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Real name:
Dave Dowell
Location:
Sacramento, CA
Division:
Men's 70
Messages posted by DaveDowell »Message board home »Start a new discussion
| Jan. 20, 2024 DaveDowell | Topic: Bats Discussion: New rule on shaved bats Markanthoni24 ... Donna is the tenured Chair (ten years of service) of the SSUSA National Rules Committee, so let's get right to the point: What you allege is, respectfully, complete nonsense, either originating from the umpire or yourself, individually or collectively ... • SSUSA does NOT provide for, or even allow the use of pitcher screens in tournament play ... Local leagues may (and many do) have local league rules permitting their use, but not in SSUSA sanctioned tournament play; • SSUSA does NOT contract for the rental (or other arrangements) for use of screens that may be deployed Contract Tournament Directors; • Contract Tournament Directors do NOT have the authority to make financial arrangements for items that are not permitted ... In fact, they have all been advised that permitting the use of pitching screens in tournament play is grounds for termination; • This umpire, presuming you have quoted him accurately, is completely ill-informed of the tournament administration function as it relates to screens; and • The Rules committee meets at the annual National Convention in late November ... Public participation is welcome, in person, by snail mail, or by identifiable (as to you) email correspondence in advance of the meetings ... Message Board commentary is specifically excluded from potential Agenda consideration ... The last few messages in this thread should remove any doubt as to why we have this policy ... We have wandered way off the original topic regarding the new penalty for the use of altered bats, not to mention an excessive "pitch count", so ... ** THREAD CLOSED ** |
| Jan. 13, 2024 DaveDowell | Topic: Tournaments Discussion: Spring Winter Worlds ALL Spring World Championships Men's divisions aged 50+ and up are playing (only) in St. George, UT ... Men's and Women's 40+ Masters and Women's 50/55+ Senior Divisions are playing (only) in Bullhead City, AZ ... This is exactly as is disclosed on the respective event Tournament pages ... |
| Jan. 9, 2024 DaveDowell | Topic: Tournaments Discussion: Top Gun 2024 in Bullhead City Should likely be later today, but could slip to the morning ... The T.D. is on a SoCal to NorCal road trip today and I won't release it until he has a chance to review and approve ... Thanks ... |
| Jan. 9, 2024 DaveDowell | Topic: Tournaments Discussion: vegas world's JohnO28 ... "Rec" tournaments may run under SSUSA rules sanction compliance, but they're not required to do so ... The most common difference(s) is that they seldom comply fully with roster eligibility rules ... It's not uncommon, nor is it frowned upon or even discouraged, for "rec" events to have teams playing with underage players and/or geographically ineligible guys, although that's a lot less stringent since we've opened up borders a bit ... Not many are willing to admit it publicly, but it's not exactly unheard of for teams to start playing "Rec" later in the summer as tune-up events that are (in theory) outside of the view of our National Ratings folks ... Rec is just more casual for all concerned ... |
| Jan. 9, 2024 DaveDowell | Topic: Tournaments Discussion: vegas world's H10th ... Your team must play in an SSUSA sanctioned qualifier ... It does NOT have to be a T.O.C. qualifier, but may NOT be just a "Recreational" event ... |
| Jan. 9, 2024 DaveDowell | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: Commitment Line question TJK73 ... NOPE, that's nothing more than my individual preference if I were somehow assigned to be "Softball Rules God for the Day" ... I'm not, so until the National Rules Committee decides to clarify, right now the SSUSA rule is 40' from 3rd base in a 70' bases configuration ... The SSUSA rule book is silent as to what that would happen with 65' bases (35/30? or 40/25?) ... |
| Jan. 9, 2024 DaveDowell | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: Commitment Line question It probably IS my fault (that's the "new normal" I think!) ... Maybe the easiest thing for consistency would be to consider this fall at the NRC meetings a simple: C/L is 30' from home ... Regardless of the base distance being used, once you get within 30 feet, you have to close the deal ... Make any sense? ... |
