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| June 5, 2011 DRob | Topic: Tournaments Discussion: South Bend SPA Sorry, Momma. It was FUBAR start to finish! |
| June 5, 2011 DRob | Topic: Tournaments Discussion: South Bend SPA Just got home from the SPA tournament in South Bend, IN. Momma said "If you can't say somethin' nice, don't say nothin' at all" so............... The burgers and brats were pretty good! |
| March 28, 2011 DRob | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: Pitcher's Screen vs Rocket Bats/Balls We use screens in our senior leagues in Indy for the reasons Jawood mentions. Last year screens were optional. This year they're gonna' be mandatory. Any batted ball that hits any part of the screen is a dead ball out. Some guys wanted it to be called a foul ball but we opted for the out. We tried a batted ball hitting the pitcher being an out but that doesn't really make any difference to a pitcher laying in the hospital. I don't want to get into a urinating contest but that's what we do. It's league play! No sense in getting somebody hurt or killed (happened right here in Indy several years ago) over a game that really amounts to nothing more than recreation and practice. The screen has to be placed so that it hides half the pitcher's plate. This prevents a guy from using it as another defender standing next to him. If he choose to leave the protection of the screen, that's his choice but he gets no other protection by rule. |
| Feb. 15, 2011 DRob | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: Town Square You probably would have remembered R&W Marine. The owner/sponsor was quite a character. 3-4 of the players and the assistant coach were from Indy, the rest from KY. I'm shooting in the dark here but the local senior leagues allowed women over 40 last year. I'm hoping they drop the age for men down to 45 as well. |
| Feb. 15, 2011 DRob | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: Town Square Hey Indy Girl. I think a couple of the Town Square girls played a game or two with a women's team from Elizabethtown, KY called R&W Marine. Are you one of those? |
| Dec. 18, 2010 DRob | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: What was it like when slowpitch was born? One little bit of history. My first slowpitch bat, which I still have, is a "Tennessee Thumper". It weighed 38 ounces and I think you could drive nails without damaging it. A friend of mine cut the end off, put in a 2 lb piece of steel, put a pin through the steel and the bat walls, and welded the cap back on. I've used it for a warm-up bat for around 40 years and the weight has never come loose. I'm thinking the walls must be at least 1/4" thick. When I switched from fastpitch to slowpitch, I think I went something like 0 for 15.....games! |
| Dec. 18, 2010 DRob | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: Our Game vs. Their Game Well fellas I gotta' say this is one of the more civil posts I've seen here, so far. I don't post much because I don't need the argument. Heck, I can argue with somebody I like right here at home. Jawood. We're contemplating lowering the age for league play here in Indy. We have a shortage of players at the top and bottom of our age groups. We've got a lot of guys between 55 & 65 but the 70s have nobody to play against and the 50s can't get enough guys for a full 4 team league. Not much we can do about the 70 yr olds but seems to me the future of our game, at least locally, hinges on getting guys involved as they approach 50 rather than waiting until they turn 50. I suggested we drop down to 45 but the suggestion was made that we go clear to 40. Most of our 50+ guys are playing in other leagues against the "kids" anyway. We wouldn't want those 40 yr olds playing against the 60 and older guys though. As for the drinking, in Indiana it is against the law to bring your own alcohol onto the property of a facility which has a liquor license. It's done fairly often but I don't think most guys realize they are putting the license of the facility owner in jeopardy. In the Indy City Parks, it's a ordinance violation to drink but it's not strictly enforced as long as it doesn't get out of hand. We do have one park where a neighbor lady videos guys drinking after ballgames and calls the police. I personally don't know of anybody getting busted but a police car cruising through the lot has caused more than one beer to be spilled. I hate that! We'll know the bases are too far when the third baseman needs the pitcher to relay his throw to first! |
