you is not similar to the changes in M+ rules... they are worth discussing. How does my lack of patience with your constant effort at grabbing attention have anything to do with rules changes (ASIDE FROM BREAKING UP THE M+ WINNERS)? Your responses don't match the points being stated... Sort of like brown shoes a d a black tux I'm not passionate about the HR rules. I've long ago given up on merging M & M+. I don't have a strong opinion on bumping teams up. I've never met you but have heard mostly good thing about you. But it's crystal clear to me that I'll avoid discussing anything meaningful with you. I take this position when someone either intentionally confuses an issue or shows a complete inability to understand even the most elementary of concepts. I truly feel it's the former. BW |
| Feb. 17, 2015 the wood | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: How to get more teams willing to play in the Major-plus division I like most things about Tim... I particularly like his comments about hitting as I know that he is a respected hitting coach (and hitter). Beating the proverbial 'dead horse' is one of his many attributes, IMO. BW |
| Feb. 17, 2015 the wood | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: How to get more teams willing to play in the Major-plus division Tim, 522 is a number to keep in mind. What significance does it have to this dialogue? It depends upon the beholder... It's been 522 years since C. Columbus sailed west in search of India. It was his premise that Earth was round and not flat. Whether he 'discovered' North America is in itself subject of debate but he does merit a annual holiday. Several cities are named for him and more... He may have been several centuries late to lay claim to North America... but the question of 'is Earth flat' has pretty much gone away, which brings me to my point... is there any chance that you'll move on to a different premise during our lifetimes? Statistically speaking, my life expectancy is roughly 18.6 years... it was closer to 20.1 when you started this campaign. My, how time flies... It has been clearly pointed out that... 1) M+ has grown over the past 4-5 years... this is on a total collision course with your thoughts. 2)There are many different winners since 2010... I do not believe that 2nd-4th place would coincide with most folks' definition of 'dynasty'... break up the Broncos! (just an example and I do like P Manning and his team, for what it's worth). Given that M+ is the highest level, it naturally follows that it should be treated differently. Those of us who have been playing at that level for 10+ years (without whining about it) prefer to build a better mousetrap rather than have our opponents be forced to reduce the effectiveness of their own... not to mention that we build quality relationships with teammates. You've made it clear that YOU didn't want to be in the M+ division... you've made it clear that YOU weren't planning to play a lot of SSUSA events because of this... as well as other points repeated numerous times. That's fine... we just don't need YOU telling us what is best for US. If it aint broke, why fix it? Bob Woodroof |
| Feb. 10, 2015 the wood | Topic: Tournaments Discussion: Best Hitters in Senior Softball Ron Parnell's work ethic is second to none. This is one reason he owned practically every World Series hitting record at one time (as a younger man). But more important than his hitting is the fact that he is an awesome leader. The teams that he plays for usually end up winning... he also attracts other great players. While some guys play to be a star, Ron plays to win... there are hitters and there are players. Many seniors tend to be wowed by hitters... I prefer to watch guys who care more about winning. Bob Woodroof |
| Dec. 6, 2014 the wood | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: Home plate Mat size change? JFSully: I actually do have a historical book about the evolution of baseball, published by Murray Books in 2007. It credits Shane Riley Foster as being the person who wrote the first official rules. I have read it and found it to be very interesting. A lot of what we have accepted as 'fact' has been slanted in some way, whether we're discussing baseball, assassinations, military battles or whatever. In this case, I googled 'when did Abner Doubleday invent baseball' and it gave me 1839... clearly, it was a bad entry on my part. My baseball history book was about 35 feet away at the time but I took the easy route. I'm always open to reading about baseball and may well heed your recommendation... BW |
| Dec. 6, 2014 the wood | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: Home plate Mat size change? Thanks for the tip... I'll pass it along to Google. BW |
| Dec. 5, 2014 the wood | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: Home plate Mat size change? Tim, USSSA always ran their Series World Series in August. I can tell you that August in Little Rock, AK, is no box of chocolates but they were consistent in the timing. It was a big deal to seniors until the senior bats came around. Even then, it hung around for 4-5 years. They only had 2 divisions... major and AAA. They had no resemblance to present day classifications. Major was essentially M+ and perhaps a few M teams. AAA was everyone else. They started with DE and the eliminated teams went into a DE consolation bracket... games that were sort of like kissing your sister (or so I've heard). Aside from these two issues, I liked their tourneys having grown up on USSSA from my early 20s. It would be great if they could offer a good alternative. We would like to go to more than one... we've considered the senior version of the Smoky Mtn Classic but weren't certain that we'd see enough teams. Laramie, I hope that you're right about the trend. Without sounding pessimistic, I've seen the ebb and flow (size of brackets) over the years. Following the trail backwards, we (players who are my age or older) were the SO CA pioneers with USSSA in the 70s. Behind us came larger and larger groups of younger players. This may be true today as well. Fred, You're 81 and still going strong... to me, that is impressive. My father-in-law is 81 and in poor health... a sedentary lifestyle, working in TX oil fields, 2 packs a day 'Jack & Coke... I hope to meet you some day. BW |
