Waterford and Devil Cats To Co-Host PONY15 Regional Tournament!Request below was answered.It's official: 2012 PONY15 Regional tournament will be hosted locally with winner advancing to PONY15 Zone.-----------------------------------------------------------------Seeking Host For PONY15 Regional TournamentThe 15U division is not a great age division ... read more

Now Accepting Applications To Serve On ENYTB's Members' CouncilThe ENYTB Members' Council acts as an advisory body to the ENYTB Corporate Board. It is consulted on all non-corporate decisions affecting the membership e.g., rules changes, disciplinary matters etc. Council members are not asked to perform any ENYTB administrative functions per se.BAC... read more

Tournament Page Has Been Remodeled and Updated For 2012 (Except For AABC)The remodeling of enytb.com's "Tournament Master Schedule" page has been completed. The data for the 2012 tournaments also has been updated to the extent it is currently available (more detail on what is and isn't actually known at this time is presented below). The finished p... read more

Results of ENYTB Member Surveyre: In-Season Reschedule Rules/RestrictionsOn November 1, 2011, ENYTB conducted a survey of its membership to ascertain whether the system of rules and restrictions adopted for the 2011 season re: in-season reschedules was too strict, not strict enough, or just right. Before reporting the somewhat surprising results of that survey, I will reprint much of the survey letter that was sent out. The results are reported at the bottom.BACKGROUNDEarly in the 2010 season, schedule reliability became a critical issue in the league: by the end of the first three weeks of the 2010 season, 75% of ALL scheduled games were not played on the date originally scheduled; and, by season's end, several members resigned from ENYTB, complaining that too many of their games had been canceled. NOTE: During the 2010 season, ENYTB did not restrict cancellations or postponements other than to require an opponent's approval (self-policing). Interestingly, the members that resigned complained that they were uncomfortable enforcing ENYTB's scheduling rules i.e., it made them the "bad guy". So, even though they didn't want to approve the schedule changes, they did.Following the 2010 season, members of the ENYTB Corporate Board and Members' Council discussed ways to address this problem. Several important restrictions were put into place. Chief among themwere the following:(1) NON-LOCAL were designated as "play as scheduled or forfeit with penalty";(2) Inside of 7 days, ALL LOCAL games also were designated as "play as scheduled or forfeit with penalty". (It is this 7 day requirement that is the source of great rancor for a minority of members.)(3) Requests to postpone or cancel LOCAL games w/o penalty were allowed provided:(A) Team A notified Team B at least 7 days in advance;(B) Team B approved the change; AND,(C) Team A entered the request to the website at least 7 days in advance of the game.NOTE: Experience shows that members almost always grant postponement requests when a week's notice is provided. This gives them time to find a new opponent and, failing that, gives the team families (and umpires) adequate notice that their presence will not be needed. (4) ENYTB limited the total number of games that any team could cancel w/o penalty to 2. (5) ENYTB also limited the number of games that a team could postpone (for non-weather reasons) to two. NOTE: It should be noted that very few teams, if any, ran out of allowable NHNFC or NWP due to the caps imposed by rules 4 and 5. (6) ENYTB automated this system so that all rules and fines were automatically enforced by the website. This means two things:(A)The website won't let you do things that aren't allowed (e.g., postponing a local game inside of 7 days for non-weather reasons); and,(B)IF something was a "fine-able" offense, the system would notify all parties via email and record the fine both at the top of the team's schedule and on its club invoice. ENYTB invested much time, effort and money in implementing the above system of controls. In fact, we know of no other baseball website with such functionality.What was the end result?There was a HUGE increase in schedule reliability!In many instances, given a choice between a forfeit (a loss and fine of $75/game) or to play the game, teams found a way to field 9 players and play the game. At the end of the season, NOBODY complained to me that too many games were cancelled, forfeited or moved. Schedule reliability seems to have been restored and people seemed quite satisfied. NOTE: A few members have failed and/or refused to pay their fines and will not be back for that reason, but that was expected and, dare I say, intended i.e., the fines have two purposes, first, to provide everyone with a financial incentive to either play their games as scheduled or request schedule changes more than a week in advance and, second, to weed out those who are repeatedly unable to do either. So why the survey?Recently, a minority of members, or at least I believe it to be a minority are arguing that we should go back to the old system i.e., teams should be allowed to change as many games as they wish, with no minimal notice requirement, provided only that their opponent approves the request. This proposal would put the league exactly where it was two years ago i.e., the guy who is being cancelled is forced into being the bad guy if he says no to an opponent's request even if it comes in on a Friday night before a Saturday DH. The same vocal minority also claim that the current system is too complex i.e., they can't remember the 7 day rule and/or they can't figure out which icon to click. They don't know the difference between a weather postponement and a non-weather postponement of the difference between a postponement and a cancellation. Really? To settle this matter once and for all, I have listed three options below and I want each of you to reply with your vote. You may include additional comments if you wish. They will be read and factored in to the final decision. Please include your name and team role e.g., club rep, manager, coach etc. and the name/age of your team or club. Thank you very much for voting!OPTION 1 - Stay as we are but make additional tweaks to simplify the existing system and perhaps liberalize it a bit. OPTION 2 - Go back to the old system and allow unlimited cancellations and postponements right up to the start time forthe game. Under this system, your opponent could cancel out on you at anytime leading up to the game and not be penalized, provided you approved the change. My experience is that most of you are very uncomfortable with being put in this situation. And remember, this approach yielded a very high incidence of game cancellations and postponements in the recent past. OPTION 3 - Go to a STRICTER but SIMPLER system where every game, local and non-local, is played as scheduled or forfeited. (Obviously weather postponements would still be allowed and not count against either team.)Believe it or not, OPTION 3 is the system most leagues use. If you can't play as scheduled and the sun is shining you MUST forfeit and pay a fine. Also, a limit is usually placed on the number of forfeits a team can have before it is disqualified from further league play.The ENYTB system (OPTION 1) adds considerable flexibility to OPTION 3 but it doesn't go as far as OPTION 2. The rationale for adding this flexibility was as follows: IF something unexpected comes up and IF you can inform your opponent of the need for a schedule change far enough in advance (7 days) so as to minimize your opponent's inconvenience AND IF he is willing to let you out of your schedule commitment, nobody is harmed so why not allow it as an option? Please vote on this very critical league issue. If a majority of you vote to go back to the days of the wild west where anything goes, we will probably do that, and junk the current system, so please givecareful thought to which of the three systems you would prefer.One last point re: Option 2 - the league would have no ability to arbitrate any disputes that arise under this option because everything becomes a he said, he said i.e., there is no paper trail or website record of what the parties agreed to. So you guys would be on your own to fight it out. That doesn't seem like much of a league to me but there is a vocal minority (I believe they are a minority but I could be wrong) in this league advocating exactly that but as of right now, they are the only people who have weighed in on the topic. Unless I hear from enough of you who prefer the current system, or the simpler, stricter system, the vocal minority will become the majority and OPTION 2 will become the law of the land i.e., there would be no sheriff or law and order re: schedule changes.===============================================================SURVEY RESULTSOPTION 1 - 51 votesOPTION 2 - 1 voteOPTION 3 - 15 votesMy faith in mankind is restored!Other results:A majority who commented, preferred keeping the notification period for discretionary changes of local games at 7 days but a significant minority would like to see it shortened, particularly with weekday local games.A majority who commented wanted an ADMIN CANCEL request function for a predefined list of conflict situations.There was one suggestion to go lighter on first time offenders.There was one suggestion to let Low Silver teams have a more flexible system.I'd like to thank everyone who participated in this survey. Your input was very valuable. In my opinion, there is no issue more important to the well-being of this or any travel league than schedule reliability. We have made a few tweaks to the system for 2012 in accordance with the majority views stated above. The entire new system will be unveiled and demonstrated live at the league meeting in late Feb re: scheduling/rescheduling. Thanks again!

