Played a podunk tourney this weekend. Our original tourney was cancelled because of an umpire "strike" and finding stuff this late in the season was tough. We would have just called it, but it's our last weekend playing for the season. Anyway, it was a two-hour drive and everyone had hotel and all that stuff because we planned team bonding stuff Saturday night. So we were committed to the weekend -- it was a four-game guarantee with two Saturday and two Sunday -- and the gap between them ended up being five hours. So that's the scene.
First team we faced, the players didn't have numbers on their jerseys. White T-shirts, black pants. Didn't even match.
Umps didn't care -- TD kind of shrugged. Coach said they were batting 9, so I just labeled them 1-9 in the book and GC. But I can't tell the difference between them.
After the game, our CF told us they only batted six girls. They'd bat the top five, then sub in another and return to the top of the lineup. We went through pitching and coaching changes, so our girls didn't recognize them the second time through, and the CF didn't know enough to say anything -- she was the only one paying close enough attention and had the only straight-on view. My bad and the coaches' bad, too, I know.
My question is what should we have done before the game? Refuse to play if they don't put on tape or something to denote who is who? Or just shrug it off as one of those things that happen, and assume the other coaches will operate in good faith? Maybe I should have had him line up his team and taken pictures of them so i could track them as they came up to bat?
Anyway, if given the chance to do a late-season tourney in Brush, Colorado; take it from me, pass it by.
First team we faced, the players didn't have numbers on their jerseys. White T-shirts, black pants. Didn't even match.
Umps didn't care -- TD kind of shrugged. Coach said they were batting 9, so I just labeled them 1-9 in the book and GC. But I can't tell the difference between them.
After the game, our CF told us they only batted six girls. They'd bat the top five, then sub in another and return to the top of the lineup. We went through pitching and coaching changes, so our girls didn't recognize them the second time through, and the CF didn't know enough to say anything -- she was the only one paying close enough attention and had the only straight-on view. My bad and the coaches' bad, too, I know.
My question is what should we have done before the game? Refuse to play if they don't put on tape or something to denote who is who? Or just shrug it off as one of those things that happen, and assume the other coaches will operate in good faith? Maybe I should have had him line up his team and taken pictures of them so i could track them as they came up to bat?
Anyway, if given the chance to do a late-season tourney in Brush, Colorado; take it from me, pass it by.