Why are so few berths being given at PGF Qualifiers?

[CULater]

IMHO this was done, because they cannot have a disproportionate amount of teams qualify at SoCal qualifiers, meaning the SoCal qualifier gets 8 berths while the SE qualifer gets 3.

CUL - Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't think any So Cal Qualifier is giving 8 berths. 16's are getting 6, 18's & 14's are getting 4, and 12's are getting 3.
Most of the other qualifiers are only getting 2 or 3, while the Hawaii Qualifier is only getting 1 berth for each division and only teams from Hawaii are eligible to play in it.

You are missing something.

I stated that rather than keep their original plan of just providing berths based on the top 8 (12 teams), they extended that to include the top 4 from ASA Gold, plus they added 18 additional invitees. Of those 18 invitees, 9 were from California. Had they not done that, then they either would have had to 1) have more California qualifiers 2) have the California qualifiers get a disproportionate number of berths in order to get all 9 of those California teams in the national.

[fastpitchdad05]

fastpitchdad05 - I agree with most of your points, with the exception of the qualifiers. If you look at the previous 2 year's qualifiers, I am not sure there were many teams from California that traveled to PGF qualifiers, with the exception maybe being the Arizona qualifier. PGF will need to keep the qualifiers with the appearance of being local. If you were to have 2 California teams qualify from each of the Indiana and Minnesota qualifiers and 3 more from the NE qualifier, you won't get as much participation from teams in those areas in the future. Because like you said, they have a greater shot at playing at ASA Gold.

The main issue I have with PGF is that they appear to change course midstream with regards to invited teams versus returning berths earned by finishing in top 8 (12 teams). Originally the invited teams were going to go away after year two and it was going to only be those 12 teams that earned return berths from the 2011 PGF national, no big deal. But then they went and invited the top 4 teams from ASA Gold (Funny I thought no good teams went there) and then invited I think 18 more teams half of which are California teams. IMHO this was done, because they cannot have a disproportionate amount of teams qualify at SoCal qualifiers, meaning the SoCal qualifier gets 8 berths while the SE qualifer gets 3.

Obviously they can run their event however they want, but changing things midstream to fit their agenda, doesn't make me think PGF is really all that different than any other organization.

You have a valid point, but it seems that that number is growing.

Here are the current numbers of CA teams that have begun the registration process in a qualifier outside their own (NorCal and SoCal excluded). I also listed non CA teams that were "out of their jurisdiction" so to speak:

PGF Qualifiers (Begun registration)

NW
12 - 0 of 0
14 - 3 of 7
16 - 5 of 12 (1 from NV also)
18 - 7 of 10 (1 from AZ also)

NTex
12 - 0 of 1
14 - 0 of 2
16 - 0 of 8
18 - 0 of 10

NE
12 - 0 of 1
14 - 0 of 6
16 - 0 of 0
18 - 0 of 0

Indiana
12 - 0 of 1
14 - 0 of 19 (1 from AZ)
16 - 0 of 12 (1 from OR)
18 - 0 of 17 (1 from TX and 1 from VA)

SE
12 - 0 of 3
14 - 0 of 2
16 - 0 of 1
18 - 1 of 7 (1 from TX also)

Minn
12 - 0 of 0
14 - 0 of 2
16 - 0 of 2
18 - 1 of 6

Colo
12 - 1 of 1
14 - 2 of 3 (1 from AZ also)
16 - 0 of 2 (1 from AZ)
18 - 0 of 5 (2 from AZ)

Tex
12 - 2 of 4 (2 from AZ also)
14 - 0 of 3 (1 from WA)
16 - 0 of 9 (1 from WA)
18 - 1 of 13

AZ
12 - 2 of 4
14 - 16 of 18
16 - 11 of 16 (1 from WA also)
18 - 3 of 9 (1 from TX also)

I realize that these numbers are subject to a lot of change and are premature. However, in its current state there's an 18U team in Minnesota that will likely be left out because a CA team is coming to town. And there's some potential problems in the SE, Colorado, and Indiana.

The NW region seems to be the hotspot (next to the nearby AZ of course) for CA teams to try and grab a berth that maybe they couldn't get at home.

As I said, the goal of PGF is to get the best of the best, for better or worse.

