Survey Results: Member Attitudes, Preferences and OpinionsSurvey conducted at ENYTB Kick-Off Meeting, Jan 27 and 28, 2007.There is unanimous (100%) or near unanimous (94% or higher) agreement that all of the MAJOR SERVICES (8) provided by ENYTB are essential to virtually every member’s overall satisfaction with the League. Valuable feedback was a... read more

RULE 89 - HOME AREA EXEMPTION FOR ROSTER PROTECTED PLAYERS is applicable to any player, including 13 year olds, who played for a franchise other than his home area franchise in the prior year. Rule 89 states, "Any protected player residing in the franchise area of a new member or an existing member that is active in his natural age division for the... read more

There is much confusion over the roster protocols of ENYTB and its various sanctioning bodies. This article provides members with a comprehensive presentation of these protocols as well as ENYTB''s requirement (new in 2007) that ALL teams must have at least 9 players on their ENYTB roster eligibility list prior to May 15 or be disqualified from eli... read more

Looking for players? Check our FREE AGENT Board at Tools > Free Agents.Club Reps and team managers/coaches can add players to the free agent board either when they release players from their current roster or by clicking the direct link on the upper right hand corner of the FA Board. See a player you might like? Contact him and when the tow of you ... read more

For the same reasons given for expanding the format of the PONY Sectional tournaments at 13U-14U-15U, ENYTB will purchase an extra berth in the NABF Regional Championships at both 14U and 16U, and allow teams in the 13U/15U age divisions to compete for them: 1. A separate regular season competition open to 13U Gold and Silver teams only, for a bert... read more

Since 1999, ENYTB's main program offering at 13U/15U has been AABC. But, as was discussed in both sessions of last weekend's annual Kick-Off meeting, the AABC program at 13U and 15U is not a good idea for teams lacking the financial wherewithal to travel across country at their own expense.1. AABC's entry-level tournament at 13U/15U is comprised mo... read more

fryes@nycap.rr.comAll requests (definition of any terms, rules, policies etc.) will be added within 48 hours. You may view the Glossary now by going to League Info > Glossary. I added several pages of content today.

ACTIVATION - Both new and returning clubs need to activate their teams with their League Rep or the League Office as early as possible each year, preferably before our annual Kick-Off Meeting. NOTE: Any Club Rep that has not been contacted by his League Rep by Jan 8 can contact me to get activated and to obtain his League Rep's name and contact inf... read more

