MetroWest ABL 2007 Grapevine

March 18, 2007
We held our second annual tryout/draft today. We held this one at the Frozen Ropes facility in Natick.

It was great to see so many non managers at the tryout, while a little confusing at first, I thought it was great to see so many guys there willing to step up and help out! This sort of interest bodes well for the future of our league.

We had 17 recruits show up again this year, strange that is was the exact same number as last year. The good news is we drafted 13 of the 17 this year where we only drafted 11 last year.

Here is what I believe the draft outcome was:

Brewers:	Mark Lemons, Tom Lortie
Tigers:	Mike Belanger
Mariners:	Donny Sepulveda
Indians:	James Potter (traded to Brewers)
Red Sox:	Mike Auren
Cardinals:	Andy Oppenheim
Cubs:	N/A
Braves:	Mike Pietila, John Fantasia
Orioles:	N/A
Phillies:	Al Soto, Chris Seveney, Jim Liebowitz
White Sox:	N/A
Dodgers:	Kevin Walsh

We also had 7 guys say they were going to come but did not show. These guys will be listed in the supplemental draft.


January 7, 2007
We met in Mazz's office in Shrewsbury and voted on expanding by two teams in one of the most exciting changes for our league in years! We ended up agreeing to add two new teams to our league for the 2007 season!

The new teams will be led by Eric Niccoli and George Scobie. Welcome to the league guys!

We had a great meeting on Saturday evening to discuss expansion. We agreed to the following items.

We would keep things as consistent as possible, so we will continue the following:

• 1 AL division and 1 NL division (6 teams in each instead of 5 in each)
• 14 week regular season starting on 4/22.
• Same 8 team playoff format meaning that 4 teams won't make the playoffs (teams 5 and 6 in AL and NL)

Some changes include:

• 16 game regular season with 2 double headers instead of 4. I want to emphasize that while this is a reduction in games played, it is still the same number of weekends, just with 2 less double headers.
• We will play 2 games against teams in same division and 1 game against each team in other division instead of 2 games against everyone.

We also voted to amend the current 9 inning playoff game double header rule. This rule remains in place but is no longer at the discretion of both managers to agree to change this to 7 innings. The rule used to state that if both managers agreed to play just 7 inning double headers that could be done, that will no longer be an option.


December 17, 2006
Here are notes from our manager meeting on December 17, 2006.

We had attendance from 8 of 10 teams (Orioles and Yankees had previous commitments and could not attend).

We voted to have a manager meeting on Sunday 1/7 at Mazz's office in Shrewsbury. A time has not been set yet. At this meeting, representatives from all teams trying to enter our league will be given the opportunity to meet the managers and make a case for their team to enter our league in 2007. We think there are 3 to 4 potential teams that might be able to attend this meeting.

I will contact all these new team managers this week and report back to the board with how many teams meet our entry criteria. If 1 or fewer teams can make the initial entry criteria, there will be no need to meet on 1/7.

Our entry criteria includes:

• Paying an initial deposit of $1000 (count towards league dues for first 2 seasons in league)
• Home field must be in our playing area
• Morning home games (not late afternoon at least)
• Adhere to league rules
• Must have a Major League team name (can have 1 year to update for Bulldogs)
• Drivers license copies of core players (to prove 30 years old)
• Minimum 14 core players to start, league can augment roster to 16 with recruits

We talked about the 2007 draft process for registered players. We agreed to hold another tryout/draft in March of 2007. There are currently about 26 players on our recruit list. We will draft the players in reverse order of team finish in 2006. The last place team selecting first will only get ONE pick this year, not the 2 picks we allowed in 2006. The last place team will get the first pick in every round of the draft.

I believe the 2007 draft order will be:
Brewers
Yankees
Mariners
Indians
Red Sox
Cardinals
Cubs
Braves
Orioles
Phillies

I will contact Performance Sports to see if they can get 1.5 hours of time for us this March. In the mean time, Steve Saraceno will try to contact Frozen Ropes in Natick to see if their facility would work better for us.

