Archive for the ‘General’ Category

ASA’s 2009 Restricted Player List

Monday, February 16th, 2009

ASA 2009 Men’s Fast Pitch Restricted Player List
(November 2008)

OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. — The Amateur Softball Association announced today the athletes named to the 2009 Men’s Fast Pitch Restricted Player List. Players on this list may only play in the MAJOR Classification for Men’s Fast Pitch Softball in ASA Championship play.

Per the ASA Code the players on the Fast Pitch Restricted Player List were determined by a Fast Pitch Committee. Any appeals regarding this list should be made to the players local commissioner who will forward it to the ASA National Office for further review by the ASA Fast Pitch Restricted Player Committee. Please do this in writing and be sure to include statistics, teams played against, and a reason why you feel you should be removed from the RPL in any appeal.

The Restricted Fast Pitch players list will be available on the ASA website and this list will be updated, modified and/or revised on a regular and continuous basis but will be finalized by June 1 each year for the current year’s National Championship Finals. *** Any foreign players not listed as part of the Restricted Fast Pitch Players List shall be considered restricted to the Men’s Major Fast Pitch Classification; these players are allowed to appeal their classification by following the procedures listed above.

The list appears after the jump:

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CSI Men’s Fastpitch

Saturday, February 14th, 2009

Challenge for the weekend:

Find the MEN’S fastpitch news amongst the ASA Softball press releases for 2008-2009.

Click here.

Email the link to me, jim (at) fastpitchwest (dot) com and we’ll post here. I’ll start the game with the first one.

ASA announces 2009 Men’s Fast Pitch Restricted Player List

Guess the % for 2008-2009 by voting in our poll below. No fair cheating – make your guess before you tally them.

What % of ASA press releases for 2008-2009 are about Men’s Fastpitch?
10%
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40%
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60%
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100%
  
pollcode.com free polls

List of Headlines below the jump.

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Make Big Plans…

Saturday, February 14th, 2009

The following quote appears in the “Bid Book” assembled by Chicago in bidding for the 2016 Olympics. An admirable thought, for all of the great fastpitch events on the horizon for 2009…

“Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood and themselves will probably not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope. ”

Daniel Burnham
Architect, civic planner

SCIFL Las Vegas Roadie – April 4 & 5

Thursday, February 12th, 2009

From:

(Click logo for Las Vegas page at official SCIFL website)

Las Vegas Road Trip

If you’re still planning your season, NAFA and SCIFL have announced the second edition of the “Las Vegas Road Trip” Men’s fast pitch tournament. The dates of this tournament will be April 4th and 5th. Temperatures in Sin City that time of year should be great, last year’s tournament playing days were in the low 80’s. This will be a NAFA sanctioned event with the participating teams separated in the following divisions:

A
A-Major/AA (depending on amount of teams)
AA/AA-Major (depending on the amount of teams)

The splits in the higher classifications will be based on the amount of teams that enter. It is anticipated that 24 teams can be accommodated for this event and confirmation into the tournament will be based on the entry fee and roster being received. The entry fee for the tournament is $375 and a the NAFA 3-game guarantee bracket will be used for all divisions. It is open to all fast pitch teams and if your team has not yet paid their NAFA registration fee, there will be an additional $20 fee which will be forwarded to your State Director. With a minimum of eight (8) teams in a division, the winner in each division will have their 2009 NAFA World Series entry fee paid.

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Passing of Bob Law

Wednesday, February 11th, 2009

From our friends in Vancouver:

Passing of Bob Law

Longtime softball enthusiast, softball promoter, tournament director for multiple Canadian Championships, Alpha Sports Invitational tournaments, the International Challenge Cup, and numerous other events,.

Bob was a Softball BC board member, South Hill Memorial Park board member, and one of the most dedicated people ever to be involved in our great game of Softball here in British Columbia.

Bob passed away peacefully due to cancer on Monday, February 2, 2009 in Vancouver, BC.

He will be missed by so many of his softball friends, work colleagues and family.

There will be no official service for Bob but there will be a reception held at the Polish Hall located at 24th Avenue and Fraser Street in the City of Vancouver.

It will be held from 2:00pm until 5:00pm on Wednesday, Feb. 18th.

Many will be going back to South Hill Memorial ballpark after the reception for a couple of beers as Bob would have wanted.

It is located on 41st Ave between Knight Street and Fraser Street.

Ballpark Phone: 604-324-6505

God Bless Bob!

Less Dough, More Show

Sunday, February 8th, 2009

Thought you might enjoy a preview of our ad for the upcoming 2009 ISC Media Guide. (below).