For those of you already thinking about next year, rest assured ENYTB is busily preparing for its 12th consecutive record-breaking season.On Saturday, NOV 11, ENYTB's new Executive Committee held its first meeting and discussed plans for the upcoming season. Details of the 2007 League program will be unveiled at our annual ENYTB kick-off meeting, which will be held on January 20 this year, a couple of weeks earlier than usual. The reason? All league deadlines have been advanced by 15 days to ensure that all ENYTB teams have their travel schedules in hand by May 1. Over the past 11 seasons, ENYTB has come to be known for four things: (1) providing teams with a customized schedule i.e., all play is competitively balanced and all games are scheduled according to when teams have indicated they would be available to play. Schedules are also customized to when home fields are available;(2) providing teams with eligibility (access to) for sanctioned tournaments under three great national baseball organizations: AABC, NABF and PONY;(3) hosting sanctioned and open tournaments at all age levels (saving ENYTB teams about a quarter of a million dollars in travel costs each year); and,(4) providing the best possible service to our member clubs from the day we open our doors each season until the last pitch is thrown in fall ball. Compared to our previous standards, we feel we let you down a little last year in the service department. The League is still adjusting to the increased administrative workload stemming from its rapid growth during the 2004-5 period, when the League doubled in size from 88 teams to 175. The administrative burden of League operations has become too great to be focused on a single person. In each of the last two years the League has restructured itself to address this matter but in the end, little was accomplished. Thus, this year, administrative reform is our top priority. The goal of this reform is to develop an administrative system that distribute the League's administrative burden among many individuals, is flexible and easily expandable, and is sustainable into the future. 3 Main Elements of ENYTB's Administrative Reforms:(1) "LEAGUE REPs" - For 2007, there are four of these newly created positions: Jeff Pexton will manage our Utica Area clubs; the rest of our clubs have been evenly distributed among: Don Rahn (Niskayuna Warriors); Bill Gibson (Amsterdam Rugmakers); and, Gerry Patnode (Columbia Patriots). Ed Frye, League Director, will act as the League Rep for all clubs new to ENYTB in 2007. Our League Reps began contacting Club Reps at the end of December, to introduce themselves and discuss how the new arrangement will work (also described below). If you are a Club Rep and have not been contacted by your League Rep yet, please contact me (Ed Frye at 518-356-9089) to get the name and contact info for your League Rep. League Reps will help Club Reps manage their club's entire League participation, from soup to nuts. They are there to answer any questions a Club Rep is unable to answer for himself, to facilitate the activation and registration process, including collecting and entering all team and field pre-scheduling information. League Reps can assist with all questions about the website or League operations. The role of the League Rep doesn't stop there. They will continue to be each Club Rep's point of contact with the League throughout the regular season and tournament season, on ALL matters relevant to the participation in the League of any of the club's teams, including dispute resolution, etc. As the League Director, I will act as League Rep for all new clubs and I will be the overall program coordinator. I will also help each of our League Reps satisfy your requests for information but I can no longer be on the frontline as I have in the past. The League Reps will also assist with managing the post-season, including helping the League provide better organized berth awards meetings and to help manage the tournaments themselves. (2) DEMAND SIDE MEASURES - Item (1) deals with the "supply" side of the equation. We also need to reform the "demand" side i.e., the service demands placed upon the League by the membership. Last year the League's membership did not grow, but RFI (requests for information) more than tripled and the number of different people per club, contacting the League, mushroomed. CLUB REPs - Each club already has an owner/Club Rep. The Club Rep is a key link in the League's administrative process - he is responsible for managing his teams' affairs with the League and is the focal point for educating his teams in all matters relevant to their League participation. One of the problems in recent years, has been that many club reps have NOT been doing their job. Instead of acting as the middle man between its teams and the League in all matters, many Club Reps have directed their managers, coaches and in some cases, even their player's families, to contact the League (Ed Frye) for ALL their information needs. It is unrealistic to expect any one person to support the informational and educational burden of this entire enterprise over and over again with every individual that passes through. This was NOT how things worked in the League's early years, and indeed, it certainly can't be now. I made the mistake of letting it happen the last couple of years in the hopes that once we got our new members up and running, they would become more self-sufficient. That has not been the case. Not only didn't Club Reps manage their teams, in many cases team managers didn't relay information to their coaches and as a result, I was contacted by multiple individuals from the same team asking for the same information. This also resulted in contradictory pre-scheduling information. It was not unusual to be given one set of information by the Club Rep, only to be given a totally different set of information by a team person later on and then, after the schedule came out, to be contacted by yet another team person, one who had never talked to me prior to scheduling, claiming that I had used all incorrect information to custom schedule his team.It is time for everyone to take the bull by the