We agreed to the following process regarding players registering on the website:
From the tryout/draft until July 31, players registering on the website will be posted to every team for 3 days. At the end of three days, the team with the highest draft order that requested to have the player will be granted rights to the player. That team will then drop to the bottom of the team draft list.

From August 1 until the tryout/draft date the following season, all players registering on the website will not be available to teams for selection until the tryout/draft. Players registering during this period of time are off limits to all teams.

We talked about the 2007 schedule under the assumption we only have 10 teams. We would most likely start on 4/22 and end either 8/5 or 8/12. We agreed to play both weekends around July 4th (7/1 and 7/8) since July 4th is a Wednesday this year.

We did not discuss the impact this decision has on our annual All-star game. We'll need to discuss how we want to handle the All-Star game at a later date.

We have been playing for 14 weekends for a number of years now and I would expect that to remain the same whether we have 10 or 12 teams in 2007. We don’t have enough time to play any more weekends, if anything, we could try to play fewer weekends if we expand.

There will be a raise in the umpire fees for 2007. I need to discuss with Tim what the exact raise will be and report back to the board. The last raise was in 2002. We are currently paying $70 for 9 inning games and $60 for double headers per ump per game. If only 1 ump shows, the umps gets 1.5 times pay.

We spent some time discussing the issues in our written down rules. I think most everyone agrees with the rules in our league, however, 2006 pointed several flaws/ommissions in the rules we actually have written down on our website. We will get the website up to date with all the rules we can before the 2007 season starts. We agreed to stop using the MSBL National rules as a basis for our rules. We will have our own set of rules for our league and use Major League baseball rules for the basis of standard baseball rules.

Rich Moran has agreed to go through all the MSBL rules and our rules to come up with our set of rules. He will E-mail me a draft of this before the 1/7 meeting and we will review these. Before the 1/7 meeting, this draft of rules will be mailed out to all managers.

In the meeting we discussed the following rules which were missing from our currently written down set of rules:

• We must slide or avoid contact
• The mimimum number of players to play a game is 8
• Home team manager must contact umpires and opposing manager at least 1.5 hours before game time to cancel a game due to weather. If the home team managar does not cancel the game but the game is called off by the umpires before the game starts, then the home team is responsible for paying the umps. If the game starts and is then called by the umpires, then both managers must pay the umps.
• Catcher's must wear all appropriate gear including a helmet, face mask, throat protector, chest protector and shin guards.
• Each team gets 2 courtesy runners per game
• Forfeits:
  If a team either fails to have at least 8 players to start a game (first or second game of a DH included) or finish a game (team starts with 8 players but has an injury or ejection at any point in the game), then that team will forfeit the game and the other team will record a victory. The winning team players in attendance get playoff eligibility but the forfeiting team does not get any playoff eligibility for any players.

Here are the action items:

• Mazz asked all teams to send in $234 by the January 7th meeting or bring a check to the meeting
• I'm working with Mazz to see what happened there so we can avoid having a deficit situation in future seasons
• We voted to have a manager meeting on Sunday 1/7 at Mazz's office in Shrewsbury to meet representative from new teams for expansion
• I will contact all these new team managers this week and report back to the board with how many teams meet our entry criteria
• I will contact Performance Sports to see if they can get 1.5 hours of time for us this March
• Steve Saraceno will try to contact Frozen Ropes in Natick to see if their facility would work better for us
• I need to discuss with Tim what the exact raise will be and report back to the board
• Rich Moran has agreed to go through all the MSBL rules and our rules to come up with our set of rules

View the 2006 Grapevine.
View the 2005 Grapevine.
View the 2004 Grapevine.
View the 2003 Grapevine.
View the 2002 Grapevine.
View the 2001 Grapevine.
View the 2000 Grapevine.
View the 1999 Grapevine.

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