American Pastime 12U Friendly

[hotwheels]

American Pastime
Crunch
USA Athletics
Rebels
Thunder
Angels 96
Batbusters 96 Marquez
Jynx
Team Smith
OC Crush
Raiders
Corona Xpress 96
Batbusters Ray
No Fear
Nemesis
Valley Breeze

There were 16 teams signed up for this friendly today. Just curious who was making the genius decision that FONTANA would not be wet. It rains in Fontana when it doesn't rain in other places so it was obviously going to be raining there. It's at the base of the mountain. I know that they announced that they were bringing in dirt but it's been raining for 3 or 4 days now. Instead they waited until teams arrived to cancel.

Luckily, we only had to come from Corona but if I was on Batbusters Ray, the Raiders, or No Fear, etc. I would be pretty unhappy right about now. I don't know if making $300 - $500 for hosting a frienldy is worth it Was there any doubt that this friendly was going to cancel? I don't know if I should compliment you on your efforts to get the fields ready or ask the question if it was that important to get a small payday???

2 other friendlies that my older team was signed up for were cancelled in a timely fashion by So Cal Prestige 16U. Saturday's friendly was cancelled at 5:00 p.m. on Friday night and Sunday's friendly was cancelled by noon on Saturday.

I just think that maybe next time they might want to use better judgement. They would to have to do a hell of a lot of work to those fields on top of the fact that it was still raining when we arrived at the fields this morning. Maybe have someone at the fields at 5:30 a.m. on game day and if you arrive and it's raining, cancel! It's not that hard. Especially considering that the 3 teams named above probably had to leave their houses around 6:00 a.m. or earlier. Just use better judgement......

[AM Softball]

Some parents drove from Lancaster to get there on time.

When we called at 7:30am this morning, they said they were heading to the fields and to give them 10 minutes...they said they tried to save some of the games but couldn't...

Thank goodness we didn't play until 11:30 so it did not effect us....

I agree though. They should be there by 6am like they said...

[artomatic]

this rain is making everyone stir crazy!
I can't imagine what it would be like for you all on the east coast and mid west, having to be stuck indoors for days at a time...

so our friendly's host cancelled today's games on Friday at 5pm. At that time, I was upset that he didn't wait, but I guess he knew what he was doing...

we tried to set things up yesterday and today, only to have the rain wipe things out...

And I agree, although wishful thinking kept your games scheduled, because of the uncertainty, someone really needed to get there at the crack of dawn to assess the fields.
We've had hosts tell everyone to call in at a certain time, and they had a recording on their cell phone stating the time and whether or not games were still going on....

It's got to be tough to host a friendly though.

[AM Softball]

this rain is making everyone stir crazy!
I can't imagine what it would be like for you all on the east coast and mid west, having to be stuck indoors for days at a time...

so our friendly's host cancelled today's games on Friday at 5pm. At that time, I was upset that he didn't wait, but I guess he knew what he was doing...

we tried to set things up yesterday and today, only to have the rain wipe things out...

And I agree, although wishful thinking kept your games scheduled, because of the uncertainty, someone really needed to get there at the crack of dawn to assess the fields.
We've had hosts tell everyone to call in at a certain time, and they had a recording on their cell phone stating the time and whether or not games were still going on....

It's got to be tough to host a friendly though.

I agree, it is tough..but you know that going in and hosting is a choice.

If the first game is 8:30, you can assume teams will get there by 7:15 so 6am would have been pefect. Start calling the 8:30 games, 10 games, etc. and you could have gotten all of them within 20 minutes if you split the numbers...

With the economy already putting a damper on things, wasting gas to drive an hour really sucks if you aren't going to play. It did not affect us but if I was there at 7:15 and nobody from the organization was there, especially when an email was sent that they would be there at 6am, I woulda been angry too.

A simple answer: just do what you say and nobody would be complaining...

[artomatic]

i'm not disagreeing with you.
I agree, if a game is at 8:30, why isn't the host there at the crack of dawn, especially with the uncertainty of the weather?
They don't even have to call teams, they could tell teams beforehand to call a number with a recording by a certain time...
I mean they SHOULD call teams, but even a recording would do it...just good communication...

by the way, the "stir crazy" comment was how I feel, not about this post...i just want to get some games in!