horns. Club Reps have to step up and be fully responsible for their own teams, that is their role in making the League work i.e., all RFI must come through one person, the Club Rep. The Club Rep goes to his League Rep and brings the information back to his teams. Each Club Rep has unlimited access to his League Rep but he should instruct his team people that ALL RFI must be funneled through him and he alone will take them to the League Rep to be answered. Club Reps tend to stay from year to year and this process should help the Club Reps become knowledgeable of League procedures so that they can become more and more information self-sufficient over time. Similarly, the Club Rep must obtain from their teams the information the League needs to properly register and schedule their teams. All required team information must come from or through the Club Rep, or he must assign a single individual for a specific required information item e.g., team availability, for a specific team. If the latter, the Club Rep must inform the League of the name and contact info for the individual who will provide the information and when it can be expected.If you are a club rep and you are unable to meet this responsibility, begin looking around right now for the right person. REGISTRATION/PRE-SCHEDULING INFORMATION INPUT TO THE WEBSITE - League Reps will enter member info to the website in three important categories:(a) Team Registration Choices - will come from one person, the Club Rep or his designee on each team.(b) Team Availability - will come from one person, the Club Rep or his designee on each team.(c) Field Availability info - will come from one person, the Club Rep or his designee. Teams are responsible for entering and keeping current their own roster information.(3) WEBSITE EXTENSIONS League registration and operations have been administered through enytb.com for the past three seasons. enytb.com has been significantly upgraded each year. Several more significant changes have made for 2007 that will further aid in the administration of the League. (a) None is more important than the revised/extended online ROSTER function (see recent News article re: Rosters for a useful reference). (i) ALL TEAMS MUST MAINTAIN AN ENYTB ELIGIBILITY ROSTER Each sanctioning body has its own roster rules, limits, deadlines, etc. These vary by sanctioning body and sometimes across age divisions within the same sanctioning body. Thus, it is necessary that each team maintain a separate League roster for regular season eligibility. (ii) A SEPARATE ROSTER IS AVAILABLE FOR EACH SANCTIONING BODY THAT A TEAM IS REGISTERED WITH (Note: all ENYTB teams are NABF sanctioned.)enytb.com has been extended to include as many as nine separate rosters for each team, depending on registration choices and post-season tournament qualification. The tournament rosters allow teams designated as berth winners to add "pick-up" players online. (ii-a) ....each online roster automatically enforces the official player eligibility rules of each respective sanctioning! Previously, enytb.com's online rosters controlled for age and league player rights on your ENYTB player eligibility roster only. enytb.com now also includes automatic checking of all mandatory player eligibility criteria under each sanctioning body. enytb.com automatically prevents any player from being added to a roster if he violates ANY of the eligibility criteria for that roster. For example, each sanctioning body has a different deadline for adding new players and each has a different maximum number of players that can be post-season eligible. Teams will need to keep their individual roster current because once any deadline passes, your team will be unable to add new players to that particular roster. There is no deadline on adding players to your ENYTB player eligibility roster for regular season play.(ii-b) ... Many of you did not realize that you had multiple rosters last year and failed to link players from your ENYTB player eligibility roster to your respective sanctioned rosters. To prevent this from happening again, enytb.com now automatically adds each player to each of your rosters, provided the player doesn't violate any eligibility criteria. If a player violates a restriction on any of those rosters, the player will not be added to that roster and a message will inform you of the specific roster and violation. Depending on the nature of the violation, you will be able to make roster changes to make teh player eligible if you choose to e.g., make room for that player by excluding (unlinking) a different player from that roster. Again, as long as the player is on your ENYTB player eligibility roster, he is eligible for ALL regular season League play.(ii-c) ...The "pick-up" player function for tournament play was added last year. Some teams however picked-up players before we held our official League Draft. To prevent this from happening again, neither this function, nor any "tournament" rosters will appear until the League has designated you a berth winner.(iii) This year, teams will lose their access privileges to the website on May 15 if they don't have 9 players on their ENYTB player eligibility roster. NO EXCEPTIONS.We have threatened this for three years but last year's experience makes it absolutely necessary. Half the League would have failed this test on June 1 last year. It created a total fiasco with our national registrations and with the draft eligibility of numerous players. ALL three sanctioning bodies put ENYTB on notice that we could lose tournament berths if this happens again. AABC refused to accept several pick-up players because of the lack of a roster and I received calls from several disappointed parents who could not understand why their player was not eligible to be drafted. I had to explain to them that their team manager failed to submit a roster to the League. The universal response was why did the League allow these teams to continue to play w/o a roster. They had a valid point: teams should NOT be allowed to play in the League w/o valid rosters. Thus, beginning in 2007, ENYTB has a ZERO TOLERANCE policy for teams that don't respect this most basic requirement of