Monthly Archive
for: ‘June, 2012’

No really big surprises on the diamonds yesterday… the only game that had an eye on it for the upset potential was Dobbins Group @ Perkins&Will where the home team kept it a close game until near the end when Dobbins opened the flood gates on them… but that’s the story here at the mid-way point of the season… who can knock Dobbins off? Astonishingly, and unprecedented in the 13 years of Design League softball behind us, Dobbins Group is an expansion team that has currently played a season and a half in the league without a regular season loss. The only loss period for Dobbins was to Clune Construction in the Final Four last year… and wouldn’t you know, that’s who they’re playing next week… So lace ’em Clune and take your shot.

Other interesting match ups on the schedule for next week see the Dogz and the Buzz pitting 5-2 records against each other, a rivalry that goes all the way back to Lincoln Park… and we’ll also see Perkins&Will, who has been dangerous this year, squaring off against the Ruder Group and trying to snap their 3-game winning streak.

Regarding pictures… things have been going well with getting those taken… I’m really hoping to find the time this coming week to get all that have been taken posted and the annotation emails sent out. As of right now we have no pictures scheduled for next week although that might change once I go through everything and see where we’re at.

Just to remind everyone that when arriving at the diamonds on game days… please drop your gear on the 1st-base line if you’re the visiting team, 3rd-base line if you’re the home team. If you’re the late game, keep your stuff back away from the diamond until the early games finish… if you’re the early game, once your game is complete, please move your stuff back away from the diamond making room for the late game teams… this is important… What I’m seeing more and more is early game teams drinking and socializing after their games without moving first… while the late game teams walk around them in the area along the sidelines between the corner bases and the plate… definitely not telling anyone not to socialize, that’s invited and welcomed as always… just move out of the way first…

And a week without a forfeit… so back on the tracks with that… I personally want to thank SOM who had a particularly bad week for fielding a team but did what they had to do to get players out there and play a game… the results didn’t quite go in their favor but they continued to play hard with a great attitude… it wouldn’t appear so from looking at the final score… but both of our teams had a really good time out their yesterday… no crazy from the heat… no forfeits.

Everyone have great weekends.

An interesting night out on the diamonds last night. With a big NFL event going on on Lower, I thought that might cause us some problems… but it was actually the ‘Get Out and Skate’ day… or whatever the hell that was that caused a few issues as skaters aren’t aware that they should walk around softball games in progress as opposed to through them… but not that big of a deal.

On the field of play we had a couple of 1-run games, a couple of routs and a couple in-between… but no huge surprises and minimal movement on the Leaderboard… Lots of ties are working in favor of some teams while keeping others from rising too fast… but what I’d like to spend a quick paragraph on is the subject of forfeits.

Forfeits are rearing their ugly head again at a pace that’s troubling. Two more last night for a total of (5) on the season… almost matching last years total not even half way through this season… At the end of the day, all of you have paid your diamond dues and can do what you want (within the rules) with your purchase… but the thing to keep in mind is that when you forfeit, you leave another team that was good to go with no one to play… and in effect, a forced BYE week. I’d like to think that all of our forfeits have followed a valiant effort by Captains to scrape together a team, but I fear that this isn’t always the case. As Captains though, that’s your job. Remember that replacement players do not have to work within your workplace… any bodies will do in the spirit of getting a team on the field. My own team has never forfeited in 13 years and I understand that it can be difficult sometimes… but it can be done. Please let’s do better the rest of the way.

An issue that came up last week that we should visit here briefly is the issue of player interference on games that have their outfielders over-lapping, which is pretty much every game almost all the time…. two outfielders that have their backs turned on action potentially coming at them from the opposite direction… the way we’ve always played this is communicate out loud, do your best to get out of the way when a play is heading your way… but in the event of contact with either players, or a player and the ball…. the contact is in play, like an ump in a major league game and play should continue from that. There has never been a rule about it because there’s nothing to do about it other than that really… unless someone has a better idea we’ll just be leaving that as it is.

As a league we continue to be really great at cleaning up after ourselves… noticing a lot of that going on last night even though some of the garbage cans had been displaced from their usual locations… so thanks for that, noticed and appreciated.

Four more game days until Lollapalooza, all with maximum light… let’s make the best of them and try like hell to squash the forfeits. Thanks, and everyone have a great weekend.

Wild one out on Upper Hutch last night…. and we only played 6 games. We had a forfeit on Diamond 4 in the late game and the Cannon/Power matchup was postponed to a double header on 06/28 due to Powers annual company event… and to those who implied special treatment with that situation… not at all… This is an annual company event for Power, they let me know the date before the season begins and assuming a cooperative opponent who doesn’t want to take a forfeit… I’ll do whatever I can for any of your teams in this regard… it’s all about notice… that said, I can’t help you if your office has a deadline everyones working on or a teammate that’s getting married… but for annual company events I’ll do what I can.

On the diamonds we saw half the games played decided by 1 run… Dobbins Group squeezed out a 12-11 win over a battling Kelso-Burnett squad… in the friendly rivalry that exists between theBuzz and Old Stylin’ (Old Stylin’ was born from theBuzz a few years back), theBuzz came out on top this year also by a score of 12-11… and in the late game on Diamond 1, VOA needed all 7 innings to eek out a 7-6 win, which was the difference between 1st and 6th on the Leaderboard for Ruder Group… so goes it during the first half of the regular season, no teams ever too far away from 1st place.

The classic of the evening seemed to take place in the late game on Diamond 3 where SCB and Clune Construction battled back and forth before ending up with a 9-9 tie after 9 innings finally called due to darkness… wishing I would have stayed over there and watched that one.

Pictures have been rolling along nicely… and I thank all teams involved thus far for making it as painless as possible… I know I haven’t posted any of them yet… just trying to find the time… coming soon.

Pictures Next Week; Perkins&Will and Goettsch

I’ve started an album of pictures for the 2012 Season over on the Facebook Page… I’ll be adding pictures throughout the Season… feel free to tag any pictures you’d like or Dropbox me some that you took for posting (let me know if you want to do this). Visit the Facebook page here… and Like it if you’re interested in DL updates rolling down your News Feed.

Have great weekends.