[NO FEAR]

Terry send an email to us yesterday around 5:30pm saying that they only have 2 good fields and they are going to cancel our games so we dont even have to wake up early today Im still in bed.

and I think is not the $300 or $400 that make us run the friendly is the comittment to the teams you dont want to cancel just because you dont want to work on the fields. Last month on the 1/21 that happened to us, big rain thursday and friday drizzi on saturday our 2 fields were in a really bad condition we have Rage coming from vegas so we all had to work hard and we could use one field we had to cut 4 teams but still gave playing time to 4 more teams our profit $130 but like I said sometimes is not the money is the comittment.

[AM Softball]

i'm not disagreeing with you.
I agree, if a game is at 8:30, why isn't the host there at the crack of dawn, especially with the uncertainty of the weather?
They don't even have to call teams, they could tell teams beforehand to call a number with a recording by a certain time...
I mean they SHOULD call teams, but even a recording would do it...just good communication...

by the way, the "stir crazy" comment was how I feel, not about this post...i just want to get some games in!

Me too. We have played 4 games since Dec 14....

[hotwheels]

i'm not disagreeing with you.
I agree, if a game is at 8:30, why isn't the host there at the crack of dawn, especially with the uncertainty of the weather?
They don't even have to call teams, they could tell teams beforehand to call a number with a recording by a certain time...
I mean they SHOULD call teams, but even a recording would do it...just good communication...

by the way, the "stir crazy" comment was how I feel, not about this post...i just want to get some games in!

I agree, in reality that is the only thing that I'm a little upset at. Someone should've been there and made the cancellation at 5:30 or 6:00 in the morning. Like I said, not a huge deal for us because we are only coming from Corona but feel bad for the teams that came a long ways from OC and LA County....

My 16U team has only played a handfull of games too recently and with the big Surf City Tournament next weekend.....Not a lot of practice time and definitely not enough game action to be working smoothly but everyone is in the same boat........

[pitcher97mom]

ok guys - have to comment. I was one of the parents who was there on Saturday afternoon doing everything in our power to save what we could of the fields. Like No Fear stated, one of the fields was clearly unusable and Terry called the 4 teams affected the night before(BB Ray, No Fear, Valley Breeze & Nemisis). The other 3 fields would have be fine and we were crossing our fingers that the rain gods would be good to us. I personally, got to the field at about 6:15 am (as did others), it was not raining at that time (though it was on our drive out there). We started working the fields but come about 7:00am the rain started coming, first lightly then harder and harder. Coaches were hoping that it would be a quick drizzle. No such luck, so finally the call to cancel was made. I know that we were really looking forward to some softball after having last weekend off and we really were doing all we could to have that happen for everyone. We did not want to disappoint anyone and if we had not been able to work the fields the day before and give an honest assessment of what we thought we could accomplish (Mother Nature had different ideas), we would have cancelled the night before. Maybe we are a little die hard but our girls love playing and we were doing all we could to have that happen for all teams. A lot of time and effort on our side trying to get it to happen. A big thanks to the Pastime parents - a couple of them had to make 30 breakfast burritos each along with everything else the parents had to bring and do. Its the way of travel ball!!!

[as the world turns]

ok guys - have to comment. I was one of the parents who was there on Saturday afternoon doing everything in our power to save what we could of the fields. Like No Fear stated, one of the fields was clearly unusable and Terry called the 4 teams affected the night before(BB Ray, No Fear, Valley Breeze & Nemisis). The other 3 fields would have be fine and we were crossing our fingers that the rain gods would be good to us. I personally, got to the field at about 6:15 am (as did others), it was not raining at that time (though it was on our drive out there). We started working the fields but come about 7:00am the rain started coming, first lightly then harder and harder. Coaches were hoping that it would be a quick drizzle. No such luck, so finally the call to cancel was made. I know that we were really looking forward to some softball after having last weekend off and we really were doing all we could to have that happen for everyone. We did not want to disappoint anyone and if we had not been able to work the fields the day before and give an honest assessment of what we thought we could accomplish (Mother Nature had different ideas), we would have cancelled the night before. Maybe we are a little die hard but our girls love playing and we were doing all we could to have that happen for all teams. A lot of time and effort on our side trying to get it to happen. A big thanks to the Pastime parents - a couple of them had to make 30 breakfast burritos each along with everything else the parents had to bring and do. Its the way of travel ball!!!

I've been watching the rain thread all weekend with a bit of disbelief. There is not one field in Southern California that is playable after Thursday, Friday and Saturday's rain storms. Most of the friendlies were cancelled by Friday evening. When I saw the message on Saturday night that your friendlies were still on, I was wondering what part of the moon you were playing on. Did anyone on the team check the weather forecast calling for continued rain through Sunday? Hope works for a presidential election, but reality is reality.