NAFA MASTER’S WEST WORLD SERIES
(Carson City, NV.) September 21, 2009
Perfect weather again for the West Masters and the Final Event of the Year will be the Las Vegas Battle of the East and West October 17-18. Any team that participated in the East or West Masters may attend. It is a 4-game guaranteed event starting at 9am Saturday with the final at 3pm on Sunday. Saturday night the East Champ will play the West Champ in each age group.

Special thanks to Carson City Staff Joel & Jeremiah and their concessions and field prep staff. Thanks to KC for doing a great job with the scorekeepers, Sylvia Isaac on stats, Bob Chapel for doing an excellent job as Tournament Director, Carley Parish as UIC and thanks to Pat Bucknell and Dewey Yoke for supervising the games down at Field 1, Kris Russom with souvenirs and Melissa and Mikel who handled the gates.

Final Order of Finish and All World Selections are below as we are having some issues with our website getting the info loaded.

Congratulations to the Champions of this year’s West event:
35 & over – CR Rockers, Portland in a slugfest over Taylor Farms/IAC
40 & over – Cal State Builders in a battle over Long Beach Black Sox, (Utah was upset by the Black Sox in semis)
45 & over – QMax from Calgary, Canada over Santa Barbara Fog
50 & over – Bay Area Merchants over Texas Stars/Si Senor-AZ (Texas Stars knocked off Ohio Battery in the Semis)

For the complete brackets and All-World Teams, please see the results on our web site at www.nafafastpitch.com .

The teams voted overwhelmingly to return to Carson City for the West Masters next year on the same weekend September 17-19 in 2010, two weekends after Labor Day. They also voted to keep the same four-game guarantee format with one round robin Friday night game at 5PM or later, two more round robin games on Saturday that seed all teams into a single elimination on Sunday. The championship games will be scheduled at 4:45PM or earlier and preferably at 3PM.

The teams in the 35 asked us to drop the age limit from 35 to 30 for next year and we will do that but will probably make everyone be 30 in the calendar year, no three year grace period, like we do with the 55 division. The teams wished to continue using the NAFA ball but nearly 50% want to change to a yellow ball for visibility, especially for night games which was consistent with the input we got from the East Teams. Almost half the people wanted to allow the courtesy runner be the last out like the present. They would also like a player not in the game to be able to be a designated runner once per inning. I will give other players and coaches the chance to fill out the survey for another week and post the rest of the survey results as soon as possible.

To the teams that have made NAFA the first choice in Masters play, we thank you for your support. 60 master’s teams from the U.S. and Canada are participating this year in the East and West and the growth is surely due to your participation and your willingness to give input to our NAFA Directors who guide your program and it is truly the “Players Program”.

Teams in the West pleaded for some rule to make the games stay on time which would be a time limit or an inning limit for next year. The awards, fields, field preps, ball, format, , supervision, the friendliness, openness & willingness to make things right, along with the camaraderie between the teams in the Masters program is unmatched anywhere. Overall the umpiring was very good and consistent (of course we all wanted that one call that went against us to be corrected).

From the 31 year old who is turning 32 this calendar year to the 71 year olds(there are 7 of them), the NAFA Masters program is supremely successful because of you the players. We wrote down pitching velocities for most pitchers and the new player photo ID check went well and was well received and appreciated by all coaches.
Every event is not without hiccups and we had a couple dealing with a few pitching plates and long games, but we made every attempt to make them right when they were brought to our attention.

Thanks to each and every player, coach and spectator for making this an event to remember.

ALL-WORLD AWARDS
35-Over
MVP John Bishop, CR Rockers Pitcher
Most Valuable Pitcher, Keith Fry, Taylor Farms/IAC
Brian Ree, CR Rockers
Kevin Rasmussen, CR Rockers
John Simmers, CR Rockers
Rick Martin, CR Rockers
Bobby Harris, CR Rockers
Jeff Twist, Taylor Farms/IAC
Jason Porto, Taylor Farms/IAC
Greg Glacier, Taylor Farms/IAC
Larry Michaudo, Taylor Farms, IAC
Junior Keizer, Dresslerville
Rob Lopez, Dresslerville
Dorcy Tom, Dresslerville
Jack Andreas, Oregon Masters
Mark Connolly, Oregon Masters

40-Over
MVP Paul Reyes, Cal State Builders
Most Valuable Pitcher Paul Algar, Cal State Builders
Mario Periaria, Cal State
Duey Christenson, Cal State
Craig Budrock, Cal State
Steve Garcia, Cal State
Eddie Martin, Black Sox
Dave Demaio, Black Sox
Anthony Rocha, Black Sox
Fred Hanker, Black Sox
Ronn Rupp, Black Sox Pitcher
Tony Corda, Fat City
Todd Hodge, Fat City
Marc Benjamin, Utah FP
Tommy Gray, Utah FP
Gin Barnes, Utah FP
Jay Johnson, So Cal Bandits
Dean Clark, Yard Dogs
Russ Wedmore, Tule Lake
Ray Thompson, RMC Builders

45-Over
MVP Tony Phillips, QMax
Most Valuable Pitcher, Rob Scheller, QMax
Randy Bell, QMax
Lanky Johnson, QMax
Glen Bush, QMax
Mitch Ventura, Fog
Phil Hernandez, Fog
Russ Arellanes, Fog
Tim Gerund, Santa Rosa
Tom Dower, Santa Rosa
Tony Lopez, Santa Rosa
Dennis Brownfield, Savala
Kirk Jackson, Savala
Herman Augerhole, Tulsa
Lance Day, Tulsa
Kelly Wenstrom, Ladner
Sam Aldridge, Ladner

50-Over
MVP Ray Biagina, Bay Area Merchants
Most Valuable Pitcher Ray Camacho, Bay Area Merchants
Chris Newbold, Bay Area
Larry Scheffield, Bay Area
Lonnie Brooks, Texas Stars/Si Senor
Phil Cain, Texas Stars/Si Senor
Paul Rubin, Texas Stars/Si Senor
Mike Hazel, Texas Stars/Si Senor
Kevin Engelhart, Boise Fog
Brian Stanton, Boise Fog
Greg Wertz, Yard Dogs
Dan Zupp, Yard Dogs
Greg Fleener, Nevada
Kirk Long, So Cal Relics
Terry Sporrong, Seattle FP
Ken Hall, Ladner
Jimmy Huerta, Ohio Battery

—
Benjie Hedgecock
NAFA Executive Director
Nafafastptich ( a t ) gmail.com
www.nafafastpitch.com