| Dec. 4, 2014 the wood | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: Home plate Mat size change? Tim, in our division (65 M+) we went from 5 to 6 teams (2013 to 2014). As anomalies go, this may well be an example. But the larger grouping (50-65 M+) had 38... who can really call this one anything other than an increase at this point? Could it have been a perfect storm of positive forces that generated a huge turn out? I cannot say unequivocally that it was or was not... i.e. I don't know. I can say that the trends have not followed your prediction. I see that the 50 and 60 M+ divisions are as healthy as I've ever seen them. In 2000 we had 8 teams in the USSSA 50 M+ World Series (Salem, OR)... there were 5 in 1997. You had 15 this year. We have NEVER had 15 teams in our divisions... except for SSWS which had 'drop down' divisions of M/M+ teams... the 60 M+ in 2008 had 3 teams. I also see that the teams/players are much better than when we played... line ups are complete (v. 6-8 deep back then). There were a couple of teams with deep line ups but not all 5. There were no geographic boundaries at all (until 2000). It is with these things in mind that I feel that the SSUSA model isn't broken. Are the rules perfect? No. But they never were... The biggest concern for me is that we have fewer choices today (national events). You had said 'wait and see about USSSA in October' but that didn't really pan out... zero teams for us to play. At one time we had 8-9 senior assns... we could go to 3-4 each year. But folks said that this was too many. Little by little, the competition weeded them out. Be careful what you wish for... you just may get it. BW |
| Dec. 4, 2014 the wood | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: Home plate Mat size change? Tim, it's too bad that you weren't around in 1839 when Abner Doubleday created baseball. I'm sure that your insight would have been a big help to him. And maybe Al Ramsey could have let you design the strike zone in the late 60s when USSSA was developed. Somehow MLB and USSSA are still active organizations. It wasn't that long ago that the readers of this board were treated to your continuous diatribe regarding the best way to handle the M+ division. One of your suggestions that I'm particularly fond of was your 'break up the winners'... surely you'll remember that one. SSUSA paid you no heed and there were 38 M+ teams in LV 2 months ago (from age 50 to 65)... however, SPA did instigate an idea similar to yours in 2013. Anyone care to guess how many M+ teams that they've had over the past 2 years? Keep the thoughts coming, Tim, as you're a real beacon of enlightenment. To quote you... 'Now I know...according to many...I have shown my ignorance so...maybe you geniuses can use this as a teachable moment and help me out.' You want help? Try not to waste time fixing things that aren't broken. It isn't complicated at all. There were 506 teams in LV, which is roughly 25% of the total number enrolled... 7,500 players out of 30,000 (using round numbers). I know from reliable sources that you are a good guy and a good hitting coach. But a prognosticator? Not if history means us anything (no pun intended). Bob Woodroof |
| Dec. 3, 2014 the wood | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: Home plate Mat size change? Tim, I'll pass your thoughts along to my sister, Woodie. Fred, IMO, is very qualified to speak on pitching since he's been doing it for a long time. The fact that there is an additional fielder in his division does not detract from his ability or his expertise. Do you pitch with a 5 man infield? If so, does this impact your expertise? When we're talking about widening the plate in senior ball who should be eliminated from weighing in? |
| Dec. 3, 2014 the wood | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: Home plate Mat size change? Correction: sometimes it's better to remain a fool, in others' eyes, than to open you mouth (i.e. keyboard)and remove all doubt. Bad time for poor proofreading... :-) |
| Dec. 3, 2014 the wood | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: Home plate Mat size change? Tim might be the exception to your last comment, Laramie. He seems to like playing the 'fear card' whenever someone disagrees with his premise. 'you don't want the 1-1 count, it must be because you're afraid'... 'is because your a vary weak hitter that's scared to fail much more often because of a bigger mat'... Tim, sometimes it's better to remain a fool than open you mouth (i.e. keyboard)and remove all doubt. You sort of remind me of Samson... one of you sports the jawbone of an ass and the other lost his strength after cutting his hair... how about giving it a rest on the 'fear' BS? Older players are not looking for new ways to play the game... we like the status quo. This is due to many reasons, none of them are based on fear. Bob Woodroof |
