End of the Year Commissioner’s Address. Congratulations to the 2008 League Champions Belly Itchers.  Great job winning the Mullany Cup for the second straight year!  You guys are a tough team to beat and you earned it!  Be sure to take good care of that Cup for another winter! But, now that the Kwl put to rest its third complete season, we have an opportunity to compare previous seasons to this year and address the current state of the league.  The 2008 season brought 5 and half new teams and we expanded to 12 teams.  In 2007, the league stretched out to 10 teams, but finished the season with 9 and half.  That season saw 14 forfeited games and 1 complete team quit the league in the second week.  In 2006, the league had no forfeited games, but only consisted of four teams.  This past season, we were able to expand the numbers of players and number teams to an all time high and managed to finish the season with no forfeited games!  Possibly one of the largest gauges of interest the league captured this past season.

In the last offseason, we made several key changes that helped the commitment level.  First, we cut back 2 weeks and 4 games off the schedule and secondly we nixed the inter-league match ups.   At the end of 07’, many players mentioned that the season may have been a tad too long, by cutting these games off the schedule it also allow us to have a longer spring training and start the season later in the spring and play without daylight issues. Possibly the biggest difference this season, was the quality of the players in the league.  The rookie class of 07’ was good, but this rookie class was better!  We added many key players to the league this season that will become solid cornerstones in the leagues foundation for years to come.  Not only did this season’s rookie class have a lot of talent, it also brought a lot of commitment as players showed up every week to help their teams. This year’s growth will be help make large strides towards another successful season next year.  The largest stride will be in team registration for next season.  Before last season started, we need 4 more teams heading into the start of spring training.  Up until the last week of spring training, we still had 1 team spot to fill.  Initially the league seemed to have the most interest in Thursday nights.  To help offset this interested, The Gentlemen and Industrials moved over to Monday nights.  As the teams filled in, Monday night became the league’s most interested night.  To help even the leagues with 6 teams each, The Gentlemen moved back to the National League, thus leaving room for biggest surprise team of 08’, the Flying Dutchman. Because of this quality of returning players, we will be able to start team registration this coming January 1st and should have the league filled by March 1st!  The biggest advantage of this will come in the spring when we can focus on other new features to the league instead of trying to recruit teams. One of the biggest decisions to be made this offseason will be in whether we expand the league to 16 teams or leave it at 12 teams.  With the addition of 4 more teams (2 teams in each league) we would have to build a forth field before the start of next season.  This means back to the drawling board as far as field lay outs and it also means possibly another meeting with the Oshtemo Township Parks department.  We have a possible location for a forth field outside of the township parks, but this would all need to be figured out and sorted out before we could commit any time or money to it.  We currently have an online survey available and with that we can all voice our opinions on the expansion before the League Committee would decide on it. Click here for survey. More great news! For the first time in the leagues history, we are going to having a Winter Meeting his offseason.  The point of the meeting will be to focus on growth and changes for the league.  In this past season, many things came to light that need to be addressed and possible adjusted to make the game even more enjoyable.  For the first time ever, we are going to open this discussion to any players that want to come out to this offseason’s meeting. (Date, Time and Location TBD). We currently have a list of some of the things that need to be adjusted and they include issues such as; Baserunners and pitch runners, 3 man pitching rotation requirements, Pitch speed requirements, Outlining use of the ladies Black bat, incorporating errors and much more! All of these issues will be discussed and those attending the Winter Meetings will be allowed to give their opinion.  The goal is to allow players to have an active say in issues that may affect them directly.

To finish this address, I wanted to take an opportunity to give a list of things that were extremely encouraging and some things that we need to focus on for next year.

Things we need to work on: 20 run killings. Teams tacking on multiple 20+ run killings against the teams lower in the standings.  It completely dilutes the stats and kills the legitimacy that they may have.  Not to mention it sucks to be on the receiving end of those games! Team Quails.  On a couple different occasions this season, players on the same team argued and pointed fingers.  It’s a game, we all need to relax and learn to enjoy the game and not get down on each other. Stat Padding.  We need to learn to avoid piling on hits and homeruns against teams with struggling pitching.  It is unfair to other players that are willing to throttle back against struggling pitching.  Hit opposite handed, don’t run everything out, give them the close calls and keep the stats legit! Team Uniforms.  Teams need to wear at least matching color tshirts.  It’s not hard, really it’s not! Field helpers.  We need some players to volunteer to help stripe the fields, cut the grass, maintain the fences and help keep the fields clean.  With three (and possibly a forth) fields and two nights of playing, we really need some help keeping our fields nice!

Encouraging: Teams policing themselves and other teams.  It was extremely nice to see teams working towards making games fair and fun for everyone.  It was nice to see good teams play close games with teams lower in the standings and encouraging them. It was also nice to see team captains and teams call out teams for shady unfair play! Players sharing secrets.  I was absolutely amazed that this year players were sharing pitching grips, hitting tips and general interpretations of rules to help teams play better.  This is Sportsmanship at its best! We all want the league to have better players and this is the way to do it! Kudos to those that took the time to share some knowledge of the game! The Growth of Friendships.  Many players took time this season to become friends with other players in the league and talk to each other during the games.  We even saw a few nights of post game get-togethers at some of our friendly local taverns. This will continue to become vital in our leagues success! The Shanghai Chuckers.  These guys really brought a new class of players to our league!  They never argued they never discouraged anyone; they played with ups and downs and really made a big impact on how others play this game. Thank you guys, you are First Class People! Cutting back on walks. The hitters in the league really stepped up and cut back on walks!  The NL and AL combined to cut back walks nearly 25% from where we ended up in 2007.

Thanks to all that participated in this last 2008 season.  I am glad to have had an opportunity to meet you and become friends.  I am glad you found our league and look forward to playing with you for years to come!  A special Thanks to: Pat Burnell, Jim Noel, Amber Markley, Mike Raber, and Daryl Hutson for all help on the behind the scene stuff. Thanks to Adam Bontrager for donation Kings tickets for Big Brothers and thanks to everyone that donated time and money to that great cause!