Thanks for the comments, GHSA can only grow better with information from the players. To answer some of your concerns / questions / statements.
We do try to promote the tournaments here in Fairbanks - just this past weekend a few individuals were walking around the Anchorage fields asking whether or not the teams would travel here to Fairbanks for the Coca-Cola Golden Days tournaments. We got a few teams that said they were interested - time will tell. In speaking with the other directors of their associations everyone is looking for teams to travel to their tournament. Some of the common themes I hear is gas is too expensive, the summer is too short, or why should we travel to them when they don't travel to us. I don't know how to break the code. All we at GHSA can do is improve on our tournaments with the help of our Fairbanks players and see if teams want to join us. As of right now I know of one team coming to the June Jam, and about a total of 12 teams traveling to Fairbanks for the Coca Cola Golden Days (6 mens, 2 womens, 4 CoEd). As for the HR and Throwing contests we thought of that idea and a couple of more for the one pitch, but with Mens/Womens and CoEd together and the tournament running until 8pm there just was no time to slide it in. We are going to attempt it this weekend for the Pruhls Realty CoEd June Jam, hopefully we work out the bug and get some good feedback from everyone to improve on it for the July tournaments and maybe even State.
Addressing the game with the Mean Greens - this was a single team made up of Army personnel from the Ft Wainwright teams. My understanding was that after there 3am game a portion of there players had duty, leaving the team without enough players to field a team for the 9am game. So during the next few hours they called in other players from Ft Wainwright which would be completely legit. So just before the game when I was asked if the three new players, s were "good" I assumed they were Ft Wainwright players and OK'ed it. The stats don't show anyone in that game doing as well and you say, but either way I'm sorry that my decision and haste in not checking closer into the actual additional players may have affected the outcome of the game. As for the pitch height, sorry I wasn't there to address it, at that time we had a outfield separated her shoulder and required us to call an ambulance.
**Umpires** Here is my four points on umpires.
1) We don't have enough, we need anywhere from 4 to 7 umpires per night 5 nights a week and on the weekends 8 - 12 per round depending on how many fields we are running at any given point. That being said - come out and try. I would love to be able to request umpires to call GHSA games by name while getting new ones up to speed and let the "other umpires" call elsewhere in Fairbanks, but again there are just not enough umpires to pick from.
2) OK that being said understand that the Umpires judgement can only we questioned in the form of an appeal or protest. What does that mean? First you need a second umpire on the field. Second understand what the actual rule is, (this is where most players fail). Third you need a close / tough play that you feel wasn't called correctly. Umpire 1 makes the call, some or most of one team will agree with it, some or most of another will not that is given, but if you feel that the call is wrong here is your next few actions. Before the next pitch, the coach needs to calmly call "time" and approach Umpire 1 that made the call and ask he/she ask for help from his/her partner. Two key points - calmly & ask the umpire that made the call. Most of the time the upset, hotheaded, loud, non-coach yells from the dugout at the umpire that didn't make the call. Now once asked the umpire that made the call, decides whether or not he/she will talk with his/her partner, away from everyone else. Now again this is a judgement call and the umpire may feel confident in what he/she saw to make the call. In my opinion most umpires if asked and not yelled at or told will honor the request for "help".
Now for the protest - the umpires are trained and taught the ASA rule book - every coach receives one at the beginning of the year and if any player would like one I have extras that I could have left at the concession stand with your name on it to pick one up. A protest is a team's means to identify a possible misinterpretation of an ASA rule. The procedures are as follows - the umpires makes a ruling on a play. First question is this a judgement call? If so, stop umpires judgement can not be protested. If it isn't a judgement, than then (again calmly), ask the umpire for clarification, if the clarification doesn't help and you as the coach still feel that what the rule book says and what just happened don't match you may have a protestable call. Now keep in mind that the umpire has alot of judgement calls and a protest is only when the ASA rule has been applied incorrectly. Now during a tournament, after receiving the umpires explanation and you feel that the non-judgement rule has been misapplied you inform the umpire that you "Protest", now disagree, are upset, but you "protest". At that point the game stops and the tournament director, the umpire-in-charge, and another umpire (if needed to break the tie) will make a ruling. Now during league, the home team logs the time in the game where the protest is made and documents what is under protest, the game continues on and afterwards the offended coach emails GHSA with all the protest information. The Executive Board will make the ruling after gathering any further information. If the ruling goes in the favor of the offended team that remainder of the game will be rescheduled with the ruling applied. AGAIN - protests only work for misinterpretation of the rules NOT judgement calls.
4) Finally - is the most important tool - feedback - You may not be able to appeal the call since there may not be another umpire on the field, or if there is he/she may not honor your request for "help". You may not have a protest due to the call being the umpires judgement, or the protest doesn't go in your favor. But information is the only way we will improve. Send me an email either at ghsasoftball@gmail.com - this is the associations group box monitored by the board members, or directly to me at either william.paul@akeiel.ang.af.mil (work) or kermitt38@yahoo.com (home) and let us know the situation and we can have it looked into.
Ted thanks for your time in posting these comments and to everyone else out there reading this, I know there are more than just half a dozen people out there with either complains or improvements, send them it.
Greg Paul
President, GHSA