| Dec. 3, 2014 the wood | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: Home plate Mat size change? What is the point of continuously making rule changes? Are the current scores higher than normal? I get it with the composite bats... it doesn't take Werner Von Braun to see that they're more lively than before (previous to 2002). This is not going to change any time soon but how is this impacting the scores? Are most teams scoring their max/inning on a consistent basis? If so, our team must really be lagging behind. BW |
| Nov. 10, 2014 the wood | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: Slo Pitch Magazine Editor passes Many of you have no frame of reference for SloPitch Magazine as it was only issued for 2 years (1978-80)... however, in the short time it existed we learned the names and faces of the teams and individual players of the teams from other regions. It also helped the NSPC (Natl Slo Pitch Conf) get off the ground. From it I read that Don Clatterbough hit the most grand slams in 1977... I have no idea if this was true or not but it made for good reading. We knew who James Boyette was before we even saw him... same for Bruce Meade and a hundred other players of that era (1978-80)... Its editor was Ron Rubenstein and he managed a So Cal team (Sagebrush Cantina)for many years. Ron passed away yesterday after an extended illness... he loved the game of slo pitch (as he spelled it) but has never been given the credit he deserved for his efforts... he was instrumental in nationalizing the game. Those that do remember the magazine will recall its glossy pages with color photos. This was one of its strengths but also one of its un doings... this was an expensive proposition 35 years ago. On the west coast we were USSSA driven and knew little about ASA teams (we seldom played each other until 1978)... Slo Pitch Magazine told us about Warren Motors, Nelson Painting, Howard & Carroll's, Port City Ford, etc. and told them about Snyder's, Dino's Pizza, Pace Electronics, Capitol Insulation, etc. To my knowledge, Ron never witnessed a senior softball game... truly a shame. He would have thoroughly enjoyed it. BW |
| Oct. 29, 2014 the wood | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: Passing of Fred Purvis Fred played with us from 2008-2010 and he was a huge part of any success that we had. He was as incredibly strong and as extremely likeable as everyone has stated. One Fred Purvis story that I love to tell... we were playing MTC in AZ in the 2010 SSUSA 60 M+ World Series and it was roughly 100 degrees. Needless to say, the Trump Stote ball was not carrying for mere mortals. They walked a man to face Fred and he hit a line drive 40' past the fence. Their manager was coaching 3rd and he told us that that HR wouldn't happen again. I told him that I'd take that bet... he hit it farther the next time. Senior Softball will definitely miss a man like Fred... I know that I will. BW |
| Oct. 20, 2014 the wood | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: USA Championship seeding game We went to the Western Nationals and beat our only M+ opponent in a 2 of 3 series. We were given the # 1 or # 2 seed depending upon how well we did in the National Championship Game. We were smoked in it so we earned the # 2 seed and Hamel Builders received the # 1. They went 4-0 in the seeding round (incl Natl Champ game) and we went 3-1. We had 6 teams in our division so SSUSA honored the seeding agreement. If we had 4 or less teams in it, all seeding bets were off. I take issue with this. In our session we would have played 4 seeding games whether we had 4 or 6 teams in our division. Only in a 5 team bracket would we play each team once in seeding. Any more or less (than 5) assures that we won't all play each other or that me would play some teams more than once (in seeding). This creates its own form of imbalance. The teams and players perceive the automatic seeding as a reward for winning the National (east or west). SSUSA does not consider it a reward... I really don't care about the semantics of this. SSUSA created the automatic seeding to avoid penalizing a team in the tie breaker system. I get this but contend that the reduced number of teams (in a LV bracket) should not over rule the automatic seeding. I'm told that this discrepancy will be addressed in the December rules meeting. I hope that it is. We do not have many 65 M+ teams to play and one of them will probably be moved down. The winner of the 65 M division will get moved up but they've stated that they will break up instead... the net effect of this is that we're back down to 5. There were 3 other 65 teams moved up to M+ this season but none of them were in LV. Once again, it isn't how many potential teams they are, it's how many teams actually participate. We had 6 this year but this seems to be an anomaly. BW |
| Oct. 17, 2014 the wood | Topic: Bats Discussion: the new bat "Nightmare" We have been hitting the Nightmare (27 oz) and have roughly 400 swings on it. Half of those swings were done by a 24 yr old football player (6'7", 315 lbs) who has a baseball background. He is hitting the ball 400' +... he has no slow pitch experience and could be hitting it further with some swing refinements. The point here is that Kevin Schullstrom has boasted about the bat's pop and its durability. I have used it, too, and I feel that it has the same pop as the Dudley Lightning but takes longer to break in. The feel of the Nightmare is different than any of my other senior bats so it has taken some time to get used to it. Both are great bats. After 400 swings there is some paint chipping on the Nightmare's barrel but there are no cracks in it. We use the ISA Rock and ISA Trump Stotes... the weather in So Cal has been 70-90 degrees... 75' above sea level. Everything Kevin told me about the bat is true. I am not getting paid to sell the bat, I am not looking for Kevin to sponsor our team nor am I expecting any other form of remuneration. Bob Woodroof |