League participation. Beginning 2007, ANY TEAM w/o AT LEAST NINE PLAYERS on its online ENYTB player eligibility roster BY MAY 15 WILL BE DISQUALIFIED FROM ALL LEAGUE PLAY - THEY SHALL BE ASSIGNED ALL FORFEIT LOSSES FOR STANDINGS PURPOSES - AND THEY WILL LOSE THEIR ACCESS TO THE WEBSITE FOR THE ENTIRE YEAR. (iv) The online team REGISTRATION function has been greatly generalized, enabling us to vary not only what programs are offered to each age division and level of play but also whether the program is mandatory or optional and at what price.We also hope to expand the kinds of scheduling inputs that members can provide, including: min and max games each week, divided between weekdays and weekends; up to 3 pairs of EITHER OR days; and, field priority for clubs with multiple teams and fields. ************-----------*************This brings us to our 2nd top priority for 2007 - to provide a new pricing structure, with even more flexibility on sanctioning choices. We are also making two significant price discounts available to members that register more than three teams. These pricing changes and discounts should help keep ENYTB's price/value competitive with our rivals. (See League Info > About > Fees for a presentation of all ENYTB fees for 2007.)New pricing features in 2007 will include the following: (1) DISCOUNTS FOR LARGE CLUBS - Large clubs of more than three registered teams in the 11U thru 18U age divisions (excluding double registered teams) will qualify for the following discounts:(a) a quantity discount of $100/team for every team it registers beyond the first three;(b) an additional discount of $100/team on each "multiple" team registered in the same age division, regardless of gold, silver or bronze.NEW in 2007 - teams can qualify for multiple discounts - adding up to as much as $200/team in some cases! Our larger clubs can register their bronze teams for as little as $100/team if they qualify for both discounts. Similarly, additional gold and silver teams can be registered for as little as $100 each, excluding any sanctioning (optional) and tournament eligibility (optional) fees. The League is offering these "large club" discounts for the following reasons:(a) there is an efficiency or economies-of-scale associated with serving the needs of our larger members;(b) they are our way of saying thanks to our larger members who are here year after year, making ENYTB the #1 place to play travel baseball in the Greater Hudson-Mohawk Valley; and,(c) they are designed to make our program cost competitive when our large clubs consider placing their 2nd tier travel teams in rival leagues because of cost factors.ENYTB is here to meet all the travel needs of its members and we want to encourage our larger clubs located in the larger population areas to register as many travels as they want, w/o price being a significant deterrant. Bottom-line, with these price discounts, ENYTB members can obtain the best possible product for all their teams, in one place, at a very competitive price.There's more.(2) MORE SAVINGS - All sanctioning choices for all teams will be optional, regardless of club size. (3) MORE SAVINGS - The base fee for all teams registered in the 10U division will be discounted $100, regardless of club size.Both (2) and (3) will help keep the cost of league participation down for segments that tend not to have high participation in sanctioned tournament play. Why force teams to pay for something they have no interest in. Some of our recent problems with teams not fulfilling their commitments in sanctioned tournaments may be caused by this. (4) MORE SAVINGS - Tournament Eligibility Fees will be GREATLY REDUCED at all age levels. Except for NABF 22U, the highest AABC/NABF tournament eligibility fee will be $75, a reduction of 50% from the Gold rate in 2006. In addition, the AABC tournament eligibility fee at 13U, 14U, 16U, 18U and UNL has been eliminated altogether. These are the age divisions where ENYTB doesn't host AABC tournaments. In the past we averaged our host fees across all sanctioned tournaments. This was possible because of our new cost sharing policy with our primary tournament hosts (new in 2007).Sanctioning and tournament eligibility fees will continue to be charged separately and are always optional (new in 2007). The base fee remains at $300/team for all bronze level teams and increases to $325 for teams at all other classifications, prior to applicable discounts. The base fee is used to cover all miscellaneous League overhead expenses, including website, meetings, office, and materials expense, the cost of all League administration services, including compensation for special services provided by the League Reps and Executive Director as well as a contribution to overhead for hosting sanctioned tournaments.DOUBLE REGISTRATIONS These were very popular again last year as they allow teams to be eligible for AABC sanctioned tournaments at two age levels and gave teams a choice of eligibility by age division within PONY and NABF. Some clubs, however, began to deviate from the true purpose of DR, which is to give the same team i.e., roster, an opportunity to play games that count against older aged teams and to expand their eligibility for post-season play. Instead, clubs began "mixing" their rosters, sprinkling in a few older players. It is perfectly fine to do that as two separate teams with overlapping rosters but not as DR teams. Double Register Fee - $150 (a discount of $175). DEFINITION: Double registered teams have the same rosters but compete in two different age divisions. In the past, DR teams had their own Team Home, with a separate log-in, separate everything. We copied in the roster from the team it was cloned from but you had to enter separate team availability etc. Most DR teams never understood they had a separate Team Home. The website has been changed to provide a single Team Home for DR teams. Because of this change, it is no longer possible to "mix" players of an older age with your base team's roster. You can register mixed teams as an entirely new team and, upon request, the League can ensure that the base team and the mixed team NOT be scheduled to play at the same time.