(click to enlarge)

Many of you will no doubt recognize the pitcher in the photo as Canadian Wayne Wells, who helped pitch the Waterdown Hammer team to a runner-up finish in the 2008 ISC T of C. Wayne was kind enough to grant us permission to use his photo in the ad.

The ISC Media Guide is one of the longest running publications in all of men’s fastpitch, and a “must have” for fastpitch fans. The guide includes a good portion of the material that appears on the official ISC website, www.iscfastpitch.com, including a recap of the prior year’s ISC World Tournament, and ISC II Tournament of Champions, with line scores, team and individual photos, award winners, directory and photos of ISC staff, ISC record books, rules, Hall of Fame inductions and more. We’ll post a note on this blog with the guide for 2009 is out.

The publication of this year’s guide, as well as a number of past year’s guides, is overseen by ISC Executive Director Ken Hackmeister and compiled by ISC Guide Managing Editors, Ed Kirner, of Montgomery, Illinois and Blair Setford of Mississauga, Ontario. The guide will include a number of Maddy’s Photos, including a number on the cover. Last year’s cover (above) also featured several shots by Maddy.

Our announcement for last year’s ISC Media Guide was posted on March 29, 2008, so release of the 2009 Media Guide is well underway, and due out, I suspect in about a month. We’ll be sure to let you know when it is.

Fastpitch fans can purchase ISC Media Guide for prior years:

Send check of money order for $7.50 (U.S.) payable to ISC. Mail to Ken Hackmeister 153 E. 200 S – – #10 – Farmington, UT 84025, or email Hackmeister at iscken (at) comcast (dot) net for information about ordering using either Visa or MasterCard.

Maddy, la fotógrafa del softball

Friday, February 6th, 2009

From SoftballNewsLA.com:

(click banner for original news story)

La fotografía es un arte. Es el arte de capturar momentos únicos e irrepetibles, y dejarlos plasmados para la inmortalidad en el papel o en un soporte digital. Tomar fotos deportivas no sólo requiere un conocimiento acabado del arte de la fotografía, sino también un conocimiento y un acercamiento al deporte en cuestión, que le permita al fotógrafo identificar el momento exacto cuando gatillar su cámara y tomar una imagen perfecta. Maddy Flanagan reúne ambas condiciones. Cada una de sus fotos es una prueba de sus dotes como fotógrafa, pero también de su pasión y su experiencia en el mundo del softbol.

Maddy’s Photos comenzó en 2001, tomando fotografías en torneos de softball locales donde su marido, Jim Flanagan –editor de la prestigiosa página Fastpitchwest-, participaba. Desde entonces Maddy’s Photos ha crecido hasta abarcar los más prestigiosos torneos de fastpitch masculino tanto en los Estados Unidos y Canadá como, más recientemente, en el hermoso país de las Bahamas.

Este año, Maddy tuvo el privilegio y la suerte de disparar una vez más su cámara en al AAU Internacional Tournament en Orlando, Florida. Esta edición ya es la sexta vez consecutiva que Maddy y su cámara recorren el Disney’s Wide World of Sports, tomando fotografías de este prestigioso torneo. Recordemos que este torneo contó con importante presencia de jugadores y equipos latinos. Las fotos de este torneo pueden verse aqui.

Un ejemplo del trabajo de Maddy Flanagan. Potolicchio, Gervasutti y Montero, campeones del AAU international Tournament 2009.

Algo similar sucede con el ISC World Tournament. La página de Maddy cuenta con galerías de las dos últimas ediciones del ISC y del ISC II, sin dudas el evento más importante del mundo en el softbol de clubes, en donde se pueden encontrar excelentes imágenes de los mejores jugadores del mundo, incluidos los muchos latinos que año a año participan en el ISC.

Maddy Flanagan. Una mujer que pone su enorme talento para la fotografía al servicio de su pasión –y la nuestra-: el softbol.

(Google) translation after the jump:
(The translation is a little rough and literal, but enough to give you a sense of what they are saying.

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Fastpitch News in Spanish

Wednesday, February 4th, 2009

Noticas de fastpitch en español
www.softballnewsla.com


We note some updates to this Spanish language fastpitch news site, which we mentioned in October.

http://www.softballnewsla.com/blog/

Click here to view the site in English (Google Translation)

Beautifully done site.

I see the site is linked up to the coverage of the 2009 ISF World Championships. We heard from a number of Spanish speaking players at the AAU tournament in Orlando that they are looking forward to following the tournament, which includes a number of Spanish speaking countries, including Argentina, Venezuela, Puerto Rico and Mexico. During the Ballparkradio broadcasts of the 2008 ISF Junior Worlds, we received a number of emails from folks listening in Argentina and Mexico. One clever fellow in Argentina opened a chat room and was translating our play-by-play to his Spanish speaking friends that did not speak English.

www.softballnewsla.com will be a great place for Spanish speaking players and fans to follow the games in July.

