Message board »Message Board home »Sign-in or register to get started
Online now: 8 members: Chad Mellott, Eazy, FireCrackerFun, Matty507, Runner Blue, TABLE SETTER 11, drew28, inzerillo; 108 anonymousDiscussion: Interesting Topic
| Posted | Discussion |
| Aug. 5, 2008 Rod Sweet Men's 70 53 posts | Interesting Topic For general information; the message board currently identifies approximately eleven (11) messages for August 5th it seems that the Hot Topic is "Rating Wars" with a total of 755 hits. I have to assume that this is a topic of interest for most of our players. A suggestion would be for someone to post the rules that are followed in rating teams similar to the article earlier in Senior Softball News. If this has been posted before please post it again. |
| Aug. 5, 2008 DD Men's 75 92 posts | Quoting in part from Senior Softball News, Spring 2008 edition. The author is Terry Hennessy, editor, and CEO of SSUSA: "...As a member of the National Ratings Committee, I can tell you that we are committed---unequivocally---to protect lower divisions. That means the standards we set are tough. That means we do not move teams down unless they prove that they are: 1) not too strong for the lower division; 2) cannot compete in their current division. Teams must play three or more qualifying tournaments---so that we can see a clear pattern---and they must be losing to teams in their current age and skill level by an average of at least 5 runs a game. In addition, we check each player on each roster. We feel that teams are competitive if they are generally within a few runs of other teams in the same age and skill level---even if they are losing EVERY game. [emphasis in the original] Being competitive means teams have a CHANCE to win. It does not mean a GOOD CHANCE to win; it means on a good day they MIGHT win. [emphasis in the original]..." "...Unfortunately, many senior teams grew up in the era of adult softball in which they felt they had a RIGHT to win. [emphasis in the original] In true sportsmanship, it is not a right to win, but a right to compete. That is true competition. The National Ratings Committee is dedicated to promoting equal competition. We are not arrogant about it; in fact, we spend many hours researching records and discussing team ratings to be sure every team has the same chance. But, we are firm---we will not allow a few teams to ruin the sport. We believe that by being firm we will help senior softball remain healthy, growing and competitive for years to come...." End quote. The entire article can be found on page 29 |
| Aug. 5, 2008 umby44 48 posts | ok now i understand, i should be happy to pay for my flight, my hotel, rent a car, take time out of work so i have the right to compete, and maybe on a good day win a game, silly me i will run this by the guys! thanks |
| Aug. 7, 2008 geezer#6 Men's 70 58 posts | Well ! unfortunately the rating of teams doesn't work all the time. Case in point, at the Eastern Nationals a team was drop down from AAA to AA and end result was they won the tounament. I was told they had a bad tourney prior to Eastern was the reason, so some of the rules don't apply. The best answer I can come up with is not what you know and how you play, its who you know. Geezer 6 _Jerry |
| Aug. 8, 2008 MTM Men's 70 25 posts | To: Geezer#6 I don’t know for sure what you are trying to say but I think I do. If I am wrong I apologize but you should get your facts straight before you make a statement like your ending sentence in your post. I played in the 65 AA division for Cash for College. I don’t believe that 2 teams in 65 Major, 4 teams in 65 AAA and 3 teams in 65 AA really represents a true test of any teams ability, but you play the teams present in the tournament. Yes we did get moved from AAA to AA but it wasn’t one bad tournament. We started the year in AA and were AA the year before and did not win anything the year before. We went to York Pa this year and won our division beating a couple of Major teams in round robin but they had to give us 10 runs per game. We won the if game with the AA team in the finals. We went to a Ct tournament were the same AA team beat us by 17 runs and the other teams which were AAA, merced us in every game. We got moved to AAA but the Ct team stayed AA. We played in 3 more tournaments losing every game against the AAA teams. ( 0-11 giving up 205 runs and scoring 102 ) We were the perfect example of what a lot of teams are complaining about getting rerated with no justification. We also were the perfect example of appealing and providing all facts and documentation to prove it was wrong. In the Eastern Nationals we were 3 and 3 scoring 97 runs (5 coming from the AAA team) and giving up 87. Why did we win? We were lucky. One of the other team’s best hitter had a bad knee and couldn’t play. The 13th and actual winning run came because their out fielder thought 5 runs had scored and walked after a ball as our runner scored from 1st base. We won 13 -12. We were the home team so maybe we would have scored in the 7th but you never know. There never was any justification for moving us to AAA and the Eastern Nationals prove we are where we belong. |
| Aug. 8, 2008 Nancy Allen Men's 55 1438 posts | Umby and MTM and a few others that I have had this conversation with about their teams that shall remain nameless, there seems to have been more problems with ratings this year because of teams that have the same name. I am also aware of a few tournament entry problems for the same reason. It seems innocent enough to break one team into two with the same name in different age groups, but sometimes other baggage comes with that. There was a team here that may or may not be mis-rated depending on who you ask that kept doing well in tournaments as AAA and kept getting a team with the same name bumped up from AA. In turn they (AA) probably helped keep the other team's rating down to AAA. SSWC did move the AA team back down 3 times because the name confusion was the only basis for the move. So be careful if you are in a situation where you have the same name as another team which I believe happened in both of the cases here. |