| Dec. 16, 2010 DRob | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: How did you get your start in softball? Interesting topic. I started playing fastpitch right out of high school baseball in 1964. Played for my church team for 3-4 years while switching from 3rd base to pitcher. Fastpitch was beginning to die out around Indpls around 1970. By then I had become a policeman and was pitching for the police department fastpitch team when we decided to go to a police slowpitch national tournament in Dayton, OH. 80 teams! We were clueless and had no idea we could play 4 outfielders? We ended up doing poorly but switched to slow pitch anyway. I played on and coached that team for several years before I hooked up with a 50+ team. Turning 65 next year and still at it. Interesting note: I played fastpitch against my high school basketball coach. Guy named Marvin Wood. He was also the coach at Milan when they beat Muncie Central for the Indiana state championship in 1954. The story was retold in the movie "Hoosiers". I still play ball with one of the guys who was on that basketball team. Roger Schroder. Nicest guy you'd ever want to meet. Roger started playing in our senior league with a bunch of guys he had coached on a local high school baseball team. Mario, I think there are several guys still playing around Indy who played for New Cosntruction. |
| Dec. 16, 2010 DRob | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: Game length Well, here's something to stir the pot a little. In our league play, not only do we start at 1-1 and have a 5 run per inning limit but we play double innings! You play 3 outs twice or 2 sets of 5 runs (or a combination thereof) then switch until you reach the 7th inning or the time limit. The park where we play initiated this in 2009. We haven't figured out the advantage to this but it, and some other issues, has us looking at other parks for the senior leagues. |
| Nov. 2, 2010 DRob | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: WHAT WOULD YOU DO IN THE SAME SCENERIO Fact of life in a 1 umpire game. I'm told that the young boys who play in the same park where our senior leagues play will do this: Runner on 2nd base, 2 outs, flyball hit to right field. Runner heads for 3rd base and, when he sees the umpire is focusing on whether or not the catch will be made, simply turns left and goes home without ever reaching 3rd base! They claim it has had 100% success so far. Cheating in softball! Who would have thought that? |
| Sept. 22, 2010 DRob | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: 2011 ratings JBTexas........I feel for a misrated team. Sad as it is, they won't be the first to disband due to ratings and most likely not the last either. I'm watching it happen right now to a team who has gone from AA to Major with no roster changes! Two years ago, the team won the rain-shortened SSUSA Northern Nationals in 60AA. It was the first time that team won a national tournament, ever. They also won a SPA qualifier in Shelbyville, IN. They were taken to the "if game" in the 60 Silver Division by a team that is still AA right now. Last year they got moved to AAA in the middle of the SPA circus in Dalton. This year they won the Gallatin ISA World (or whatever it was)in 60 AAA. It was a 5 team bracket that was played for the most part as 5 innings/1 pitch games due to rain. Might as well have flipped a coin. Now, the word is the team will be moved to Major. Ain't happenin' because, near as I can tell, the team won't exist next year. Three of them are moving up to 65 and are not about to jeopardize next year by playing Major in Ft. Myers and 5-6 other players are moving on because there's simply no future for the team in Major competition. I repeat, the team has had the identical roster for the last two years while apparently being moved from AA to Major. |
| Sept. 17, 2010 DRob | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: 2011 ratings Thanks for running that info down Rabbit. Now, let me take it a step further. If a player who will be 65 next year plays a game in Ft Myers with a 60 major team, will he be eligible to play with a 65 AAA team next year? This has implications for several guys who are moving up to 65 and probably also to any new players the 60 team may take to Ft Myers. |
| Aug. 13, 2010 DRob | Topic: Tournaments Discussion: Heartland Softball National Tournament The die is cast. Indy 60s/Job Central (60 AAA) is going to Chattanooga. Sure hope there's somebody in our age/class to play. I'd like to see this thing get off the ground but I understand the hesitance. If everybody is going to sit back and wait to see who else is going it won't be much. If you're going, speak up. |
| Aug. 1, 2010 DRob | Topic: Tournaments Discussion: ISA World That bolt of lightning had several guys doing the low crawl. A couple of them probably crawled straight to the restroom! A pretty good tournament despite the weather! Nice work by the ground crews. That much rain would have stopped a lot of tournaments dead. Also.........Congrats to the Dayton Legends who won the 60 AA. Webb's from Columbus, IN came in second. |
