ASA Tournaments and Mizuno Affiliation, is there concern??

[onlooker]

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[onlooker]

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[Tenshun]

Which tournaments have you been to where the pool play was chosen 100% random?

Every sport at every level I have ever played and every sport at every level all of my kids have played EXCEPT softball. local nor cal Softball is the only sport I have ever seen this.

Fair enough, you make some good points. But my point is don't single out a TD for following something that is the standard practice.

I've complained about many, many tournaments, but I try not to complain when I think a TD is actually trying to put out a good product.

Maybe it's the fact that I'm easily entertained, but it doesn't take much to make me happy. Give me some well groomed fields, safe viewing areas, decent umps and girls that play with heart and I'm good to go.

Oh wait, extra cheezy nachos and jumbo sized drinks help too.

[ICMTM]

While I agree that the end results are not in the best interest of must see TV. I really do get that and dont want to be ignorant to that being the defense to my statement. I totally get it (and somewhat agree that it keeps 49 x 12 parents a lot happier not getting spanked by sorcerer 25-1) However, Your spin proves what I believe is wrong in Nor Cal......there should ONLY be breeze, grapes, sorcerer, hustle, magic, sting, smash and a handful/10 of others. If Nor Cal A ball wasnt glorified B Ball we could have 16 to dare I say 24 team tournaments where all are gold on Sunday and anyone can win on Sunday.

Bronze brackets are not a result of manipulated pool play....
Bronze brackets are a result of there trying to be 49 frikin teams competing at the same level as those you mentioned.

Im not here to win this battle, nor am i here to try and act as if my solution is the way it has to be....I firmly believe however that ASA needs to be what it was 15-25 years ago, an elite group of girls/teams playing A ball. I cant change the majority though, I get it.

We aren't in a battle or argument.

I don't think any TD can really do much about the quality of the field being so skewed. They can chop up the thing and just declare a power pool from the start, but part of the big deal about the Memorial Day tournament is David gets to play Goliath. We just don't see David ever win. An invite only? Start a ranking system? I see those things being issues with comp softball, too!

A ball needs to be better defined. If I'm right B teams are community based whereas A teams don't have boundary restrictions. Not only is the creation of an A ball team easier, but there's no control to ensure the team is any good. I don't agree that A Ball should just consist of a handful of teams as the sport is an exclusive sport as it is (meaning accessible to most) because once you limit access funny business happens.

[onlooker]

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[onlooker]

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[charliehustle]

I dont thnk totally random is the way to go. Spreading the stronger/ranked teams out through the various pools and then randomizing who gets to play them makes a better situation for all parties involved.

1.) the stronger teams get challenged on Sun/Mon instead of a cake walk through a silver bracket.

2) having a stronger team in each pool gives the weaker teams the opportunity to learn/see how they game is supposed to be played.

3) by having a challenging tourny the stronger teams don't move to tournment format that would exclude the weaker teams from ever seeing or playing them.

I agree that the talent of some players/teams is weaker, and I agree that some shoudn't be there at all. But I am sure at one time or another that this is how it was in SoCal also. The overall product improved because the total population of quality players grew. and They improved ecause they were allowed to play stronger more powerful teams.

[Iluvblue]

Trust me, those weak teams wont learn squat getting spanked by the top teams... except what it feels like to get crushed. Those coaches wont even know what hit them and will not be taking notes to improve. i cant even tell you how many times we would blow someone out and create problems for their defense by what we were doing, and then we listen to the coach yelling at his players. The reality of the situation was the coach had no clue how to stop us and no clue what to say to his players... so they yelled.

Seen this year after year after year, and it never changes. Do you think those weal teams have STRONG coaches?


Only way to fix things is stop having the different brackets on Sunday, this way it doesnt matter of you stack pools with strong teams, everyone would still have a chance to win it on Sunday. And for me, id much rather have 3 good games then 1 good game and 2 blow outs on Saturday. So stack those pools with good teams and let the weak ones play each other get a 1 seed, and then get knocked out in game 1 Sunday.

[ICMTM]

Having one big elimination tournament will cause the weak teams to play max 4 games a tournament. The strong teams play 6-7. Over 10 tournaments that's 20 more games a summer/30 more if you add fall ball. That's anywhere from 70-120 more games from 1st year 12's through last year of 14's. Even for the team who goes 1-1 on Sunday that's 60 more games.

Why don't orgs build "B" teams? This isn't to be confused with A, B ball. Some coaches will get extremely high numbers for a tryout even though there is maybe one or two roster spots. Why not make a 2nd team out of that? There are quite a few athletes that are coming into comp softball somewhere in the above age range that could benefit from a program like that.

[Iluvblue]

Having one big elimination tournament will cause the weak teams to play max 4 games a tournament.


So... thats the way it has ALWAYS been. Only this year they have seemed to start doing two Sunday brackets. I find it amusing seeing peole talk of winning the "Championship" of th "Bronze" bracket. Isnt that something like being in 40th place or something?




The strong teams play 6-7. Over 10 tournaments that's 20 more games a summer/30 more if you add fall ball. That's anywhere from 70-120 more games from 1st year 12's through last year of 14's. Even for the team who goes 1-1 on Sunday that's 60 more games.


So? What is wrong with that. Tourneys are 4 game promises, not 6 or 7.


Why don't orgs build "B" teams? This isn't to be confused with A, B ball. Some coaches will get extremely high numbers for a tryout even though there is maybe one or two roster spots. Why not make a 2nd team out of that? There are quite a few athletes that are coming into comp softball somewhere in the above age range that could benefit from a program like that.



Organizations already do this. Smash has 3 or so 14u teams with a clear distinct number 1. Grapettes have 3 or more 14u teams with a clear distinct number 1. Now dont say that to the parents, because their kid surely doesnt play on the number 4 team in the organization. This is exactly the reason you have the "B" teams you are talking about and we have SO MANY teams now. There used to be like 5 or so teams in all of Stockton and Modesto area in 12u... now there must be 30 or more.