Tourney softball is dumb

[bartxe]

They bought all these compression testers, how hard would it have been to spend have that money and bought some ID machines and required every player to have a UTrip ID to play in a sanctioned UTrip event? No ID, no play. It's pretty simple. You don't even need pictures on the IDs, make it a rule you must have your driver's license and ID to play.

There are a million things they could do, but they're afraid a team will back out on a tourney. I can't imagine more teams backing out than already do because they don't want to play IEO.

not a bad idea. even as a kid, I had to register and have an ID card to wrestle in AAU.

 

[jbo911]

When the problem is people playing where they shouldn't, it seems like it should have been the first step. The fact that it still hasn't been taken (I couldn't tell you the last tourney where my ID was even checked at check-in) tells you all you need to know about how much the associations care about this.

 

[SilverSlugger7]

When the problem is people playing where they shouldn't, it seems like it should have been the first step. The fact that it still hasn't been taken (I couldn't tell you the last tourney where my ID was even checked at check-in) tells you all you need to know about how much the associations care about this.

It's all about greed. Players and associations.

 

[mcnary26]

this bull**** is exactly why I quit playing tournaments and it was the best decision ever.

I think anyone that plays in an E State or above tournament should have to wear a dress while they play. E should be for beginners, E players should not be hitting homeruns. There should not be anything past the state level for E. No regionals, no worlds, nothing. you want to play big tournaments play D or above.

 

[rhound50]

this bull**** is exactly why I quit playing tournaments and it was the best decision ever.

I think anyone that plays in an E State or above tournament should have to wear a dress while they play. E should be for beginners, E players should not be hitting homeruns. There should not be anything past the state level for E. No regionals, no worlds, nothing. you want to play big tournaments play D or above.

This is my last season, I wanted to be done after last year but I got asked to play on a really good squad with guys I really like so I came back for one more year. I can play seniors in a couple years so I might come back to play that. Kinda funny watching 40s, its all the same guys who I played E with over the years. Go from E where you are publicly flogged for hitting a home run, to seniors where you get publicly flogged if you can't hit one of your 8 bombs on demand. Really makes no sense

 

[louconn]

Agreed but while I'm a good E player I'm not good enough to play up and at 37 years old with a job, wife and kid I'm not getting better.

yes, but maybe change classes all together. make everyone who's in E now, D, C & B. there are surely enough E teams to break into 3 classes depending on how good they are. the system is ****ed and nobody wants to do anything about it.

my numbers are probably off, but last time i checked Utrip WA, there were like 550 E teams and only like 33 class D teams. that is just absurd.

 

[rhound50]

yes, but maybe change classes all together. make everyone who's in E now, D, C & B. there are surely enough E teams to break into 3 classes depending on how good they are. the system is ****ed and nobody wants to do anything about it.

my numbers are probably off, but last time i checked Utrip WA, there were like 550 E teams and only like 33 class D teams. that is just absurd.

Yeah Nor Cal is the same. This would be a good idea the problem is the sandbagging is everywhere and in order for this change to happen teams going to worlds from all over the country would have to be reassigned. Knowing the Nor. Cal director he would probably take the best teams leave them in E so they could have the best chance at a ring.

 

[Chubby_43]

CO has almost universally upped the HR limits for most tournies. In USSSA uppers, we get 6, lowers get at least 2. WSL allows 6, All World Sports allows 4 and 1 up.

This is different from years ago when most tournies allowed 2.

I'd be really irritated playing in tournies that continually don't allow many HRs.

Even in league the minimum I see is 3.

On a side note, I don't see any real sandbagging problems around here. The TDs pay attention to players/teams and classify them accordingly. We don't get ridiculously good players trying to lurk in E all the time.

CO don't count... You can hit a 250' pop up that will be 330' in that thin air...

 

[ser7643]

Speaking about USSSA only as that is the major sanction in my area.

Men/Women should only be allowed to play E for 3 years...period.
There should be 3 levels of play: State, National, and World for each class (E, D, C, B, A, Major).
If you win a State D title in 2015 let say, then you have to play C or above at the State level from then on out (can play at D level for National and Worlds until you win one of those titles). If you win a D National then you have to play C or above (at State and National level) from then on out. IF you win a D World title then you have to play C or above at all levels.

Allow lower level teams 2 players from next level up or one player from 2 levels up. So an E team can have 2 D players or 1 C players...nothing more.

COED E coed can have only E guys and either E/D women. D coed can only have D guys and D/C women, etc.... Guys should not be allowed to drop down a level to play.

HR's for all classes (men, women, coed, etc)
E=0
D=3
C=6
B=9
A=12
Major=15

To play in a State tournament you must play in at least 2 prior tournaments that year. This stop all star teams from forming for one tournament to win a State Title. Not fair to play all year and then another team just jumps in. World Tournament should be by invitation/berth only.

