Minnesota Thread
- Thread starter Yoke
- Start date
Maximus Decimus
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The Stifftungsfest argument is interesting. Tourneys have tried both ways but they die. D/E teams don't want to play B/C teams cause all the upper talent is down on C teams. Chucks beat Comatose a few weeks ago. They would 30 run most teams in Stifftungsfest but I see why they are pissed about missing Stifftungsfest for the first time in God knows how long.
I'll never forget how much it rained that year! Standing water up to the bottom of car doors by the main fields.
wildthing81
Active Member
2011 or 2012 it rained so hard that everything was flooding, might be the same year that Bell44 is talking about
2013 it snowed 12 inches about a week before corkeys, they pushed it back a week or two and of course it rained and snowed that weekend during Corkeys make up weekend but we played through it.
2014 was very cold and windy.
2018 it rained on saturday for a couple hours, pushing games back many hours. Our 9pm game Saturday night starts after 1AM.
Corkeys has had some good luck lately I agree however at the end of July you rarely are worrying about the cold and there is no chance of snow, Cold and Snow are all in play for beginning of May.
wildthing81
Active Member
The debate is interesting because its a tale as old as time for softball. Lower teams only want to play lower teams and upper teams are dying off because the lower teams arent being forced up and dont want to play against higher competition and often there is not enough upper teams to play against. My gripe is really simple. move the top 10 C teams to B, move the top 10 D teams to C and so on to continue to increase to grow upper ball. Chucks, Stagecoach, Granite Services, Manniax, Blueline, Sliverbacks (sorry bell lol) Northwoods Elite, Stoop and who ever else could play B and be just fine and compete. The Nasty boys have won everything in D, they went 2-2 in the open at Shako, they could play C and probably win a few tournys. Other wise if you dont move teams up you have the issue you have now, There's all of like 3-4 MN B teams ASA wise and 1 or 2 Utrip wise, B teams dont have many options, C teams sandbag to stay down, D teams sandbag to stay down and so on. I just played my first Utrip tourny (Duk Duk)other then the dudley in the state of MN since 2016, because of my B rating and usually being on B teams has prohibited me from playing just about any Utrip in MN.
I couldn't agree with this more. Heck, even at the Plan B tournament they combined B & C for pools but then split it out into brackets because some of the C teams didn't want to play those big bad B teams. I wish more teams wanted to play up and be challenged. But, I also get the flip side of the monetary investment.
Maximus Decimus
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Everyone's argument is Nationals...MN can't compete. Maybe we bump teams for all our local stuff and then Nationals you get to play where your national player ratings allow. It would help if WI would bump teams instead of letting them all troll D forever. The Jacob's had no business being let back into D but in Wisconsin....anything flies. They won state and placed in Nationals 2 or 3 years straight before moving to C. That's a problem.
wildthing81
Active Member
I love Scotty Jacob's and I played Conference with him for 3 seasons for 2014, 2015 and 2016. I also head over and play open tournys when ever i get a chance. Whats happened to WI softball should be a cautionary tale to what could happen to MN softball if we arent careful. WI has almost no teams above D, Their state tournys for C usually consist of a 4 team deal, yawn and gross and some of the WI carney tournies have started to not let C and above teams in. So i can see some of the arguments the NWE guys made to stay D for another season, plus their national where they took runner up was like a 10 team national. Were they D talent wise, no not even close. Jacobs is also like 48 years old, cant move, cant run the bases at all, often needs breaks from pitching, so if you saw that you would say D player. Where Scott excels is he is a B talent level pitcher that fields everything up the middle and throws strikes and is one of the best pure hitters I've ever been around. He hits about every ball with perfect backspin and i have learned more about the game from him then anyone I have every been around. That said Im sure his age had alot to do with getting dropped. I went Jacks for Jack Milwaukee bash last September with NWE last fall. Myself and Kenny Petit were two pick ups for that team. We took 2nd as a D team, beating Drip City (B), SAl's from Milwaukee (B) and shutting them out in 4 innings with a run rule and losing to Comatose (A) by 3 in the chip. So I've told those guys from about 2019 they are B caliber team, but again there is not alot of places to play as an upper team and teams sandbag.....so Directors start forcing teams up!!!!
For nationals I'd say do what ever, i mean the odds of winning nationals isnt great so for one tourny maybe you should get to play down a level. One year I was with Infinity Plumbing, we took 2nd at C nationals and lost to a CONFERENCE Team Tailgaters had a grand total of 0, 0 C players on their roster when we played for the C title, most of the guys were B and some were A, but hey they got a national title out of the deal beating my team that didnt have a single B player on the roster.....Minnesota just doesnt let teams drop down, other states do it all the time at nationals...
If you are talking about Northwoods elite , they were by far the best team at d nats last yr and it wasn't close..
Us ( Dewey's ) and Johnson tree service took 3rd and 4th. We both lost to grasslands by a few.. and I think grasslands were a step above us and then elite was a step above them.
If we played really well sure we had a chance to beat grasslands.. not complaining about them being there at all.. but I think if 2 -4 played Northwoods elite 25 times not sure if any of the 3 teams win a game..
Yoke
Too sweeeeeeeet
Here’s the dual bracket: http://usssa.com/slowpitch/event_ga...=111&divisionID=2210078&bnp=1&bf=1&isWinner=1
wildthing81
Active Member
Maximus Decimus
Slap Hands!
