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when org's pick apart their teams

What's on your mind?

by Sam » Tue Aug 07, 2018 7:21 am

Hinky wrote:
Sam wrote:Battle,

We were asking for equal treatment and we were asking that a National tournament be held in California every once in a while. We were sending 20+ teams to the National tournaments and never getting a National tournament in our state.....save for 10U in Moreno Valley in 2000. We were asking that ASA grant berths for California that were commensurate with our participation in their organization. They created a market for PGF. They were warned repeatedly and they snubbed their noses. Now they went from the elite softball organization to 2nd or 3rd place behind PGF. ASA is built for slowpitch....they could give a $hit about girls softball. PGF exists SOLELY for girls softball.

OBTW: The host cities offered berths to their local teams in ASA. they didn't have to qualify.


what was the reason given from ASA not wanting to do National tournaments in California?
seems rational and smart. There could have been a tournament here say every four years and grown the market for themselves. Plus give teams opportunity to travel and see other states. So not everybody have to travel every year or at least as far.


Imo, can see what's happening in the direction of pgf. Compared to the amount of teams in other national venues, it really isn't that large of a national tournament. just saying when we look at how many top teams there actually are in softball.
seems there are great competitive showcasing tournaments where people are guaranteed games and the competition is just as good. those alternatives. Or something :roll:
seem to limit any growing participation at pgf.


ASA always claimed that the California cities were outbid by other cities around the country......so the National tournaments went to Midland TX, Broken Arrow OK, Johnson City TN......and other vacation hotspots.
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by dusty » Thu Aug 09, 2018 11:03 am

The heyday of ASA was a little bit before my time so correct me if I'm wrong but while the location of nationals may have been a driving force for moving Socal teams to PGF but what got the rest of the country and colleges to opt for PGF instead of ASA was the fact that ASA would allow college freshmen who were still 18 on Jan 1 of that year to play for an ASA nationals qualified team. So this talk about PGF teams shuffling their rosters around and casting aside players who had been with them all year happened in the ASA days too only it was a college player taking your kids spot.

PGF seems to me to be a system that works best for large travel orgs and the top PAC, SEC and BXII programs but not so much for everyone else. Qualifiers in Myrtle Beach, Atlanta and Orlando were cancelled this year in the higher age groups due to lack of teams signing up. Myrtle Beach can be written of as too remote and inconveniently timed but Atlanta and Orlando should be able to easily get enough teams to offer at least two premier berth and one platinum.

One thing that could be effecting PGF nationals participation is more HS graduates taking summer school classes at their college to aclimate to college life and lighten up the class load during the fall and spring. My dd is doing that along with half of her incoming recruiting class which includes two other girls she played at PGF nationals with last year. I'm not sure if that team had an invite this year but I know they didn't go.
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by Battle » Thu Aug 09, 2018 5:42 pm

Sam wrote:Battle,

We were asking for equal treatment and we were asking that a National tournament be held in California every once in a while. We were sending 20+ teams to the National tournaments and never getting a National tournament in our state.....save for 10U in Moreno Valley in 2000. We were asking that ASA grant berths for California that were commensurate with our participation in their organization. They created a market for PGF. They were warned repeatedly and they snubbed their noses. Now they went from the elite softball organization to 2nd or 3rd place behind PGF. ASA is built for slowpitch....they could give a $hit about girls softball. PGF exists SOLELY for girls softball.

OBTW: The host cities offered berths to their local teams in ASA. they didn't have to qualify.

...and it had nothing to do with low attendance when they did hold nationals in Cali?
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by Sam » Fri Aug 10, 2018 6:20 am

Battle wrote:
Sam wrote:Battle,

We were asking for equal treatment and we were asking that a National tournament be held in California every once in a while. We were sending 20+ teams to the National tournaments and never getting a National tournament in our state.....save for 10U in Moreno Valley in 2000. We were asking that ASA grant berths for California that were commensurate with our participation in their organization. They created a market for PGF. They were warned repeatedly and they snubbed their noses. Now they went from the elite softball organization to 2nd or 3rd place behind PGF. ASA is built for slowpitch....they could give a $hit about girls softball. PGF exists SOLELY for girls softball.

OBTW: The host cities offered berths to their local teams in ASA. they didn't have to qualify.

...and it had nothing to do with low attendance when they did hold nationals in Cali?


They only held 10U Nationals in California. There weren't that many teams in existence in the 90's and early 2000's. I get your point though.....more teams = more money for ASA. Berths were the big issue. We would have 60-80 teams playing in the State qualifier and ASA would give us 3-4 berths. Other states would get a berth with 6 teams playing in their qualifiers. We asked for more berths or more qualifiers in California. Our teams were forced to raise money to go to other state qualifiers to attempt to qualify. If a SoCal team won the qualifier, the highest finishing team in the qualifier from that state also received a berth. ASA refused to budge and now they are a 2nd class organization. They overestimated their power.
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by jonriv » Fri Aug 10, 2018 6:36 am

Our teams were forced to raise money to go to other state qualifiers to attempt to qualify


Does this not happen now with PGF? There always seems to be a healthy participation of California teams at non-California PGF qualifiers?