| Jan. 8, 2024 DaveDowell | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: T.O.C. in january Projmac ... The annual tentative field assignments are principally driven by team-count balance, not by random opinions as to perceptions of facility value, and secondarily by avoiding the same facility on consecutive years, if possible ... There has not been any formal field rotation in the first 17 years of this event ... In a five-game guarantee structure, the optimal facility load is six teams per playing field ... That makes 24 teams each as the target for the three 4-field complexes, and 30 for Auburndale ... The 2024 assignments are nearly perfect under those goals and technical criteria ... We're one team "over" at Auburndale (31) and exactly on the button everywhere else ... The Men's 70+ (except 70-AA) and the Men's 75+ are repeating at Walker Rd. this year only because I surrendered early to a barrage of November and December emails insisting on an early determination ... I chose Walker Rd. for them just for the peace of mind! ... The only other repeaters are the two 40-AAA teams, because they have to play preliminary games with the 40-Majors at Loyce Harpe ... This process is a simple mathematical exercise driven by games-demand within the context of available games slots inventory ... Privilege and superiority are not factors ... Good luck! ... |
| Jan. 5, 2024 DaveDowell | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: Ratings bump and then after back down again John ... Very simple explanation here ... Those are teams playing in the upcoming Tournament of Champions, where they compete at the rating level they had when they earned their bid to the event ... At the conclusion of the T.O.C., those teams will be re-rated to their current appropriate rating ... This is just a temporary move to avoid confusion at the T.O.C. ... Someone different asks this question every year, but the answer is always the same ... Good luck this Season ... |
| Jan. 4, 2024 DaveDowell | Topic: Tournaments Discussion: Top Gun 2024 in Bullhead City Preliminary teams list has been published ... Schedules and brackets will follow when they are completed and pass final review ... |
| Jan. 2, 2024 DaveDowell | Topic: Rules of the game Discussion: What's the rile The National Rules Committee met during the first week of December in Ft. Myers (Estero), Florida ... Those sessions established the rules amendments that appears in the Minutes accessible from the pink priority message of this website for the current 2024 Season ... The Committee will meet again in late November or early December this year, somewhere in the Western USA ... If you want to put something together, 11 months should be plenty of time ... |
| Jan. 2, 2024 DaveDowell | Topic: Rules of the game Discussion: What's the rile It's getting even easier than I thought! ... We don't have a 3-2 count system at any rating level or age of play, so you can toss out that "Exception" ... Seriously, most T-ball kids I know are probably capable of figuring this out ... I appreciate someone having a little fun "mountainizing a molehill", but I would be embarrassed publicly admitting to not being able to figure it out ... If you have a language objection, write it up "your way" and send it in ... We've got 11 months or so until the next Rules Committee sessions ... P.S. - I use the "inning" wheel on the indicator to track the number of runs across (5 or 7) in an inning ... That would work for up to 10 strikes, but not a single umpire to date has failed conceptually on this! ... Happy New Year! |
| Jan. 2, 2024 DaveDowell | Topic: Rules of the game Discussion: What's the rile T2, titan and mck ... This really isn't all that difficult for anyone who can [1] count to 4 (and we spot you the first number "1" of the 1-1 count), and [2] can remember if they have used their "waste foul" yet once they have successfully counted to 3 ... Really, that's all there is to it! ... Happy New Year everyone! ... |
| Dec. 23, 2023 DaveDowell | Topic: Bats Discussion: New rule on shaved bats softball4b ... The National Rules Committee has already developed a "..best case response.." ... They may revisit the issue at the 2024 N.R.C. sessions next November or December, about 11 months from now, if anyone proposes it for potential Agenda inclusion ... In the interim, we would welcome the opportunity to review your specific action items to make sure "..the current rule is as effective as it could be.." ... |
