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Online now: 3 members: Jnegro420, Shy, dkrollw364; 9 anonymousDetails for Ken
Real name:
Ken Lange
Location:
Thousand Oaks, CA
Division:
Men's 55
Messages posted by Ken »Message board home »Start a new discussion
| Aug. 22, 2008 Ken | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: Rock and Roll Trivia 3 No, it was Esai Morales. But if I'm right (and I'm 99.9% sure) go ahead and post another question #6. I'm kind of weak with Rock and Roll trivia. |
| Aug. 12, 2008 Ken | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: Rock and Roll Trivia 2 Over her belt. |
| Aug. 10, 2008 Ken | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: Has this been happening to you? Einstein, stay the course and keep ignoring him. |
| Aug. 6, 2008 Ken | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: RATINGS WARS Everybody, Whether you agree with us or not, I want to thank all of you for giving your opinion on this matter (except for maybe Old Wussie. I had always wondered where Sen. Joseph McCarthy had ended up). Originally, we went to the message board only to see if other teams were hitting the same stone wall that we did with SSUSA. A few did indicate, in this thread and others, that they had, but quite a few have emailed or mentioned to us in person that they agree with us and they also were in the same situation. We were pretty surprised to hear from some of the teams up north that feel the same as we do. But, I propose to put it to another team vote on whether we should continue the boycott or play in Phoenix. Idahoreb, I see your point about hurting other teams by not having enough to field a decent bracket. The Cal Cup looks pretty bad, looking at the list of attending teams. It's too late for Roseville for us. We are in another tournament elsewhere. I don’t know what team you are on, but if we ever get the chance to play you, please introduce yourself. It’s always nice to put a face on the people from the message board, whether they agree with you or not. OTE24; Needless to say I was surprised to read your post. At the Menifee tournament, just about every guy on your team came up and said we had been screwed by the move to major. In fact we were all laughing about it. The Mustangs said the same thing. As you guys are the two teams that we have played 14 times this year, we thought you were in agreement with us. Also, you know that Gary, our lead-off, played with the Basehawg 50’s for the past few years. When they didn’t play much last year he played with SoCal Gusto, another AAA that was moved to major (and now are back in AAA). After this post, I’m done with this. I’m pretty sure you are all as tired as I am of having to see this debated endlessly. Thanks again to all the people that took the time to share their opinion, either for or against us. I hope that we’ll see each other on the field. Ken Lange Double Nickel 55s |
| Aug. 6, 2008 Ken | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: RATINGS WARS Almost everybody keeps missing the point. It isn’t that we don’t want to play major or think we can’t compete. It’s that they moved us up after we played 11 games against AAA competition this year. Of those 11 games, we played the same 2 teams 7 times. We want to know how, after being AA or AAA for the last 7-8 years, they suddenly insist that we are major. Nobody from SSUSA has answered our questions or will return a phone call, and it’s been 2 freaking months. We feel they at least owe us an explanation. Truthfully, can you say that you would feel any different from us on this? It’s not whining to ask for accountability on their part. To the people that can’t understand this, well, I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree. |
| Aug. 4, 2008 Ken | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: RATINGS WARS DD & DMac, Thank you for taking the time to give us your thoughts on this situation. What you say means a lot to us and carries a lot of merit. We all just with this would go away and we could compete against our peers again. A lot of guys have said we should accept this change and just improve our team so we can compete with the majors. To do that we will have to add power players. DMac, you know us and I’m sure you would agree that all we are is a bunch of singles and gap hitters. If we hit two homers in a tournament, that’s a lot. To change the make-up of our team this year is just not feasible. DD, after reading your post, I feel like throwing in the towel and playing major. But then I think about the other teams that are in our predicament and I know that’s not the answer. I think we have to wait until they finally answer our questions or we would have blown our opportunity to play in Roseville and Phoenix for nothing. DD, one thing I want to clarify is that the tournament results that were included in our appeal package were requested by SSUSA. We tried to provide everything they asked for, including TDs opinions and those of our peers. If they had said the only thing that would validate our appeal was getting creamed at major, we wouldn’t have gone to all that trouble. Desert Guy: You seem to have misunderstood my previous post on another thread. If it wouldn’t be too much trouble, I wonder if you could call me at 805-630-9918. I would like to discuss it with you. Thanks. |
| Aug. 3, 2008 Ken | Topic: Tournaments Discussion: Anaheim 82 Somebody on the Outlaws might know. It only looks about 275'. Years ago we would just blast it into those trees and run 'til they got it back in, lol. |
| Aug. 3, 2008 Ken | Topic: Tournaments Discussion: Anaheim 82 Taits, sorry we missed you. We were down by 10 in the open inning, but we got lucky and came back and won in extra innings. Hope to see you somewhere down the road. Ken Lange Double Nickel |
| Aug. 3, 2008 Ken | Topic: Players looking to join a team Discussion: Team disbanned, looking for a competitive team to play for. Allworld, I’ll try to answer this for Andy because he’s not the only player that feels this way. Many teams have tried to work with SSUSA, but for reasons unknown, they won’t even talk to us. This is the ONLY reason you heard about our problems. If they would answer our calls and emails, you wouldn’t have to hear us “cry” on the message board. You guys in Sacramento seem to feel that anything said about unpopular SSUSA decisions is a personal attack on you, and you have to call us cry babies. Well buddy, I would love to have the opportunity to play against you and No Dice. I wish they would get rid of the AAA and make everyone Major. When we played the Old Dawgs and the rest of the norcal teams as the Basehawgs, we were always competitive, and enjoyed the competition. Now they were moved to major because of their accomplishments in ring tournaments. We, and a lot of other teams, were moved to fill out the ranks at the major level. Turnout in majors for a lot of tournaments was poor at best, and getting worse. They had to mix them in with the AAA and major + brackets just to get them enough games. Their answer was to send AAA teams to major, whether they had earned that distinction or not. On June 10 there were less than 22 teams at major. There are now 32. But they never stopped to think that teams are now forced to disband or play in other associations events because they realize they can’t compete at major. So, instead of increasing their revenues from tournaments, which for them is the bottom line, they will lose more. All you have to do is look at the turnout at the Cal Cup to realize this. The answer isn’t for you to call us names. It is for you to help us influence SSUSA and get this ratings mess fixed so we can all enjoy the game we are so fortunate to still be playing. |