As much as I admire PGF for taking action and forming their own organization and developed a profitable model(to replace ASA's non-profit)but have they not replaced an organization that was perceived as being of ignoring California to an organization that is California centric? I can tell you from my experience that the influence of PGF here in the Northeast is negligible and that for a small group of softball elites nobody knows about. Frankly, if it were not for HB I never would have heard about it,

The impression I seem to get,correct me if I'm wrong, is a club of different organizations that have set up system that benefits their own organizations.
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by DirtyRiders » Fri Aug 10, 2018 10:15 pm

While I do think that the Big Organizations do put together “Super teams”, I agree with spazdad...there are PGF rules and having had a daughter play on a PGF team I have a hard believing that rules are being broken that blatantly. But any team that shows up with 28 girls to Nationals is a major red flag that the roster may be illegitimate. There is absolutely no sporting reason to have that many kids, but it is true that the parents clamor to be on this type of team to get their daughter “looks” from colleges or even the Big Dog of the organization. I know for a fact the Board of Directors that was previously mentioned is made up with some of the bigger names of the biggest organizations......Mercado, Tyson, Smith, Rico. Bottom line best advice here was that we all know what is going on. Deal with the politics of these Big organizations and “hopefully” get your kid that scholarship or leave and go to the smaller teams.
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by Hinky » Sat Aug 11, 2018 6:23 am

As much as I admire PGF for taking action and forming their own organization and developed a profitable model(to replace ASA's non-profit)but have they not replaced an organization that was perceived as being of ignoring California to an organization that is California centric? I can tell you from my experience that the influence of PGF here in the Northeast is negligible and that for a small group of softball elites nobody knows about. Frankly, if it were not for HB I never would have heard about it,

The impression I seem to get,correct me if I'm wrong, is a club of different organizations that have set up system that benefits their own organizations.


Yes this.

__________________________________________



DirtyRiders wrote:While I do think that the Big Organizations do put together “Super teams”, I agree with spazdad...there are PGF rules and having had a daughter play on a PGF team I have a hard believing that rules are being broken that blatantly. But any team that shows up with 28 girls to Nationals is a major red flag that the roster may be illegitimate. There is absolutely no sporting reason to have that many kids, but it is true that the parents clamor to be on this type of team to get their daughter “looks” from colleges or even the Big Dog of the organization. I know for a fact the Board of Directors that was previously mentioned is made up with some of the bigger names of the biggest organizations......Mercado, Tyson, Smith, Rico. Bottom line best advice here was that we all know what is going on. Deal with the politics of these Big organizations and “hopefully” get your kid that scholarship or leave and go to the smaller teams.


Think the point is NOT
everyone knows this is
how its ran.

Also good point made pgf is not a huge entity across all states. There are other really great softball venues to attend that have the same level of softball and college showcase opportunity!
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by DirtyRiders » Sat Aug 11, 2018 10:44 pm

It is the point Hinky. Your original point that you wanted to address was top teams in the Big organization pulling kids onto teams a month for before Nationals and what any of us thought about that. I am simply saying that I think it’s crap that they do that and agree with your reasons as to why they shouldn’t do it. But the fact of the matter is they are going to continue to do it, we all know it, and everyone has to make their decision as to whether that particular organization is right for them and their daughter.
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by crewsen5151 » Mon Aug 13, 2018 1:39 pm

orange socks wrote:....then.....play elsewhere. Thats how PGF came into existence. ASA didn't listen to their customers.


Hey Sam,

Curious to know what their customers(assuming Cali teams) were requesting other than being able to play in their backyards every year? Just trying to understand more clearly. Clearly there is a divide in the USA/PGF factions. What about Boulder IDT vs TCS Firework/Sparkler??? I don't hear anyone complaining about those competing tournaments.[/quote]

the IDT vs Fireworks/Sparkler conversation really, to me at least, is commical. IDT is far superior to its location, management of the tournament as well as a logical allowed number of teams in the tournament. TCS had over 900 teams participate all over Westminster and Aurora. Unless you were in the Power Pool (which my DDs team was fortunate to be) and played at the Aurora Complex, it was a complete shit show (especially the farther away from the complex, the worse the umpiring seemed to be).
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by Hinky » Mon Aug 13, 2018 2:02 pm

DirtyRiders wrote:It is the point Hinky. Your original point that you wanted to address was top teams in the Big organization pulling kids onto teams a month for before Nationals and what any of us thought about that. I am simply saying that I think it’s crap that they do that and agree with your reasons as to why they shouldn’t do it. But the fact of the matter is they are going to continue to do it, we all know it, and everyone has to make their decision as to whether that particular organization is right for them and their daughter.


Agree with you! And added

I was responding by saying
the point is that NOT everybody knows there are things like this going on all the time. With the rules that are in place and also around the rules.

Discussing stories like this on forums helps people become aware.
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