Plea to tournament directors...

The round robins that my boy is involved , they are taking infield and outfield. But the time limits are tight for the actual game
 
GCPRO said:
I cannot remember how old my son was at the time but his team played in a tourney where they actually put the time of the game on the scoreboard rather than innings. If i remember correctly the time limit was 1:45 and that time was put on the scoreboard and counted down. Needless to say there was some crazy stuff going on to get those W's as time dwindled down.
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Good for the parents, but if the coaches aren't tracking it in the dugout...

I was at a tournament on Friday where the home team was leading as the 2 hour mark approached and the coach made a pitching change with two outs to delay. Batter swung at the first pitch and flied out to right. Ump says: "We are at 1:59:35 according to my watch. Play on."

Home team won, but they had to burn about 20 more pitches in the 7th, which would have hurt if they made it to Sunday.
 
rossford_resident said:
Good for the parents, but if the coaches aren't tracking it in the dugout...

I was at a tournament on Friday where the home team was leading as the 2 hour mark approached and the coach made a pitching change with two outs to delay. Batter swung at the first pitch and flied out to right. Ump says: "We are at 1:59:35 according to my watch. Play on."

Home team won, but they had to burn about 20 more pitches in the 7th, which would have hurt if they made it to Sunday.
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Son's team was playing in the Flames Tourney this weekend. They hit the time limit after the visiting team started batting in the 6th inning. Top of the 6th comes rolling around. Visiting team down two. First batter sees 4 pitches and then hits a double. Next batter sees two pitches and the umps call the game due to time limit. If that was going to be the case, why did they let the visiting team even start batting? There must have been maybe 6 mins used between warmups and the two batters. I've never seen that before.
 
Peak said:
Son's team was playing in the Flames Tourney this weekend. They hit the time limit after the visiting team started batting in the 6th inning. Top of the 6th comes rolling around. Visiting team down two. First batter sees 4 pitches and then hits a double. Next batter sees two pitches and the umps call the game due to time limit. If that was going to be the case, why did they let the visiting team even start batting? There must have been maybe 6 mins used between warmups and the two batters. I've never seen that before.
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I suppose a kid could hit a two run homer in that time frame. This tournament was "no inning can begin after 2 hours." One of the games I had was in the 6th when we reached the two hour limit. Home team was batting and up 1, so the umps called it. It was so hot that both coaches were happy to get out of there, but it made me wonder if it might not come back to bite the winner if run differential was one of the tiebreakers.
 
The one thing I wont and dont discuss is time limits, as that is the most unbaseball thing of these tournaments.

yeah, I get it, its a necessity but man I just hate it.
Between the drop dead times, no inning to begin after a certain time, to putting a runner at second base in a time game, etc etc etc I just dont pay much attention to it.


but you do see coaches finagalling with it and I hate it. Never played or coached with those rules.
 
thavoice said:
The one thing I wont and dont discuss is time limits, as that is the most unbaseball thing of these tournaments.

yeah, I get it, its a necessity but man I just hate it.
Between the drop dead times, no inning to begin after a certain time, to putting a runner at second base in a time game, etc etc etc I just dont pay much attention to it.


but you do see coaches finagalling with it and I hate it. Never played or coached with those rules.
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I appreciated that about the Genoa Area Little League back when my kids were younger: the guy running the league explicitly said "there's no time limit in baseball." When Oregon started putting rec teams in the league we were told at the coaches' meeting to let the league know if the Oregon Rec tried to end a game due to time limits. "They asked to be in our league, they play by our rules."

I grew up back in the days when men's fast pitch softball was still a thing. They used to hold major tournaments in my hometown. Those 1-0 eleven inning games really killed the schedule by Saturday afternoon. Double elimination was great, too. You'd see a team with a dominant pitcher win 3 or 4 games in a row to make it all the way through the loser's bracket. Good times.
 
rossford_resident said:
I suppose a kid could hit a two run homer in that time frame. This tournament was "no inning can begin after 2 hours." One of the games I had was in the 6th when we reached the two hour limit. Home team was batting and up 1, so the umps called it. It was so hot that both coaches were happy to get out of there, but it made me wonder if it might not come back to bite the winner if run differential was one of the tiebreakers.
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I thought they would have had that "no inning can start...." rule, but that wasn't the case. Seems a little off to me, and the first I've seen a game called in the middle of the top of an inning due to time. So odd.
 
Peak said:
I thought they would have had that "no inning can start...." rule, but that wasn't the case. Seems a little off to me, and the first I've seen a game called in the middle of the top of an inning due to time. So odd.
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i have seen some 'drop dead' stop games that have ended like this.

I dont think ill ever get over time limits.

It would help if teams hustled a bit more out into the field. I realize they are playing a lot of games,but I see a lot of walking, slow walking, out into the field..
 
Your last point is the reason there are time limits. I had a tournament game last wknd with 2-hour limit, and we got through 3.5 innings of a game that ended 6-4. The one team was the slowest I’ve ever seen at getting their signals. Catcher would look at bench for 0:30 while coach gave 300 signs, god forbid other team steals it, catcher then gave two sets of body signals, one for pitch and one for location, batters called time multiple times bc pitcher just stood there waiting for the plethora of signals to be relayed in.

had there been no time limit, that game would have taken 4-5 hours to play 7 innings
 
Oops, I hit post too soon.