Directors should be held accountable for their classification of players. Here in Maryland it's a problem. One team who plays conference has been continually reclassified to C from B (they are tight with the director) while another team with similar talent is only allowed to play B (there isn't a B program so it's basically a death sentence). One year a team was kicked out of the World Tournament for illegal players on the roster and the very next year the same director only kicked out the illegal players on a roster but let the team continue to play....they eventually won the World title. Why the favoritism for that team I don't know.

Too many damn associations is a huge problem. Teams and players who can't play down in one association go to another until the other association finally lets them play down because they want their money...and there it is. Money! It's why directors do what they do....they want your money. You want to change softball...dictate where your money goes and who gets it and they will eventually listen.

 

[ser7643]

^^^^^Just my .02 cents......sorry for the long rant, bored at work.

 

[pontiacfb78]

If they really wanted to stop guys from sandbagging, they need to get all the teams into the proper divisions. Best way I can think of is to force the winning teams to move up a bracket for the next year. All the teams that go to worlds are forced to move up one bracket for the next 2 years unless they have at least a 40% turnover in players. E is the lowest div, so its not like they need the same teams competing for the title every year. It would also boost the team numbers in the higher brackets. In a perfect world, this might work.

 

[coreyjemiller]

If E is truly for Rec and new players getting into tournament ball, why should anyone be allowed to play E for more than 3 years... you are no longer new and learning softball after 3 years.

 

[rhound50]

I don't agree with the limit for playing E, there are legitimately players out there that are rec and will always be rec and there should be a place for them to play. I do think the easiest solution is to remove E worlds, if you are playing rec than you are playing for fun and for fun teams shouldn't be worried about winning a ring. The problem is E worlds is the biggest draw in softball and USSSA isnt going to give up the money they are making on it just to try to improve the sport.

 

[carrion]

At Boneyard Blast they had an interesting solution for Home Runs... 1 player is designated your "unlimited" HR hitter, and besides him you get 4 for the rest of the team. Anything after the 4 and it wasn't a DBO but bases were cleared and the other team was awarded 1 run. It worked because everyone else had to slap base hits to not give the other team runs if it was a team full of mashers.

 

[Dogue]

Yeah, mashers slapping base hits...that's what I want when I'm playing infield. I play with some guys that can flat kill the ball and when they're forced to keep it in the park they hit some scary hard liners that could easily hurt someone. There needs to be some HR's in E.

Like many have said, they need to keep names/player IDs and enforce teams and/or players moving up (or down) based on how they finish States or Worlds.

 

[Joker]

Yeah, mashers slapping base hits...that's what I want when I'm playing infield. I play with some guys that can flat kill the ball and when they're forced to keep it in the park they hit some scary hard liners that could easily hurt someone. There needs to be some HR's in E.

Like many have said, they need to keep names/player IDs and enforce teams and/or players moving up (or down) based on how they finish States or Worlds.

why are these "mashers" playing E?

 

[louconn]

funny seeing teams with $5k+ in bats lined up on their fence playing REC/E.

 

[rhound50]

why are these "mashers" playing E?

Just because you can't hit an you play E does not mean that anyone who can hit should be playing up. Softball is so collapsed down to just E and everything else that a lot of guys who can mash can't play up even if they wanted to.

funny seeing teams with $5k+ in bats lined up on their fence playing REC/E.

You should have seen the wall of bats from some of our SBF Nor. Cal teams. Enough bats and gear for 10 teams.

 

[Joker]

you're not making any sense

 

[louconn]

if everyone who should be bumped up got bumped up, then most people probably could play up. cause there'd be enough competition that you don't have to travel to find other teams in the same class. doy

 

[jbo911]

There also could be just 3 divisions. Rec, A, and B. 4 if you want a Major division. Seriously, I've played plenty of Upper and Lower tournies and the competition was perfectly fine.

 

[BBBD1969]

He's saying this tourney was fun, but association tournies aren't fun.

They've tried every negative punishment to try and make people move up. They should try some positives, and being able to hit one more homerun per game isn't enough. Restrict prize packages, restrict worlds, or make the prizes at the E level basically an insult.


Sandbagging is the problem. HR limits aren't the answer. They're not killing themselves, the number of associations is what has watered everything down. Prestigious tournies barely exist anymore because everyone runs from competition so you can't build one and old ones are dying.

I remember years ago someone (initials:BBBD) on this board suggested eliminating ALL "E" tournies---State, National, and Worlds---as a way to help eliminate tourney sandbagging and return E ball to what it should be---beginners and beer league.

Never saw so much smoke coming out of so many ears in my life.

 

[jbo911]

I was probably one of those people. There were still at least some A, B, and C teams back then though. Now those guys are gone or playing D.

