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Program Info > League Calendar

Overview Of Annual Cycle

This sub-menu includes seven menu items. The content of each of these items is briefly summarized below. Each summary includes a link to the more complete version.

ENYTB operates 365 days/year. That's not to say we play baseball 365 days/year, but some kind of league activity is always going on, including answering your requests for membership and other information. The league's major annual activities include: planning the upcoming year's program, improving the website, adding content to the website, pre-registering clubs/teams, setting up online team registration to coincide with the new program choices and prices, collecting scheduling inputs from clubs/teams, custom scheduling each team, recording fee payments online, confirming team paperwork (proof of age and team insurance), answering member questions, overseeing player releases and schedule management by teams during the regular season, registering member teams with national sanctioning bodies, arbitrating inter-member disputes, planning and running tournaments and getting teams certified for sanctioned tournament play, fall baseball program.

This sub-menu, Calendar includes a chronological tour of what happens when in ENYTB's Annual Cycle. Here's a quick idea of what is found where:

• ACTIVATION - The website is initialized for the upcoming season in early November every year. This is the unofficial starting point for the new annual cycle. At this point, the League can begin "activating" i.e., pre-registering, new clubs/teams for the upcoming season, as well as returning clubs/teams. Team activations are shown on the website as they happen, classified by team age, power rating and registration choices (Inside The League > Teams).
• MEETINGS, REGISTRATION and COLLECTING SCHEDULING INPUTS The busiest time of the pre-season for both members and league admin is from the end of January through early April.

During this time:

1. the league conducts its meetings: consisting of an annual Kick-Off meeting in late January, usually the weekend before the Super Bowl, and age division meetings, beginning the first weekend after the Super Bowl. The youngest age divisions meet first because they are scheduled first and begin play six weeks before the older age divisions. The meeting schedule is established in early January, and announced via email to all activated teams as well as on the ENYTB News Board.
2. the league conducts registration. Teams should register with the league right after their age division meeting. Each club rep must ensure that each of its teams makes its registration choices and payment no later than April 1st (March 15 for the younger age divisions 12U and under); and,
3. the league collects all scheduling inputs from its registered clubs and teams. The same deadlines apply to scheduling inputs as registration.
4. Once league registration closes, the League Director has sufficient information to create all League Divisions and assign specific teams and tournament berths to divisions.

• CUSTOM SCHEDULING - ENYTB customizes its program to each team. No two teams need to register for the same things, play the same teams, begin/end their regular season at the same date, play on the same dates/times, etc. Each team schedule is customized according to the team's availability constraints and preferences, its home field availability, its own registration choices and its own competitive preferences. A big part of ENYTB program customization is scheduling games only when each team has indicated it would be available for ENYTB play, including home games only when the team's home field is available for ENYTB play. It is each Club rep's responsibility to ensure that this information is submitted on time and entered correctly by the league, for each of its teams and fields no later than April 1 (March 15 for teams 12U and younger).
• ROSTERS - No later than May 15th and BEFORE a team
begins its regular season, that team needs to enter its roster on the website. Teams that do not have a minimum of 9 players their online roster by May 15th will lose all access privileges to the website.
• REGULAR SEASON - Depending on the age division, regular season play can begin as early as mid-April and end as late as the end of July. All teams have the option to begin their season as early or as late as they wish. The younger age divisions, 12U and under, begin league play as early as the first or second week of April, weather permitting. By early May all of the younger aged teams are playing. For ages 13U and above, most teams begin their regular season on Memorial Day weekend, the League's official opening weekend. Some 13U and 14U teams, however, begin their seasons earlier and play on Sundays only until Memorial Day weekend. Depending on the high school schedule, many 18U and 16U teams don't begin play until the first or second weekend in June.
The League scheduled more than 3,000 games every year. Keeping tabs on all the regular season action requires a significant and continuous flow of information. The ENYTB website is designed to enable members to enter ALL game information themselves. For example, members have the capability to make changes to their contact info, availability schedules, game schedules and team rosters. They can also enter their own game results, player stats and game reports. A significant amount of this capability was first available in 2004 and member response was tremendous. Most members posted their game results on the day the game was played. (Go to your game schedule, click "enter score" for that game, and enter the score.) All standings as well as the league leader board update in real-time as game scores and player stats are posted. The standings page in each team's home area is customized to show all its standings on a single page. Each team can also message its players and coaches through a pop-up messenger and prepare online game reports that are automatically emailed to its local newspapers.
• ENTRY-LEVEL SANCTIONED TOURNAMENTS - Sanctioned tournament play is a season highlight for most teams. With centralized access to three different sanctioned tournament series, ENYTB members enjoy abundant opportunities for sanctioned tournament play. The entry-level tournaments in these series are conducted from mid-June (ages 12U and under) through mid-July (ages 13U through 18U), late July (22U) and early August (Unlimited). In 2009, ENYTB qualified teams for nearly 100 berths in 22 National Championship Tournament Series (NCTS) sanctioned by either AABC, NABF or PONY. Moreover, ENYTB hosted the entry-level tournament in 14 of the 22 NCTS.
• OPEN Tournaments - The sanctioned tournament season, though exciting, is short-lived, lasting as little as a day or two for most teams. In a recent ENYTB member survey, 70% of members said early to mid-July was too early to shut down their season. A slightly bigger percentage (76%) stated that they preferred to finish their season with organized local tournament play, rather than meaningless and often unreliable "extra games". Thus, from mid-July thru the end of July or the first weekend of August, ENYTB, in conjunction with Extra Innings, sponsors several OPEN tournaments at each age level dubbed the Last Man Standing. Members and non-members alike can sign up for these tournaments online through early July.
• ENYTB Fall Baseball Program - Registration begins in early August, play begins in early September, and ends in late October. Play is limited to weekends only, customized to when teams and home fields are available to be scheduled. ENYTB offers a custom fall program very similar to its summer program except there is no sanctioning. Teams do not have to be a member of ENYTB's summer program to be eligible for its fall program. For more details see League Info > Program Info > Fall Baseball.

A couple of weeks after the conclusion of the fall program, the website is re-initialized for the next year and club/team activations for the upcoming summer season begin anew. From October until just before the annual Kick-Off meeting in late January, the ENYTB program for the upcoming season is developed and entered to the website. All questions regarding league membership or services offered non-member teams should be directed to the League Director, Ed Frye at (518) 356-9089, 5227 Bridle Pathway, Schenectady, NY, 12303 fryes@nycap.rr.com.