| Aug. 1, 2008 Ken | Topic: Players looking to join a team Discussion: Team disbanned, looking for a competitive team to play for. Norm, everyone will want to play golf with you. Especially if you play for money, lol. I'd be happy to join you and Bader. Maybe I'll get some of his money too. I’m tired of just drinking his beer, lol. |
| July 31, 2008 Ken | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: Rock and Roll Trivia How about Sandy Nelson? |
| July 30, 2008 Ken | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: As a AA or AAA team would you police yourself when adding players Lecak, That is a good question. If a team feels that they have been rated wrong, they might want to pick up players to compete in the upper rated division. But if they were moved back to where they belong, what would they do with the new guys? It would help if the staff at SSUSA would be more proactive in answering questions from the teams that are affected by this. Also, I for one wouldn't mind being judged by my fellow players if they were serving on some kind of advisory board or ratings commission. SSUSA won't go to the TD's for help in this. All they care about is run differential. We had to ask TD's to call and email themselves. We need to get something like this ratings commission going if we hope to get teams rated right. And they have to be people that actually see the teams play. And it would work both ways. The teams staying in the wrong division, for whatever reason, couldn't duck the ratings commission, and would get moved up where they belong. |
| July 27, 2008 Ken | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: Rock and Roll Trivia It's something in Liverpool, maybe a coffe shop? |
| July 24, 2008 Ken | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: A team's rating! My condolences to the Terry Hennessy family for their loss. There are obviously things much more important than senior softball for him at this time. Db14, out of respect for his mother, we’ll table this discussion until a more appropriate time. |
| July 24, 2008 Ken | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: A team's rating! I have to ask. He said he would "personally review" our case? I would have thought he would personally review ALL cases, since he is the one that makes the decisions on team ratings. |
| July 22, 2008 Ken | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: A team's rating! Bob, I have left a message last week (with phone numbers) for TH to please call me at his earliest convenience. I also emailed him with my number and those of my co-managers. No response so far. I really don't know what else to do. |
| July 22, 2008 Ken | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: A team's rating! Wes, I did read his editorial in the last issue of his newsletter, and I think it's good that he wants to protect the integrity of the rating system. But the "his way or the highway" attitude is going to spoil this organization. Final say on the ratings cannot be with someone who has not seen the teams in question play. He has to rely on someone who has actually witnessed the games, his TDs and other managers, and use their assessments. Run differential is a small part of gauging a team’s ability. Too many factors contribute to how many runs a team scores in a game. Were the fences short, no fences, teams playing without key players, etc. He is currently not using all the tools at his disposal. That will only result in skewed ratings and teams not attending the tournaments. |
| July 21, 2008 Ken | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: A team's rating! Mad dog, Not only were they in the final last year, they were in the final the year before. And they’re still AAA as of today. When I spoke with a representative from SSUSA, he said that the only criteria for certain advancement in ratings is winning the Worlds. Nothing about run differential. If you look at the run differential in some of the “ring tournaments”, you will be astounded. The team that won last years TOC also had a run diff. of “9” at last year’s Nationals. This team also won this years Western Nationals, took 3rd in the Worlds last year, took second in the Cal. St. tournament, and took second at Rock N Reno. Yet they continue on at AAA. We’ve never won any substantial tournament, in all our 7-8 years with SSUSA, and we move up. Go figure. I’m not comfortable discussing other team’s records, but we sit here grasping at straws, trying to figure out their rationale for rating us major and leaving other more accomplished teams to enjoy their status. I hope they right their wrong and let us compete against these teams in the division in which we belong. |
| July 20, 2008 Ken | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: A team's rating! Dessert Guy, Please read the previous posts on this thread. We go into detail about the appeal that was denied. We tried it their way. Now we are appealing to our softball peers to help us right this wrong and all the other unfair ratings that are causing teams to leave the organization. |
| July 20, 2008 Ken | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: A team's rating! Taits, and all fellow SSUSA members, I think a players board or some other type of "checks and balance" commission has to be installed to deal with obvious mistakes on ratings and rulings. I see, from the latest issue of SSUSA's newsletter, that a "Review Board" had to reverse a Hennessy decision on a "regional exception" for some guy from central California. Why not keep this review board in place as a permanent solution to the mistakes made on ratings. But I think the board should consist of their permanent members, and a group of floating members from different regions that could deal with the regional issues. This way, if you think you were rated incorrectly, you could appeal to someone who has actually seen you play, your peers, and not just some bureaucrat looking at statistics. These people who have seen you play could poll the teams that were in the tournaments, along with the TDs, to get a true representative opinion on a team's rating. The way it's being done now just doesn't cut it. The people on my team haven't seen Terry Hennessy in over 5 years, and yet he is the guy supposedly rating our team? That is just ridiculous. There have been a lot of complaints recently on this board about how the rating system is being handled. Actual eyes-on people MUST do the ratings. SSUSA, please, earn those tournament fees! Give everyone a fair shot. |
