NEWS

>>>GENERAL MEMBERSHIP MEETING, MONDAY, February 8, 7:00 P.M., LA PRADE LIBRARY, 9000 HULL STREET ROAD<<<

The library is open tonight and the meeting WILL BE HELD as scheduled.

Big decisions to be made on issues discussed in prior meetings (see below) so please come out to the library tonight and bring your fellow CSSA members.  Print out and submit your 2010 registrations:

Please go to the registration tab on the website and print it out.  Bring it with you to the meeting on Monday night.  Remember, all registrations must be submitted and received by March 1st for you to remain on the team you played with last year.  If your registration AND money is not received by the deadline, you will be placed in the draft.

     The post-season general membership meetings were held Oct. 26 and January 11.  CSSA President Allen Harlow mentioned a number of rules changes that have been proposed.  Some are simple clarifications of language; others are more substantive.  Among the most perennially controversial proposals was changing the balls and strikes being called by the umpire to using a mat that lies immediately behind the plate so that any pitch that hits any part of the plate or the mat is a strike (except pitches the are higher than 12' or flatter than 6') and any pitch that doesn't is a ball.  Most senior men's tournaments use the mat and many who play in these tournaments like the automatic call and elimination of the umpire's judgment.  Some feel, however, the umpire's judgment of balls and strikes is an integral part of the game and once deciding balls and strikes no longer applies, the umpires tend to ignore pitches that should be called illegal (no arc or too much of an arc).  Allen's suggestion is to use the mat, but also allow one foul ball when the batter already has a strike against him/her. 

     Another area of potential rule changes involves borrowing players from the opponent vs. picking up players from another team.  Currently in the first game of the night (both games if it's a doubleheader), a team that is short of rostered players may pick up players from other teams before it must resort to borrowing from an opponent, though in the later games borrowing from the opponent is required first.  Except in the Silver Men's Division, there are no bonus runs awarded an opponent if a player is borrowed from the opponent, but bonus runs are awarded the opponent for each player picked up from a different team (two runs per male pick-up, and one per female [in Co-ed] up to a maximum of four).  Many people don't like the concept of borrowing for a number of reasons and feel pick-ups (with bonus runs to the opponent) should be the preferred method of filling the lineup.  Of course the original idea was to give the potentially borrowed player a greater opportunity to play in the field and bat, but many players don't like to play with the team they came to play as their opponent and some managers don't like having to essentially kick someone off their roster for the night. 

     Related to the above is the situation where a manager of a team playing in the early games expects that his team will be short of players (and cannot know whether his opponent will have players to borrow even if that were preferrable) and so asks players who are playing the late games to show up for the early games as pick-ups to fill in for those missing from the roster.  Under current rules, if a full complement of rostered players show, the pick-ups who were asked to and did come out early may not play (or must be removed from the line-up if they've started the game).  Some feel this works a hardship on those who volunteered to come out early where the team's manager had legitimate expectations that the team would not have ten rostered players that night and then enough players do filter in whereby under current rules the invited pick-ups would have to be removed from the line-up.  It has been suggested that fairness and courtesy require invited pick-ups be to allowed to continue to play in the early doubleheader (subject to bonus runs awarded the opponent) even if it develops that the team can start with ten rostered players or if its tenth shows up during the game.  Without this change, it may become more difficult to get pick-ups to show up if they might end up not playing and have to wait around for two hours for their own teams' games. 

     If you want to see some of the rules change (those mentioned above or others) or if you want to see them remain as they are, please come out to CSSA general membership meeting at the LaPrade Library (9000 Hull Steet) on Monday night, February 8, 2010 at 7:00 and vote your preferences.  Drafting and recruiting rules were also discussed during the October meeting and likely will be re-visited at the next meeting.

     Positions on the Board of Directors need to be filled.  No experience is needed, but a positive attitude and a just a bit of knowledge of the workings of the Association are helpful.  Current Board members, retiring or re-elected, will be glad to help out novices willing to stand for election and serve any Board position.  

     A proposal has been made to change current weighted voting rules which give members one vote each and team managers and members of the Board of Directors two votes each (under the presumption they are representing absent association members).  Your ideas and votes may not carry the day, but they will be of no avail if you don't show up to express and exercise them at the meeting Feb. 8. 

OLD NEWS (oxymoronically enough) 

 Double congratulations to both Men's Playoff Winners and Regular Season Champs Intruders (Gold Division) and Ambassadors (Silver Division).