 

[dremersvision]

Around here it is pretty much just USSSA or you can drive 2 hrs to play NSA, but USSSA is dying. Less and less teams playing E each year. Our upper program is non existent we have opens which are D and up and its the same 4 teams every weekend unless a couple don't play then the open gets cancelled cause no on wants to play a 2 team tourney. The only decent C team moved to conference because beating the same 4 local D teams wasn't fun anymore. I've been playing a long time, I see a lot of talented guys quitting the game and I don't see an equal amount of new talent coming up. For kids out of baseball I wonder if the idea that you can't hit home runs at all turns them off to softball. If softball was the way it is now in 1997 when I stopped playing baseball I probably wouldn't have played.

Hitting a home run doesn't make you good at softball. Instead of trying to use home runs to force people to move up, the directors really need to do their jobs and know the players and teams in their area and bump the players who have no business playing E which is supposed to be rec. Punishing home runs hasn't done anything other than turn big tournaments into poopy fests where guys who can mash are scared to swing hard. Every year I hear rumors that the rules are gonna change and they never do. I agree that E(rec) shouldn't have a worlds but it makes them so much money it will never change.



Agreed but while I'm a good E player I'm not good enough to play up and at 37 years old with a job, wife and kid I'm not getting better.

I agree with you 100% sir.


Every year we have an end of season meeting. i tell the director of the league the same thing. You need to come up with a classification system. It makes perfect sense,yet, not enough thought or energy is put into it. All of the players in the area know one another and it is not hard to figure out E,D,C etc players.

Another issue is that the directors that are hired are not only overseeing softball but they are in charge of other sports. Well which one generates the most revenue? that sport will get the most attention.

Another one.......


my town hosts an overnight E tournament.....

Well what is happening to the D,C,B and A teams? Well if they are a known team they can not play. Is there an overnight tournament dedicated to those players/teams? NOPE! so what would you do if you wanted to play and you are a D->A team/player? you change the name of your team or you go under a different name(player) no one is checking anyway so it does not matter. which goes back to the classification system that should be created.

There were 3 legit E teams at this overnight tournament that had no business being there!!!!!! Meaning, they were flat out aweful but, it was an E tournmanent though.

Will those crappy E teams that went to the overnighter come back next year? probably not. This is the reason why the game is dying.

Not enough thought is put into things like tournamanets. it will take the effort of many individuals to actually change the way things are being handled.

 

[BBBD1969]

I was probably one of those people. There were still at least some A, B, and C teams back then though. Now those guys are gone or playing D.

Its been going on for awhile tho. 20 years ago I was stationed in OKC and there were 4-5 parks in the area that had softball leagues. Some of these parks had 6-10 fields. Damned if you could find a C league. I think there was one. It was only 3 HRs/game for C back then---we tried playing in it and IIRC there were only 5 or 6 teams in the league.

I like your idea of streamlining the classifications. Rec should be 0 HRs and an OE. No State, National, or World tourneys for Rec. B is 5 HRs then DBOs. A is 10 HRs then DBOs. Majors in unlimited.

The game's evolved so I think the rules and classifications need to as well.

 

[jbo911]

The directors ***** about how hard it is to classify so many players, making the number of divisions smaller would be a huge help. When we played Freedom in South GA, I don't remember seeing a single team out of the division they should've been. There were only two I believe. Not difficult at all, and the money should be the same or more for the Associations as it only lessens their headache.

 

[Joker]

i think the point by the OP is to give everyone more HRs, in all divisions, is getting missed

 

[chrometip78]

Homeruns are fun & all divisions should have them, limiting them does nothing to limit sandbaggers. If anything they make it worse on true E-ballers, forcing guys that smash the ball to go through the infield against mediocre gloves is the worst thing you can do.

 

[Joker]

Homeruns are fun & all divisions should have them, limiting them does nothing to limit sandbaggers. If anything they make it worse on true E-ballers, forcing guys that smash the ball to go through the infield against mediocre gloves is the worst thing you can do.

then those guys that smash should not be playing against true e-ballers and should be playing in their proper division

 

[rhound50]

The directors ***** about how hard it is to classify so many players, making the number of divisions smaller would be a huge help. When we played Freedom in South GA, I don't remember seeing a single team out of the division they should've been. There were only two I believe. Not difficult at all, and the money should be the same or more for the Associations as it only lessens their headache.

Yeah I've heard the same thing, its so hard to classify players, sorry but that it a load of crap. I have played every other weekend of less for the last 4 or 5 years and I can pretty much tell you who should be where. A state director who's job it is to know the teams and players who runs tournaments almost every weekend should be far better at it than I am. The problem is our state director is completely useless, I've seen him at a tourney past 10am only a handful of times in 5 years. He usually collects the money then leaves and lets someone else run his tourneys. Really hard to rank players when you don't actually do your job.

Homeruns are fun & all divisions should have them, limiting them does nothing to limit sandbaggers. If anything they make it worse on true E-ballers, forcing guys that smash the ball to go through the infield against mediocre gloves is the worst thing you can do.

God forbid people have fun playing softball, this **** is supposed to be serious bidness.