| April 9, 2010 DRob | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: INDY Draft League Thanks for posting this Corky. A little more info: We're allowing players as young as 47 to play in the draft league. We hope to have enough players sign up to have two levels of competition based more on skill level than strictly on age. So, even if you only wanta' have a good time, c'mon out! |
| Oct. 30, 2009 DRob | Topic: Tournaments Discussion: They Can't Do That? If the associations had to do business in an open market, they'd all be broke! They know they have a captive market so they have no reason to worry about the quality of the product they deliver. Companies which over-promise and under-deliver usually don't last long. Which leads me to point out that the letter explaining their re-rating which was promised to Indy 60s by George of SS-USA apparently got lost in the mail! |
| Oct. 23, 2009 DRob | Topic: Tournaments Discussion: They Can't Do That? Thanks Ceres. I personally am done with Ridge Hooks and his "national championship". I have not personally talked with him but others on the team have and may continue. I have absolutely no respect for him and no desire to talk to him. I'll take Momma's advice and say no more about him. |
| Oct. 22, 2009 DRob | Topic: Tournaments Discussion: They Can't Do That? Ceres. I take the side of the team because I'm on the team. Apparently you haven't read the entire thread so I'll try to lay it out for you. A couple of posts have said Indy 60s was rated AA on 3/24/09 because that was the date shown on SPA's rarely-updated website. As a matter of fact, they didn't change that date when they changed our rating which might lead a uninformed person to think we were AAA as of that date. For the record, Indy 60s has never been anything but AA prior to this debacle. I'm 63, have been on the team since I turned 60, and we have always been AA and have never won a tournament under any organization before 2009. This year we won 2 tournaments in AA. One of them was the SS-USA tournament in Lansing, MI. The other was a small SPA tournament in Shelbyville, IN where the 60s were split Gold & Silver. We won the Silver Division after being taken to the "IF" game. Not exactly a dominant performance. We also played the SPA tournament in South Bend, IN where we finished 2nd. We did beat a AAA rated team in pool play at South Bend but they will be very quick to tell you that they were missing several players. We also played the SPA tournament in Columbus, OH where we got spanked and finished mid-pack. We had the same roster in all the SPA tournaments. There were 3 guys in Dalton who were not on the SS-USA Lansing roster but have been on every roster in SPA. They were left off the Lansing roster because they weren't going and we were told we had too many guys on the roster we had submitted. One of them is a good outfielder. The other two play part-time at 1st base and catcher. There was one more difference in our Dalton line up. We were missing two of our regular starting infielders! So..... there you have it. Our team entered as AA, paid to play AA, SPA accepted our money and entered us in AA. When we got hot against teams who were not playing as well as they might have, we got moved up. Ridge said he would meet with the team after we were eliminated but he was conveniently unavailable and sent Layla who not only had no explanation but actually told us we had been rated AAA BEFORE THE TOURNAMENT! Sure! We were rated AAA before the tournament then allowed to play AA pool play! What we feel really happened was that a few teams saw that their chances to win were somewhat diminished and cried to Ridge who simply couldn't take the heat. Although members of the team have talked to Ridge about this several times, we have been told nothing by SPA to make us think otherwise. Rather, attempts to explain their actions seem to vary with each communication. I hope you now have a better understanding of the situation. |
| Oct. 20, 2009 DRob | Topic: Tournaments Discussion: They Can't Do That? Ceres, How about this then. Let's all just send in our team's name, with the required entry fee of course, and let the TD decide who's the champ! Why should we waste our time playing the game if the champions are not going to be decided on the field? Think of all the travel expenses we'd save. (Removing tongue from cheek) Seriously, I wish I had a dime for every tournament game where we've had our hats handed to us by teams who were ranked a class above us before, during, and after the tournament. Personally, I wouldn't accept a championship handed to me by a TD. But that's just me. |
| Oct. 13, 2009 DRob | Topic: Tournaments Discussion: SPA Winter Nationals Hey Corky: Roger wasn't at the hitting club but he should be at Metro tonight. I looked at the brackets at exchangepark.net but they didn't have results for the 70s. Looks like all the 70s teams who showed in the SPA ratings were AA. They split them 3 in Gold, 5 in Silver. |