New Bat Restrictions and Other 2012 ChangesPer ENYTB Exec Board/Members CouncilThe members of ENYTB's Executive Board and Members Council met on Saturday Jan 7 to vote on various issues and measures affecting the upcoming season. Some of these issues were governmental, some were operational and some were programmatic. All have been the subject of d... read more

ENYTB Teams Have Two Ways To Win Entry To A Sanctioned National Championship Tournament Series (NCTS)!Post-season play usually means sanctioned tournament play. ENYTB affiliates with four different sanctioning bodies: AABC; PONY; NABF; and CABA. Each of these sanctioning bodies conducts its own National Championship Tournament Series (NCTS) at each... read more

NY Valley Bombers and ENYTB to Host NABF14 RegionalENYTB Gold and Hi Silver teams at 14U have a special treat available to them this summer.The NY Valley Bombers, in conjunction with ENYTB, have agreed to host the NABF14 Regional Tournament. The tournament will begin on Thursday, July 12 and the NY Valley Bombers 14U team will be the host team. Dep... read more

ENYTB To Host June Madness Tournaments At All Ages In 2012!Last year's extremely popular and successful format is back for a 2nd year with a few tweaks; including:Tournaments for all ages will begin on Friday night, thereby limiting weekday day games to the latter stages of the tournament;All ages will begin play on June 22 and end by June 28, well... read more

ENYTB Has Direct Berths to CABA World Series at ALL Ages!Available to ENYTB Gold teams only via regular season competition.

ENYTB Has Direct Berths to NABF World Series at Ages 16U, 17U and 18U!Available to ENYTB Gold teams only via regular season competition.