Yet another commish question

[BuckeyeGuy]

The point that was raised, and that I find some merit in, was regarding exclusion of a large portion of pre-K girls. It was by no means a convincing argument, but it gave me food for thought.

FWIW I am in complete agreement with you: size, coordination and maturity are my top considerations.

 

[BuckeyeGuy]

...I only say this as a suggestion to stick to the "governing body" rule-book of whoever you are affiliated with. That way, when you do have the questions posed by the moms and dads you have something to point to that is a fairly hard line. If not, you will get challenged on every knit picking thing that a parent can come up with and find yourself spending tons of time thinking and questioning things when you have more important things to do.

Just my 2 cents and hope it helps some.

Good point. Here's where it gets odd (more odd?): our organization apparently doesn't have a standard set of rules across all sports. Soccer (our biggest) uses Jul 31, football uses grades, basketball does grades, lax uses 1/1 I think. Basically it's left up to the sport's leadership. Our softball program is unaffiliated with any acronym sanctioning body, so we're making this up as we go. We used age 5 years ago, it got switched to grades (I don't know why or by whom), and now we're switching back to age.

I've been looking high and low online, and what I've found is a range of dates with Apr 30 and Jan 1 being the most prevalent. Seems to me that any date I pick is completely arbitrary unless I move it to coincide with the LSD, in which case I may as well leave it at grades.

 

[STRIKE3]

I completely understand now and this is would be more complex since you don't have the sanctioning body rules to go by. Based on that, I would agree that you might as well leave it at a grade level as you will have people with questions either way.

I will say that with Little League the girls can play up if their parents choose but they can never play down. If we (board) feels like a girl should not play up to do safety concerns we will have a discussion with the parent and express our reasoning why we feel she should stay down. However, we also tell them it is their decision and they can proceed if they desire to do that. On the flip side, we have had parents wanting to stay down because they want more pitching time. In that case, if they are too old then we will not allow it.

Good luck and remember you can't make everyone happy. Rec ball board members, admin, etc. is one of the most thankless jobs out there and my hats off to those of us who do it because we love it!

 

[djcarter1966]

You said you looked online at all the local leagues and she would not qualify to play in any of them.

I think that is your answer...there is just has to be a cut off date and she did not make it...the END.

You are not discriminating against her it is just the norm that you have to be a certain age for safety reasons and while you understand some girls might be the exception any exceptions you make would actually look like discrimination.

 

[BuckeyeGuy]

I completely understand now and this is would be more complex since you don't have the sanctioning body rules to go by. Based on that, I would agree that you might as well leave it at a grade level as you will have people with questions either way.

I will say that with Little League the girls can play up if their parents choose but they can never play down. If we (board) feels like a girl should not play up to do safety concerns we will have a discussion with the parent and express our reasoning why we feel she should stay down. However, we also tell them it is their decision and they can proceed if they desire to do that. On the flip side, we have had parents wanting to stay down because they want more pitching time. In that case, if they are too old then we will not allow it.

Good luck and remember you can't make everyone happy. Rec ball board members, admin, etc. is one of the most thankless jobs out there and my hats off to those of us who do it because we love it!

We let them play up 1 year, so a 7 year old will play up to 8 years old, but still be 8U. This seems to be fairly common across the country. Which raises the question: if we let them play up 1 year, will we let a 4 year old play up to 5 years old? I don't know yet. I have a meeting with the prez tonight, I'm going to let her opinion inform my decision.

 

[Dabears17]

There is something said for being able for grade mates to play together. Our league allows players to playdown to play with their classmates, but remind them that they willn't be eligible to try out for All-Stars in that age group.

The advice to not worry about corner cases is very good advice. I told my successor as president this weekend that there are some special situations/cases we'd like to consider and probably should, but every special situation/case takes 2-6 hours to consider and fairly resolve, so you can't consider them all. If 10pct of our league of 500 request special consideration, that is 100-300 hours we aren't spending do other tasks that need to be done to have a successful season for the other 450 girls in our league.

My league used to have a rule that if you were 4.5 by Jan 1 you could start at 4.5 if you passed a skills evaluation. My first year as VP I pointed out that my DD would not be 4.5 on Jan 1st, but would be 4.5 before opening day, so would we let her play if she passed the skills evaluation? The discussion went back and forth and we decided to just go to a firm had to be 5 by Jan 1st policy.

My DD still occasionally tells people I changed the rules on her to delay the start of her softball career a year.

 

[MacLobo]

We let them play up 1 year, so a 7 year old will play up to 8 years old, but still be 8U. This seems to be fairly common across the country. Which raises the question: if we let them play up 1 year, will we let a 4 year old play up to 5 years old? I don't know yet. I have a meeting with the prez tonight, I'm going to let her opinion inform my decision.

I guess I don't quite understand the set-up of your league....

I'm assuming both 4 and 5 Y.O.'s are playing Tee ball. Do you separate the age groups in Tee-ball? Or is the 4yo requesting to play-up out of Tee ball? If so, I've never seen a 4yo (boy or girl) where I've said, "that kid should be playing up a level!"

 

[BuckeyeGuy]

I guess I don't quite understand the set-up of your league....

I'm assuming both 4 and 5 Y.O.'s are playing Tee ball. Do you separate the age groups in Tee-ball? Or is the 4yo requesting to play-up out of Tee ball? If so, I've never seen a 4yo (boy or girl) where I've said, "that kid should be playing up a level!"

This was in response to STRIKE3. T-ball is 6U, so basically 5 and 6 year olds, and a mostly rhetorical question was regarding 4yo playing "up."

 

[MacLobo]

Gotcha, so basically, the question is whether or not to allow a 4 y.o. register for t-ball...

Speaking from my (Extrememly limited)1 year experience coaching t-ball last-year, we had 2 four-year-olds on our team, as well as 3 six-year-olds. Sure, there was a distinct difference in ability, but I never once felt concerned for the safety of the 4's. I had to spend a lot more time reminding the 4's not to throw dirt, and to watch the batter, but other than that, it was fine.

Also, as a side-point, the way the age cut-off is in our league, my 3 year-old son could actually play t-ball this year, since he meets the cut-off by 1 day! I have not registered him, basically because I don't think he's ready. He can hit the ball of the tee pretty well, but his listening skills leave a little to be desired, and honestly, I also don't want to do 3 years of tee-ball! LOL!

 

[finalcloud]

Gotcha, so basically, the question is whether or not to allow a 4 y.o. register for t-ball...

Speaking from my (Extrememly limited)1 year experience coaching t-ball last-year, we had 2 four-year-olds on our team, as well as 3 six-year-olds. Sure, there was a distinct difference in ability, but I never once felt concerned for the safety of the 4's. I had to spend a lot more time reminding the 4's not to throw dirt, and to watch the batter, but other than that, it was fine.

Also, as a side-point, the way the age cut-off is in our league, my 3 year-old son could actually play t-ball this year, since he meets the cut-off by 1 day! I have not registered him, basically because I don't think he's ready. He can hit the ball of the tee pretty well, but his listening skills leave a little to be desired, and honestly, I also don't want to do 3 years of tee-ball! LOL!

PONY now allows for 3 year olds to sign up for T-Ball. Crazy.

http://www.pony.org/Assets/Corporate+Assets/FAQs/League+Age+Keys/2016+Baseball+League+Age+Key.pdf