Yesh now the pressure is on....
Don't lose the first game...
Had Scotty and Northwoods at my tourney in Siren 2019, and knew they were the top team there and that their ranking was flawed, but I go by the rankings right or wrong. They got beat out by a low D/high E team 2 years ago in first round of Sunday single elim. It can happen, but gets pointed out too much by top teams as a reason to not be ranked higher. When you are basically 9-1 every 10 games against mostly D teams and some E, it still makes said team C or higher, it's just that they remember those losses clearly because they are so infrequent. Also, with nearly every tourney being double elim. that team who only loses once every 10 games still wins nearly every tourney they are in. Again, should be ranked higher. They did come back the following year and rolled through the tourney with a strong focus on Sunday knowing they couldn't take a game off and you know they had a very successful 2020 finally resulting in a bump to C. I enjoy having their team come to my tournament, but also realize that the majority of my teams are D level or lower, so I tried to have an upper level tourney, but only had 3 teams sign up (1 of which was D willing to play up, another was C, but took players off roster to play D), so needed to cancel it. Holding out hope for the upper tourney caused me to lose out on having 28 D/E teams because they found other places to play, so I won't be trying it again.
The only real way to get players/teams the proper ranking requires way too much work from too many people, because you need to see them in multiple settings/tournaments and rate their overall performance of all at-bats in those tournaments along with adding in their defensive ability. The never ending complaint I hear coming from MN players is how a guy gets bumped up because he was on the team who placed high at state or national even though they barely played. I don't believe in a player getting his ranking bumped if he truly isn't a big contributor, but then again, who has the time to cover all these stats at all these games? You do the best you can with the most efficient way possible. WI has 1 sanctioned USA tourney and it's state. They won't even bump teams based on that as previous D state champs can attest remaining at D repeatedly. However, if you looked at several of those players/teams performances at multiple carney tournaments, they finish top 3 fairly consistently, which is what should get looked at by the powers that be in the state to determine player/team ratings. The other problem in WI is how many, many players jump from team to team each weekend. Many players just want to play, so they do so with several different teams and they change their team names often. Unless tourney directors are looking at rosters and IDs and checking them often it remains questionable how to rate teams properly.
No doubt that WI needs to do better, just don't see it happening anytime soon. Scotty Jacobs is a great guy and he keeps telling me I should be doing more at the state level for WI, but it's kind of hard considering I live in MN and I run 2 tourneys in the far NW of WI and my knowledge of players/teams doesn't include 2/3 of WI.
Yoke
Too sweeeeeeeet
I almost feel bad because of how my score in the standings is. I might be the jinx.Yesh now the pressure is on....
wildthing81
Active Member
ahh you were the only one to pick us to win sand creek i believe and we finished in the money so heres hoping for a repeat performance. That being said the corkeys field is strong, i think a case could be made for about 10 teams to win the open, we've played well the last 3 tournys dudley, litch an duk duk daze, so hopefully we can continue that trend. best of luck to all this weekend.
Update:
Not a fully torn/ruptured achilles at least. Partial tears along the muscles and tendon between my calf and heel, strained soleus, plus bursitis in the retrocalcaneal bursa sac.
Could have been worse. As of now, no surgery required. Walking boot for a couple weeks to let the tears heal and take pressure off the bursa sac.
So if you see a guy with a giant boot walking around this weekend in Owatonna it may be me.
EAJuggalo
Addicted to Softballfans
It is almost impossible to do in WI because of the lack of tournaments. Other than the guys that travel to play you're not going to get a representative snapshot of who actually plays at what level. Or even leagues, I'm sanctioned ASA just because my city doesn't want to pay insurance for us. It's cheaper to pay ASA and use their insurance since it covers non sanctioned events. I said the first year I worked ASA state that if you took the top four D teams, had them play the 4 C teams, I bet the D teams win 3 out of 4.
Much better news than the alternative. Back for fall ball?
wildthing81
Active Member
I did this 10 years ago, partial tear of Achilles tendon, I was in a walking boot with a lift in it and eventually they did a minor surgery to help the tendon heal back up. Took me like 18 months before i fully trusted it again, hope its heals up for you fast.
Goodness just all over his jock.
We'll see how PT and recovery goes. Initial assessment was 3-4 weeks before I can start running/jumping again.
Not being able to play Corky's and being unlikely to be available to play state next weekend sucks though.
Maximus Decimus
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You must be a treat to be around.
wildthing81
Active Member
You're right the guy sucks...go kick rocks...
Maximus Decimus
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Caught a big break with the weather. It's really nice down here tonight.
Maximus Decimus
Slap Hands!
This D bracket is crazy. 8 undefeated and none from MN. Roughly 36 teams coming back tomorrow.
Yoke
Too sweeeeeeeet
****ty weekend to try to come out of the losers bracket.
Yoke
Too sweeeeeeeet
I should pick you guys more oftenYesh now the pressure is on....
wildthing81
Active Member
Take those JEC points Yokes!!!!
Hell of a run by JEC. Congrats wildthing. Fun to watch. Pitching and defense was great all weekend from what I saw. Not many times you'll see the teams in the open bracket held below 12, let alone have 4/5 games where you only allowed 12 or less.
Saw Northwoods Elite double dipped Shameless in C.
Saw Northwoods Elite double dipped Shameless in C.