| Dec. 23, 2023 DaveDowell | Topic: Bats Discussion: New rule on shaved bats tg69 ... Please re-read the new rule as many times as it takes for you to recognize that NOBODY other than the bat-cheater is suspended (or banned, depending on the cheater's level of cooperation) for ANY period of time ... The cheater's team will simply not be competing in only two upcoming events: the next World Championships and T.O.C., but they may play in as many other SSUSA sanctioned events as they wish ... Those two are qualifying roster events, and the bat-cheater's team can be presumed to have cheated in those qualifiers, too ... Making them ineligible for those events protects the integrity of the World Championships and T.O.C. by ensuring that team does not have an unfair advantage against all other participants ... That's a pretty light sanction for such a serious offense by a team member ... |
| Dec. 22, 2023 DaveDowell | Topic: Bats Discussion: New rule on shaved bats JohnO28 • Your posts in this thread are, in my view, totally on point and accurate in all respects ... Thank you ... titanhd • Your post is my personal nominee for the 2023 Truthful Post of the Year award, but you won't win "Mr. Congeniality" softball4b • What you have just advocated is, in essence, the elimination of ALL sanctions except for the individual bat-cheater who randomly gets caught ... No Manager responsibility any more ... No structure where team peer-pressure to deter bat-cheaters would be allowed ... No "nothing" except dumb luck on our part (like a few years back at BLD-LV when a cap popped off a bat and three tennis balls rolled out of the barrel!) ... This is the reason I was somewhat opposed to completely removing the "Manager Sanction" component of the altered bat rules at the Committee meetings ... I firmly believe more people than are willing to admit it "know" who swings the cheater-bats ... And the moment a manager says, true or not so much so, "Gee, I didn't know he swung a dirty bat", he has just dropped the perfect "get-out-of-jail-free" card that can't be challenged while he walks away untouched ... I'm not immediately aware of any other team sport where the manager or coach is completely immune from either responsibility or repercussions for such a serious and dangerous rules violation by one of his players ... Your suggestion is the exact opposite of being proactive to reduce the incidence rate of bat-cheaters ... You are unreasonable in suggesting that the only other option is to "police the problem on the front end" ... Other than expecting all associations to purchase and deploy properly calibrated and indexed (and expensive) bat testers at all complexes at every event, how else would you envision this "front end" process to work effectively? ... |
| Dec. 17, 2023 DaveDowell | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: Qualify Dancer ... You are currently "65-eligible" because you will attain that age before 12/31/24 ... Happy Birthday and Good Luck! |
| Dec. 16, 2023 DaveDowell | Topic: Associations Discussion: Older age groups playing younger age groups? There will be occasions this Season where tournament divisions will be comprised of differing age group (and/or rated) teams ... In most instances, matching teams with equivalent rating index numbers is how this works, sometimes with equalizers if an exact match isn't there ... The topic isn't mentioned in the National Rules Committee minutes because nobody proposed that the current procedure be considered for modification ... |
| Dec. 13, 2023 DaveDowell | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: 69 year olds playing up in 70 ace42850 ... The answer is probably as soon as the web master has a chance to modify the roster building subroutine programming ... The ink is barely dry on the rule amendments ... If this is one of those "...I gotta have him RIGHT NOW, not tomorrow before someone else grabs him!!..." scenarios, please call the Sacramento Home Office @ (916) 326-5303 during normal business hours in the Pacific Time Zone and I'm sure someone there can add him manually to your roster ... |
| Dec. 10, 2023 DaveDowell | Topic: General and miscellaneous Discussion: Rule question Here's what you may have been told, which is also what you should have been told: As soon as you have ONE foot down, ON or BEYOND the line, you may not return to 3rd base. You may also be tagged out until you have BOTH feet down ON or BEYOND the line. After that moment, you may not be tagged and the putout can only be accomplished at the strike mat. Those are slightly different concepts that describe slightly differing circumstances. |