I was going to finish with most of my games get over in 2 hours or less and I don’t have a huge strike zone. I keep guys in the box, I’m always talking/reminding about foul balls for on deck, I don’t wait for them to give it to me, I get them later so we can keep moving, I throw ball back to pitcher instead of waiting for catcher to finish watching the foul ball that was just hit, in short; I work to keep the game moving and barring an endless 25-1 mercy game that still takes the full two hours bc no one can get out for one team, we usually finish in 2 hours
 
CoachHoversten said:
Your last point is the reason there are time limits. I had a tournament game last wknd with 2-hour limit, and we got through 3.5 innings of a game that ended 6-4. The one team was the slowest I’ve ever seen at getting their signals. Catcher would look at bench for 0:30 while coach gave 300 signs, god forbid other team steals it, catcher then gave two sets of body signals, one for pitch and one for location, batters called time multiple times bc pitcher just stood there waiting for the plethora of signals to be relayed in.

had there been no time limit, that game would have taken 4-5 hours to play 7 innings
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Really despise coaches whom attempt to make the game much more difficult than it needs to be with the endless signs, etc. It does not need to be that difficult.

Hint Hint. Teach the pitcher/catcher how to call a game (again, not rocket science) and ya dont have to go through that charade.

What is so important about a pool play game on a Friday afternoon in June in any said tournament that a coach feels the need that he has to control every single aspect?

A coach will find out that if you allow the battery to call their own games that they really buy into it and take ownership, and yeah, talk about it between innnings and games. Tell them every pitch, they just become robots.

Pitch execution > pitch selection.
 
Peak said:
Son's team was playing in the Flames Tourney this weekend. They hit the time limit after the visiting team started batting in the 6th inning. Top of the 6th comes rolling around. Visiting team down two. First batter sees 4 pitches and then hits a double. Next batter sees two pitches and the umps call the game due to time limit. If that was going to be the case, why did they let the visiting team even start batting? There must have been maybe 6 mins used between warmups and the two batters. I've never seen that before.
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Flames tourneys have always been about the money....what other tourney would have a team drive 60 miles from one of the "required hotels" for an 8AM game.....then have them play 45 miles away at 3 in completely the other direction that was also 60 miles from the hotel. We didn't go back to the hotel in between as that would have made for a 240 mile day instead of the 165 we already had to do lol. By far the most ridiculous tourney we ever played in
 
tcgobucks said:
Flames tourneys have always been about the money....what other tourney would have a team drive 60 miles from one of the "required hotels" for an 8AM game.....then have them play 45 miles away at 3 in completely the other direction that was also 60 miles from the hotel. We didn't go back to the hotel in between as that would have made for a 240 mile day instead of the 165 we already had to do lol. By far the most ridiculous tourney we ever played in
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Its all about the benjamins baby!

Fell for the required hotel once.

Once.
 
tcgobucks said:
Flames tourneys have always been about the money....what other tourney would have a team drive 60 miles from one of the "required hotels" for an 8AM game.....then have them play 45 miles away at 3 in completely the other direction that was also 60 miles from the hotel. We didn't go back to the hotel in between as that would have made for a 240 mile day instead of the 165 we already had to do lol. By far the most ridiculous tourney we ever played in
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We're a local team, but I hear ya on the field selections. Drove more that weekend than I have for any other tournament. Far east side by 7am for an 8am start. Game over at 10am, then head over to the far Northwest side for a 11am team meeting before the 12pm game. Made it with 5mins to spare. I have never seen as many 8am games either. It was ridiculous. Then for everything they say about PBR scouting and social media highlights for all teams - only the Flames teams received any consistent mentions. We had two in our division, and for every one tweet/mention our player received, there were 3 for the Flames teams. Wasn't worth it and not something I'd want to go through again.
 
The Flames, which is the Basil family, used to be centrally located in the West Chester area and consequently used the fields in that area including a 3-4 field piece of property that I believe the family owned. Most High School coaches/AD grow tired of their ways very quickly so now you travel an hour plus between games. It is completely about money. Not using lights on fields to complete games because of an extra cost, not using diamond dry to get a field playable, not moving games to playable fields, etc. Each time a gamed is banged, they save money on field rental and umpire fees.
 
GCPRO said:
The Flames, which is the Basil family, used to be centrally located in the West Chester area and consequently used the fields in that area including a 3-4 field piece of property that I believe the family owned. Most High School coaches/AD grow tired of their ways very quickly so now you travel an hour plus between games. It is completely about money. Not using lights on fields to complete games because of an extra cost, not using diamond dry to get a field playable, not moving games to playable fields, etc. Each time a gamed is banged, they save money on field rental and umpire fees.
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Minimize your own crew by having the coaches work on the field after rain to get it playing condition again.
 
GCPRO said:
I get it. Is what it is. People need to know what they are getting into for a lot of money!
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They are still the most competitive tourneys in the area but there is a reason they are not sanctioned by USSSA, or Perfect Game or even PBR which in my experience does a good job on their own tourneys. The Basils make a lot of money from those tourneys. The scheduling is silly by the way.
 
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