    In first round Oct. 1, season champs prevailed in both divisions, but just barely.  In Gold, Silver Hammers defeated Headliners, who were missing some of their best infielders, 12-9.  Players upset Young Virginians 18-16.  Intruders pushed across one run with two out in the last inning to defeat Silver Hammers 20-19.  Young Virginians then eliminated Headliners 23-10 and in battle of unbeatens, Intruders moved into finals by beating Players 21-17.

    In Silver, Virginians took a big lead then held off Hawks' rally to win 11-8.  Ambassadors pulled away in late innings to defeat Rockers 17-10, then in next game went up big on Virginians early only to see the lead dwindle to one run in final inning before Ambassadors triumphed 15-14 

    On Oct. 8 in Gold, Silver Hammers upset Young Virginians by a touchdown, 21-14, eliminating last year's champions.  Silver Hammers' offensive firepower diminished somewhat in next game, but the upstarts managed to prevail over Players 12-10, putting Hammers into finals against undefeated Intruders.  In the final, Silver Hammers couldn't crank up their offense one more time and couldn't slow down Intruders unstoppable offense as the hitting of Manager Clarence Williams' regular season champs powered their way to Gold Playoffs victory by a score of 18-8.

     In second night Silver play, Rockers, featuring a five-man all-star outfield to go with the only six rostered players they had available, crushed a game, but overmatched Hawks 14-6.  With a slightly modified cast of characters in the next game, Rockers were unable to match Virginians, who eliminated the revamped Rockers 13-5, putting Virgininians in the final against unbeaten Ambassadors.  In the final Ron Hall's Ambassadors scored 10 runs in first two innings and never looked back as they took a 15-run lead in bottom of the sixth inning to claim championship by score of 21-6. 

Chesterfield Co-Ed Tournament was played on August 29th, at Iron Bridge Park.  

We had some great people to help us with unpacking food and volunteering coolers for drinks; putting tarps over the dugouts, setting up tables and helping to take them down afterwards; putting up banners.  We also had people who brought their canopy and set it up.  

VOLUNTEERS:  showed up at the fields between 7 and 7:30am.  Raymond Douglas, Elton Joyner, Mary Blum, Tic Davis, Rich Campagna, Tommy Mackey, Norm Smith, Darnell Williams, Barry Simmons, Dave Simon, Jay Palmore, Jay Boothe.  A majority of the Rockets team helped to take down the tarps while the 2nd and 3rd place teams were playing.  Thank you to each of you for helping so much.  If I forgot anyone, please forgive me.  Just chalk it up to crazy or senile. 

There were 8 teams total.  Hanover had 3 teams, Henrico had 1 team and, Chesterfield had 4 teams.  The Hanover teams played well and had a couple of nail biter endings that just didn't come through.  Hanover Teal took 4th place.  Gino received a "Crying Towel," just in general.  

Chesterfield Ravens came in 3rd place.  They won their bracket.  But were eliminated after lunch by the Chesterfield Survivors.  Jimmy Taylor received a "Crying Towel" after complaining about the opponent's pitching.

The Survivors came in runner up behind the Ravens in the Bracket, but "survived" the next game and came in 2nd place for the tournament.  Rich Campagna received the MVP for the 2nd Place Team.

The Rockets won their bracket as well as winning the Tournament.  Congratulations to each of you on a great season and season ending tournament.  Mike Goodman received the Male MVP and Kathy Spence received the Female MVP.

Food was catered by Kings Korner Catering:  Fried chicken, Bar-B-Q, coleslaw, pasta salad, cobblers and brownies for lunch.  And for those who stayed in the winner's bracket, or those cheered others on, Lacy Lusk grilled hotdogs and maintained the drink coolers.  Thank you Lacy.

TROPHIES UNLIMITED:  Wayne Sheridan has been helpful enough to provide our placques for MVP and Runner Up for the tournament.   He provides a quality product in a very timely manner.  Thank you Wayne.  Trophies Unlimited is located in the 360 West Shopping List on Hull Street Road (745 0456).

Co-Ed Managers:  as a reminder, we will be notifying umpires that regardless whether you are the home team or not, if your team hits home runs or foul balls, you are responsible to retrieve them.  If you do not have playable balls available after not retrieving balls, you will receive a forfeit for that game and your opponent will receive a win!

Batting Practice
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