The rumored “bump up” of 18 teams from Class “C” to Class “B” is now official. The Minutes from the October 1, 2005 meeting of Region 14 ASA are posted here, and quoted below:

The Committee reviewed the results of the National Tournaments to see if any team should be moved up in classification as required by code.

1. Taylor Farms: Moved from a “C” classification to “B” classification as a result of their 3rd place finish in the “C” Nationals.

The Committee reviewed all the California teams that played in the “C” Nationals to determine if any of these teams should be moved to “B” classification.

As an opening for this discussion, Robert Hernandez made a presentation on his plans for the Southern California teams. He plans on moving 7 teams from “C” to “B” and is meeting with the team representatives tomorrow October 2, 2005 to discuss his plans with them. His basic rational for implementing this plan is to bring in new players and teams to the “C” level while at the same time improving the “B” program. Currently the lower level “C” teams and players just learning the game are discouraged and are dropping out because the strong “C” teams are so dominant. This plan will give them the opportunity to grow and compete and will make the new “B” teams stronger by playing better competition throughout the season.

There was a lengthy discussion by the committee members on the pros and cons of moving teams up in classification that weren’t required by code to move. One of the major concerns expressed was the impact on teams going to National tournaments and the inconsistent application of classification levels by other states. However the committee eventually agreed with the rational adopted by Robert Hernandez. It was also agreed that this committee must take the appropriate action early and not wait for local committees to make recommendations first.

The committee agreed that the decision to move teams up from “C” to “B” had to be based on specific criteria. In addition to the code requirement, the following criteria was adopted:

1. Winner of 4 or more games at the “C” nationals
2. Winner of a national qualifier
3. Winner of the regional tournament
4. Winner of one of the 7 weekend tournaments in the “C” travel league series.
5. Finished in the top 6 in total points in the travel league series.

The following teams were reclassified from “C” to “B” based on the above criteria.

1. West Coast Cardinals
2. High Reach
3. A-1 Tank
4. McLaughlin Air
5. King Real Estate
6. Bonanza Air
7. Savala Painters (Long Beach)
8. Savala Painters (Bakersfield)
9. Italian Athletic Club
10. Oroville Braves.
11. Nielsen Gamblers

The teams from Southern California that are going to be moved up or required to remain at the “B” level include:

1. Raymar (Currently “B”)
2. Rounders
3. Rude Pac
4. Prime Time
5. Black Sox
6. Amigos
7. RAW

Romie’s Angels will also be added to the “B” list. They were reclassified to “C” in 2005 and played at that level until the Nationals at which time they played in the “B” nationals. The team representative requested they be reclassified to “B”

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The entire text from the So Cal ASA Website:

Now that the Regional Classification Committee has posted the information about the team move-ups and it is official, we are now able to provide information regarding the Southern California ASA program to everyone.

The idea behind creating the Alliance Tournament Series was to allow teams to play more games to improve, while allowing new players and teams the opportunity to break into the game. The goal was to increase the numbers of teams and have them move up and play in higher classification leagues, which would be managed by Southern California ASA.

In the past six years, the C classification has gone from four to five double elimination tournaments with one or two strong teams out of maybe eight teams entered. We now have eight tournaments scheduled in a four game guarantee format, with the highest average number of teams in a single year being 17 per tournament. Each tournament had at least eight strong teams entered; accomplishing the goal of why the Alliance series was created, to get more teams playing and improving.

However, as in most cases it is now time for a change. The C classification has become stagnate the past couple of years and we are not attracting new teams or building the player base as we were early on. New teams play in one or two tournaments and do not come back, exceptions to teams like the Hustlers who played in every tournament and their improvement over the season showed. Also, we had a number of players that did not play this past year as a result of the C teams reaching their limit of the four player limit on a roster.

Men’s Fast Pitch Commissioner, Lou Enriquez, and Adult Commissioner, Robert Hernandez, started discussing the plans for the moves at the beginning of the year. It was determined that the changes would take place at the conclusion of Championship Play and teams that would be effected be notified as soon as possible after the season. With the C nationals just being in Stockton, it was assumed that they would not be awarded close by and this was the perfect opportunity to do this move. The Southern California ASA Local Classification Committee met to discuss the changes and determine the names of the teams and pitchers that would be moved up.

The main thought behind this move was to strengthen the teams that would be moved up by consistently playing higher caliber teams and the C classification would also be strengthen and grow as new teams would come out and play. Players that could not play because of the player limit rule would be able to play again. The existing C teams would get more games as well as they will also play equal opponents.

Before we set this move into action we wanted to have the backing of the Regional Men’s Fast Pitch Committee behind us and our proposal was presented at the final meeting of the year on October 1. After much discussion, the Committee decided to start the procedure of moving other teams from Central and Northern California to the B classification. A criteria was set on how the teams would be raised to the next level based on the Nationals Sign-In sheets from Stockton. The criteria is:

o Winning four or more games at Nationals

o Winner of the National Qualifier

o Winner of the Regional Championship

o Winner of one tournament in the Northern and Southern California tournament series’

o Top six teams from each league

Using this criteria, the six Southern California teams that were originally proposed met it. Eleven teams from Central and Northern California also met this criteria and will be moved up as well. The selection of pitchers from the other two leagues was to take placed after the meeting had concluded and the respective Commissioners and Directors could discuss the matter.

The six teams and the pitchers that are being moved up are:

* Amigos – Anthony Martinez
* Black Sox – Randy Clay
* Primetime Fast Pitch – Danny Zupp, Billy Montana
* Raw – Jerome Clark
* Rounders – Mitch Mendenhall, Gerald Pyle
* Rude-Pac – Tommy Obergon

The other concern the Committee had for the teams was were they would play. Southern California ASA started an A/B league three seasons ago and even though it had only six teams, the level of ball was very good the first two seasons. The attempt was to schedule the league so that the teams that wanted to travel could still play in marquee tournaments in other states. However this left the league with only five weekends to play. The third season was a sad year as another series tried to establish itself in California and teams were left trying to determine where they were going to play in both Northern and Southern California. As a result only three weekends of ball was played in California for the higher classification, yes three weeks in all of California.

The lack of weekends to play is the biggest problem that has plagued the higher classifications, this allowed the players who were looking to play more and also fatten their stats to stay in the lower classification. The local Committee decided that we would need to have a tournament series for the A/B League as well as the Alliance in order to keep teams and players in the higher classification.

We met with managers and/or representatives of the teams that will be moved up on October 2 to discuss the changes in the program. In addition to the teams listed above, there were a number of other representatives at the meeting who are also planning on starting a B classification team.

The new league will have at least eight weekends that they will be able to play and two other dates may also be under consideration to have tournaments. The series will be run like the Alliance in that they will play a round robin followed by single elimination. There were also other incentives that were offered to insure the teams play ASA throughout the year and are tied in with a team competing in either the A or B Nationals come September. ASA has been the only Organization for the past six years to provide a place for teams to play in Southern California on a continuous basis and prepare their teams.

Not since the old San Bernardino league run by Chuck Vranich, will the A and B teams have as much opportunity to play. Both series will be run on the same weekend so that teams will stay together and players will not bounce from one team to another. Another plus to the new series is that if a team starts to dominate in the Alliance, they can be moved up to the higher classification during the season. Prior to this we did not have a legitimate place to put these teams so this will put an end to the players who are there to simply beef up their stats and give the new teams in the Alliance the opportunity to play and grow.

The proposed schedule for both series’ will be posted the weekend of October 15th as we lock down some additional sites.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 12th, 2005 at 6:27 pm and is filed under ASA, So Cal, Teams. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.