Fastpitchwest has a page in Spanish to assist Spanish speaking players and fans to the game. Click here.

En espanol, for our Spanish speaking friends, translation courtesy of our friend Guido Silbert, who is attending school presently in Spain.

Noticas de fastpitch en español

Estamos orgullosos de compartir un link a un nuevo sitio de fastpitch en español:

http://www.softballnewsla.com/blog/

Sitio muy bien diseñado.

He visto que el sitio esta linkeado a la cobertura del mundial ISF 2009. Escuchamos en el torneo AAU de Orlando que un grupo de jugadores de habla hispana estan deseando seguir el torneo que incluye varios paises de habla hispana, incluyendo Argentina, Venezuela, Puerto Rico y Mexico. Este sitio de noticias va a ser un gran recurso para seguir la cobertura en español.

Durante la transmision de Ballparkradio en el mundial ISF Sub-19 del 2008, recibimos un gran numero de correos electronicos enviados por seguidores del fastpitch esuchando desde Argentina y Mexico. Un ingenioso seguidor Argentino abrio una sala de chat y tradujo jugada a jugada para sus amigos hispano hablantes que entendian el ingles.

www.softballnewsla.com va a ser un gran lugar para jugadores y fanaticos de habla hispana para seguir los juegos en Julio.

Fastpitchwest apoya un sitio en idioma español para ayudar a conectar jugadores y fanaticos de habla hispana en el deporte:

http://www.fastpitchwest.com/espanol.htm

An article posted about the success at the AAU of of Argentines Gervasutti, Pottliccio and Montero:

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Tales from the Diamond

Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009

Editor’s note: The following comes from David Carrillo, of the Flor de Cana team in Southern California, from a section on their team website, entitled “Tales from the Diamond”. I thought you might enjoy it, as I did.

For those of you not familiar with David, (nickname “Cubano”), he is one of the top players in the So Cal travel league, the SCIFL, a five-tool player, and organizer of the Flor de Cana team. (The team is sponsored by Flora de Cana, a top-shelf rum )


(click banner to visit the FDC website)

Tales from the Diamond

Fastpitch softball is a game that has grown near and dear to my heart. Although I consider myself a rookie to this game, I can say with certainty that every weekend I’ve dedicated to the sport has resulted in at least one memorable moment.

I would like to offer this segment of the Flor de Caña (FDC) website to retell your stories from the field. Anyone can contribute a tale about anything they find entertaining, amusing, hilarious, or worthy of being retold. The only thing we ask is that stories be in good taste and not speak negatively about a specific player, umpire, league official, etc. Please feel free to send your stories to carrilloda@earthlink.net for publication on the FDC website.

-David Carrillo

” The Only One that Matters”
(By David Carrillo)

Every person has their own reason for participating in adult sport leagues. For some it’s recapturing that glimpse of what once was in high school or college. For others it’s the thrill of flirting with what never was. There are those that view the sport as a means of improving physical conditioning and their counterparts that see it as an excuse to get away to have a few beers.

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A Note About Photos

Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009

A commenter to MaddysPhotos.com writes about the 2009 AAU Photos:

“Cant seem to find any pics of the team from ohio. Why is this ? Ohio teams are always left out but always in the running this year I think 5th”

A reply was posted to the commenter, but in case you don’t see it there, you’ll find some on pages 18, 19, 22, 23, and 24 of the galleries.

Editor’s note: From time to time, we receive emails asking why there are no photos of a particular team or player. Let me apologize in advance to anyone left out or who feels left out. It’s going to happen, despite best efforts.

This year’s AAU tournament had 40 teams, playing on six different diamonds, two of which were located in the north 40. That’s about 600 players, give or take, plus tournament officials and fans. Maddy arrived late Thursday night, started shooting first thing Friday morning, and shot straight through the title game on Sunday, about 3000 shots in all. (enough to develop some serious carpal tunnel on that trigger finger :-)). She works hard to try to get photos of as many teams as is possible. I know because she’s left me at the hotel early in the morning, more than a time or two, in order to cover a team that she’d otherwise miss.

The process to review and process the photos takes a solid weekend of work at the computer, and some tough choices about which ones to post. In the end, she tries to choose a cross-section of teams, include her best shots, that capture the action, story and feel of the tournament. Due to legal (patent) limitations, she is limited to 500 photos per event. (lawyers!) So that means about three-fourths of the shots she took wound up on the cutting room floor. (Some good ones of you, no doubt) 🙂 If you don’t find the photos that you’re looking for, chances are you will in time.

Anyway, you can write to Maddy directly at maddy (at) maddysphotos (dot) com.