[jonriv]

I think PGF is still trying to figure out what works best. They are trying to attract the Best teams from around the country, but also have to make sure that their slots are filled to ensure the viability of the Tournament(more easily accomplished with good, local Socal teams) I have some suggestions that might help (No horse in the race- my DD is in college and would only be able to attend if there was a PGF 23u tourney!!!) I admire PGF for not only pointing out problems with ASA, but actually doing something about it.

First of all- if I was not on HB, I would have never heard of PGF(sad but true) I would say that is true of the majority of TB teams in my area. I think only some of the more ambitious Gold teams in the area have heard of it.


1. Get the word out- there are many excellent programs that are not aware of PGF. Need to shed the image that you need to be an insider to participate.

2. Add more regional Qualifiers and limit the geographic areas that a Qualifier will draw from(ie- there should not be California or Texas teams at Northeast Qualifier)

3. Invites should be to the following only:
-top 10 finishers in PGF
-hosts of "out of area" qualifiers
-(Here will be the controversy) #1 finishers in National Tournaments(ie ASA, USSSA, TCS PONY etc.....

4. Any team that places in the lower part of the tourney(lower 30) will not be eligible for an invite and MUST qualify the following year

I think this will allow for a larger pool of teams from which to draw while maintaing a higher competition level- similar to how the Boston Marathon is kind of the elite marathon in the US for "real" runners. It will prevent perpetual bottom placers from being there every year as well as introducing other programs to the top competition of PGF.. Just imagine- your team just won PONY Nationals and is think pretty high of itself- then they get an invite from PGF that basically says- "you think your good, why not test against the BEST in the Country"

Just some thoughts and as usual JMO

[1prouddad]

IMHO this was done, because they cannot have a disproportionate amount of teams qualify at SoCal qualifiers, meaning the SoCal qualifier gets 8 berths while the SE qualifer gets 3.

CUL - Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't think any So Cal Qualifier is giving 8 berths. 16's are getting 6, 18's & 14's are getting 4, and 12's are getting 3.
Most of the other qualifiers are only getting 2 or 3, while the Hawaii Qualifier is only getting 1 berth for each division and only teams from Hawaii are eligible to play in it.

You are missing something.

I stated that rather than keep their original plan of just providing berths based on the top 8 (12 teams), they extended that to include the top 4 from ASA Gold, plus they added 18 additional invitees. Of those 18 invitees, 9 were from California. Had they not done that, then they either would have had to 1) have more California qualifiers 2) have the California qualifiers get a disproportionate number of berths in order to get all 9 of those California teams in the national.

Yeah, I kind of thought that might be what you were talking about. We were on two different pages. I was only referring to the berths that they were actually handing out at the qualifiers - you went a little deeper than that, but I understand the point you are making.

[wichita]

I think PGF is still trying to figure out what works best. They are trying to attract the Best teams from around the country, but also have to make sure that their slots are filled to ensure the viability of the Tournament(more easily accomplished with good, local Socal teams) I have some suggestions that might help (No horse in the race- my DD is in college and would only be able to attend if there was a PGF 23u tourney!!!) I admire PGF for not only pointing out problems with ASA, but actually doing something about it.

First of all- if I was not on HB, I would have never heard of PGF(sad but true) I would say that is true of the majority of TB teams in my area. I think only some of the more ambitious Gold teams in the area have heard of it.


1. Get the word out- there are many excellent programs that are not aware of PGF. Need to shed the image that you need to be an insider to participate.

2. Add more regional Qualifiers and limit the geographic areas that a Qualifier will draw from(ie- there should not be California or Texas teams at Northeast Qualifier)

3. Invites should be to the following only:
-top 10 finishers in PGF
-hosts of "out of area" qualifiers
-(Here will be the controversy) #1 finishers in National Tournaments(ie ASA, USSSA, TCS PONY etc.....

4. Any team that places in the lower part of the tourney(lower 30) will not be eligible for an invite and MUST qualify the following year

I think this will allow for a larger pool of teams from which to draw while maintaing a higher competition level- similar to how the Boston Marathon is kind of the elite marathon in the US for "real" runners. It will prevent perpetual bottom placers from being there every year as well as introducing other programs to the top competition of PGF.. Just imagine- your team just won PONY Nationals and is think pretty high of itself- then they get an invite from PGF that basically says- "you think your good, why not test against the BEST in the Country"

Just some thoughts and as usual JMO

I would agree with that jonriv very well put...

