League News

Welcome Back ENYTB Members For 2015!

We just re-initialized the website for 2015 and are checking it over before we open up Registration. Probably be ready to go by New Year's Eve.

As always, returning teams must be activated through League Admin (Ed Frye) by end of January to retain player rights from 2014 for your rostered players.

And, of course, when your club and teams are activated, your club and team passwords are automatically activated along with them. We will also assign you to a League Navigator.

NOTE: Please have the contact info for your team managers available when you call to activate your teams. That includes an address, phone # and email address.

The winter meeting schedule will be announced in a couple of weeks. We will have three or four meetings this year.

(1) Kick-Off Meeting (FEB 8)- later than usual, maybe first Sunday after the Super Bowl.

(2) Self-Scheduling Meeting (MAR 8) - For club owners/GMs and team managers with teams 12u or younger. This meeting will take place on Sunday, MAR 8. Registration will close at these ages on MAR 13 and Self-Scheduling will begin on MAR 16.

(3) Self-Scheduling Meeting (APR 12) - For all other club owners/GMs and team managers. This meeting will take place on Sunday, APR 12. Registration at these ages will close on APR 17 and Self-Scheduling will begin on APR 20.

(4) If members express interest in having a league orientation meeting, we will schedule one for either FEB 22 or MAR 1.

2015 marks the 20th year since ENYTB was established. We will be passing out commemorative coffee mugs at the scheduling meetings to mark the occasion (two per team and two per club).

As veteran members know, the ENYTB program "experience" changes some every year. The ENYTB Executive Committee has been tweaking last year's program and will unveil the 2015 program at our Kick-Off Meeting but until then, here's a list of the ideas we are working on:

I. Continue the Fall Classic at the Joe - The inaugural classic was a great success and we would like to make this experience something that ENYTB players can look forward to. A couple of eligibility rules we are considering adopting are:

A - Player must be active in ENYTB in the preceding spring/summer season; and,
B - Player must be a Junior or younger (no Seniors or grads).

II. Self-Scheduling Is Coming!

The initial design was completed in early Fall and the new input interfaces have been put to code. We are still polishing up the interfaces for ease of use. Also, we are currently coding the Self-Scheduler itself and we expect to have a working draft available by mid-Jan and a final working version with most/all the bugs worked out by the end of FEB. We expect to have instructional videos for the interface and self-scheduler as well.

This is a big event in our evolution (and investment).

SCHEDULING PROCESS

1 - Teams (likely the manager) will enter their own team's availability preferences to the website.

2 - Club owners/GMs will enter ALL field available field times for their home fields.

NOTE: Teams will no longer be able to enter field data. This is necessary to ensure consistency of inputs. Last year, teams were telling us they field time on fields we never heard of. It turned out they were using a different name from the club owner for the same field. Also, they assuming they had all the time on the fields when in fact, they were sharing it with other teams. For these reasons it is important that all club owners/GMs specify all field availability inputs them selves and attend our self-scheduling meeting to learn how.

3 - Once the scheduling data inputs are all entered, League Admin will schedule the non-local teams.

4 - Once non-local teams are scheduled by league admin, local teams will schedule their own HOME games via the new self-scheduling software from RunMyLeague.

Self-scheduling will consist of four phases, each three days long. In the first three phases teams will be limited to scheduling four home games each. Similarly, away games will be limited to four per phase. In the 4th and final phase, all artificial limits will be removed and you will be allowed to schedule as many home games as you wish till you reach the maximum specified in your inputs.

III. League Navigators (LN) were introduced in 2014 and will be continued in 2015.

Each club will be assigned its own LN when it activates. LN will assist your club in answering all questions pertaining to ENYTB, including the website we use.

IV. PONY has added two new age divisions - 9U and 23U!

V. Diamond Division (for Elite teams), also introduced in 2014, will be continued and expanded in 2015!

A - Elite shall be extended to all ages 10U – 18U;
B - To be an Elite team you must self-designate, same as any other competition level; and,
C - All Sanctioned tournament eligibility will be offered on a direct buy-in basis only – that way non-Elite is not competing with Elite for any sanctioned tournament berths.

NOTE: Clubs may be Elite at one or more age levels w/o being Elite at ALL age levels. And there shall be no restrictions on who declares their team Elite. We will maintain the $75 fine on each MERCY decision in Elite vs Elite (same age) except that the first two mercy losses of as team will be exempted from the fee. The latter provides non-Elite teams with a dis-incentive to register as Elite.

All GOLD level teams shall be available to play a minimum number of four games (4 total) vs Elite teams of the same age or 1 year younger. They can opt to play more than four games vs Elite teams if they wish.

Elite teams are not required to play GOLD teams if they don't want to.

And, of course, all teams will have the option of designating individual teams as NO PLAY. Self-Scheduler will block your NO pLAY teams from scheduling your team.

VI. Sanctioned Tournament Berths - we have too many!

Again last year we had many tournament berths go unfilled when the winning team declined the berth as did lower finishing teams. Not filling tournament berths upsets the tournament hosts as well as the sanctioning bodies. The league can be fined $500 per offense and the league can be suspended for a year or more. In fact, even the sanctioned tournaments ENYTB hosted locally had only three or four teams accept berths despite the tournaments being local and all game expenses paid. We can only assume that the supply of berths exceeds the demand. As a result the league must find a way to create a better balance between demand and supply. Here are the ideas we are considering:

A - FUTURES - The most common reason given for declining a berth is there isn't enough time to get ready to go (usually only a few days). While this is reasonable, we all know that is what it is when we sign up. Nonetheless, what if you compete for the berth this year and if you win it, go next year instead. This would allow you to know one year in advance that you were going to that tournament.

B - No More Sanctioned Tournament Hosting For ENYTB - Since our teams turned down berths to sanctioned tournaments that we hosted locally, we have decided the demand for these tournaments is too weak. So, no more local hosting of sanctioned tournaments by ENYTB.

C - Last Man Standing - This is a fun tournament that everyone seems to enjoy and participation is pretty good. The problem is that we give out sanctioned tournament berths to the two top finishing teams, thereby contributing to the glut of sanctioned tournament berths. Possible solutions include:

i - Eliminate the JMT;
ii - Give out one sanctioned tournament berth instead of two;
iii - Give out a berth to a non-sanctioned tournament (to a for-pay tournament).


VII. Miscellaneous Rule Changes Being Contemplated

A - Use Of Over-Age Players - The intent of this rule was to help teams have enough players. Unfortunately, a few, not many, have used this loophole to field very strong teams with no interest in post-season play. Thus, the limits will likely be lowered at the Gold and HiSilver levels. Changes we are considering: Not allowing any over-aged players in the GOLD division; reducing the number allowed in HS from 3 to 2 or 1; and, banning all over-aged players from pitching.
B - Voluntary Time Curfew - When you are not the last game on the field, and when both teams agree before the game is started, teams can use a 2 hour and 15 minute curfew i.e., no new inning after 2 hour and 15 minutes unless game is tied. If tied, game continues until a winner is decided.
C - International tie-breaker shall be used in all tied games. This was used in ENYTB tournament play this year and worked out very well. First extra inning, last batter from prior inning starts at 2B with no outs. All extra innings thereafter - last batter from prior inning begins at 3B and next to last batter begins at 2b, with no out. Home team must get full at bat if it is behind.

If you have a strong opinion on these rules or anything else mentioned or not mentioned above, please email me at fryes@nycap.rr.com.

Ed Frye