[CULater]

I think PGF is still trying to figure out what works best. They are trying to attract the Best teams from around the country, but also have to make sure that their slots are filled to ensure the viability of the Tournament(more easily accomplished with good, local Socal teams) I have some suggestions that might help (No horse in the race- my DD is in college and would only be able to attend if there was a PGF 23u tourney!!!) I admire PGF for not only pointing out problems with ASA, but actually doing something about it.

First of all- if I was not on HB, I would have never heard of PGF(sad but true) I would say that is true of the majority of TB teams in my area. I think only some of the more ambitious Gold teams in the area have heard of it.


1. Get the word out- there are many excellent programs that are not aware of PGF. Need to shed the image that you need to be an insider to participate.- Agree

2. Add more regional Qualifiers and limit the geographic areas that a Qualifier will draw from(ie- there should not be California or Texas teams at Northeast Qualifier) Disagree all qualifiers should be national qualifiers anyone can attend

3. Invites should be to the following only:
-top 10 finishers in PGF Stay top 8 (its 12 teams)
-hosts of "out of area" qualifiers disagree - adds to the image that insiders get special treatment, and would lead to hurt feelings when one org. or location is picked over another.
-(Here will be the controversy) #1 finishers in National Tournaments(ie ASA, USSSA, TCS PONY etc.....Totally disagree - That would weaken the tournament. No different than ASA when you allow the Southern National 3rd place team to have an automatic berth into the following year's national, invites should only be the 12 teams that earned it on the field

4. Any team that places in the lower part of the tourney(lower 30) will not be eligible for an invite and MUST qualify the following year Agree

I think this will allow for a larger pool of teams from which to draw while maintaing a higher competition level- similar to how the Boston Marathon is kind of the elite marathon in the US for "real" runners. It will prevent perpetual bottom placers from being there every year as well as introducing other programs to the top competition of PGF.. Just imagine- your team just won PONY Nationals and is think pretty high of itself- then they get an invite from PGF that basically says- "you think your good, why not test against the BEST in the Country"
The perpetual bottom placers would just go to the PONY, USSSA, USFA etc. national and get their berth there
Just some thoughts and as usual JMO

[jonriv]

I think PGF is still trying to figure out what works best. They are trying to attract the Best teams from around the country, but also have to make sure that their slots are filled to ensure the viability of the Tournament(more easily accomplished with good, local Socal teams) I have some suggestions that might help (No horse in the race- my DD is in college and would only be able to attend if there was a PGF 23u tourney!!!) I admire PGF for not only pointing out problems with ASA, but actually doing something about it.

First of all- if I was not on HB, I would have never heard of PGF(sad but true) I would say that is true of the majority of TB teams in my area. I think only some of the more ambitious Gold teams in the area have heard of it.


1. Get the word out- there are many excellent programs that are not aware of PGF. Need to shed the image that you need to be an insider to participate.- Agree

2. Add more regional Qualifiers and limit the geographic areas that a Qualifier will draw from(ie- there should not be California or Texas teams at Northeast Qualifier) Disagree all qualifiers should be national qualifiers anyone can attend

3. Invites should be to the following only:
-top 10 finishers in PGF Stay top 8 (its 12 teams)
-hosts of "out of area" qualifiers disagree - adds to the image that insiders get special treatment, and would lead to hurt feelings when one org. or location is picked over another. To encourage more out of area qualifiers
-(Here will be the controversy) #1 finishers in National Tournaments(ie ASA, USSSA, TCS PONY etc.....Totally disagree - That would weaken the tournament. No different than ASA when you allow the Southern National 3rd place team to have an automatic berth into the following year's national, invites should only be the 12 teams that earned it on the field- ONLY First Place Finishers- And Only Larger NATIONALS

4. Any team that places in the lower part of the tourney(lower 30) will not be eligible for an invite and MUST qualify the following year Agree

I think this will allow for a larger pool of teams from which to draw while maintaing a higher competition level- similar to how the Boston Marathon is kind of the elite marathon in the US for "real" runners. It will prevent perpetual bottom placers from being there every year as well as introducing other programs to the top competition of PGF.. Just imagine- your team just won PONY Nationals and is think pretty high of itself- then they get an invite from PGF that basically says- "you think your good, why not test against the BEST in the Country"
The perpetual bottom placers would just go to the PONY, USSSA, USFA etc. national and get their berth there- they would not be eligible for an invite that year-would still have to go through a PGF qualifier
Just some thoughts and as usual JMO

As I said- some ideas- not perfect