Money First - Safety Second

[ScoringPosition]

Once again I ask about the families not just the players. The little brothers and sisters are going to run and play all day without proper hydration if the family cant afford to keep buying drinks from concessions. We had one parent that had to leave the park because she had two children under the age of two who were cooking in the 100+ heat and she did not have the money to keep buying them drinks from the concession stand. So the result is if you cant afford to buy concessions then your not welcome at the park or you can stay and put the kids at risk. Bad business for our sport. I really think this is a cause worth fighting for!
Is this going to be the policy at Field of Dreams for the World Series? Not a good start if the answer is yes. Move the tournament to Southlake or another family friendly park. Is this going to be the policy at Killeen for Southern Nationals? It could affect who goes from our team families because they have a really bad taste in their mouth after this weekend.

I focused more on the players because they are the ones who are exerting effort and requiring water and they are "captive" in the games. While I too think it's a bad situation for families I also know they are not tied down to their lawn chairs nor or they locked in to concessions. They can get up and walk out to their cars to get drinks or food if they want. Like I said earlier, we saw this all the time for years and we just knew to have coolers in the car and we went to the parking lot once in a while. Wives and mothers also would carry a purse with a bottle or two in the bottom for small children. If purses weren't huge they generally didn't get a second glance.

Reality is that many parks have concession contracts that pretty much determine concession policy. The company running the concessions have to make a profit and that's more difficult than many might think, so they will want the no-cooler policy enforced. It makes for a tough situation in some ways but you can deal with it and it doesn't have to be a lot of drama. Once you do this a while you get used to it. Just tell your team families to carry coolers. Not wonderful but a way to get by.

[HoosierCoach]

What about the "Keep Everyone to Sunday" policy? At the AL state last weekend we had 95-98 degree heat, with ~90% humidity. The last game start time on Sat was 6pm. Everyone came back Sunday, as nobody was eliminated Sat. This meant that in order to win the tourney, a team from the loser bracket would have to win 8 games in one day. Ridiculous.

[dgorsuch]

2010 VTDSoftball World Series Nationals Big League Dreams
Gate fees will be as follows:
Full Event
Adults $30
Kids (4-18) and Seniors $20
Day Passes
$10/day

WEATHER
Teams should expect temperatures in the high nineties to lower one hundreds (95-108 degrees).

SAFETY
Visiting teams and coaches should take comfort in knowing that your host association will have
medical personnel, experts in dealing with heat as well as many of the modern protective measures such as access to Doppler radar, etc.

COOLERS
Coolers are not allowed inside the park. You can bring in bottled water. Big League Dreams has see thru coolers for rent that you can bring your bottled water in with. These coolers can’t contain food items. Picnics inside the park area are not allowed.

PICNICS
Team picnics and/or cookouts must be done outside the softball parks. Big League Dreams has 2 on-site restaurants/sports bars available to purchase food and beverages. Prices are very reasonable.

HEAT
The heat index and dehydration can be a significant factor during championship play. While dugouts are covered, all teams, both players and fans should take caution whenever possible. The 2 restaurant areas on each side of the park provide a perfect AIR CCONDITIONED view of all 4 fields. Players should continuously drink liquids during warm-up and play. Once a player is diagnosed as dehydrated medical attention should be sought and given. Prevention is the key to weather. Should high temperatures become a factor, coaches should discuss procedures during their plate conference with attending umpires.

[Seven's Mom]

Holy smokes! This almost sounds like an adversitement for the over priced Gatorade at the concessions......Am I right in reading between the lines?

Translation:

We are going to charge you a huge sum to watch your kid play. Warning: it's going to be dangerously hot, so we will let you bring in water in the see-through coolers you can rent for an undisclosed sum. We have medical personnel to help when your dd suffers a heat stroke because she has lost more than fluids while out on the fields all day, and any beverage that will help replace electrolytes and carbohydrates will cost you. Forget bringing in an energy bar or fresh fruit, you have to eat the junk served at the restaurants. Oh, but when your dd throws up on the field from the cheese fries and or nachos she ate, we have medical personnel on site.

Feeling a little pessimistic this morning.

[CatWoman]

The fields should absolutely allow team coolers and if someone feels the need to look inside to make sure they don't have something they shouldn't have in there, go ahead and make a fool out of yourself. I think it is pretty ridiculous and leaves a bad taste in everyone's mouth; it's bad business. That being said, dd has played at plenty of fields where they have this policy and many times she has walked in with her water jug in one hand, equipment bag in the other and not one time (knock wood) has anyone said anything to her about it. She also keeps extra water in her bag and has not encountered a problem. Concessions has an obligation especially where there is a gate fee to keep prices reasonable and charging more than $1 for a bottle of water is unreasonable. As for the mom who had to leave because she couldn't afford the water for her kids under the age of 2, it sounds like she was unprepared. I don't know of any mom with small children who doesn't have a backpack or purse/diaper bag or car full of drinks. Hopefully there was a water fountain working somewhere. Another reason some of the parks have cracked down on coolers is because of alcolhol (I know, hard to believe ) being brought in. What I don't get is that they don't worry about people drinking at a picnic, but as soon as there is a game going on, it becomes an issue. Just my .02 cents.

[intheknow]

2010 VTDSoftball World Series Nationals Big League Dreams
Gate fees will be as follows:
Full Event
Adults $30
Kids (4-18) and Seniors $20
Day Passes
$10/day

WEATHER
Teams should expect temperatures in the high nineties to lower one hundreds (95-108 degrees).

SAFETY
Visiting teams and coaches should take comfort in knowing that your host association will have
medical personnel, experts in dealing with heat as well as many of the modern protective measures such as access to Doppler radar, etc.

COOLERS
Coolers are not allowed inside the park. You can bring in bottled water. Big League Dreams has see thru coolers for rent that you can bring your bottled water in with. These coolers can’t contain food items. Picnics inside the park area are not allowed.

PICNICS
Team picnics and/or cookouts must be done outside the softball parks. Big League Dreams has 2 on-site restaurants/sports bars available to purchase food and beverages. Prices are very reasonable.

HEAT
The heat index and dehydration can be a significant factor during championship play. While dugouts are covered, all teams, both players and fans should take caution whenever possible. The 2 restaurant areas on each side of the park provide a perfect AIR CCONDITIONED view of all 4 fields. Players should continuously drink liquids during warm-up and play. Once a player is diagnosed as dehydrated medical attention should be sought and given. Prevention is the key to weather. Should high temperatures become a factor, coaches should discuss procedures during their plate conference with attending umpires.

Come on Joe …If ASA did this kind of crap you would be on here blaming the G man in Fort Worth.

VTD Nationals is a joke, save your money and play in a RR with all these local B teams..

Joe hey don’t forget to buy your trading pins for this Nationals…
I will be at College Station where there will be over 150 teams all over the US that had to actually qualify to get in.

[pbj2000]

I'm not a big fan of "intheknow" but the truth is, if this is about the girls and about the sport...then this is not good business. Kind of sounds like business as usual and it feels like a Triple Crown Tourney or an ASA tourney. I thought things were going to be different? See through coolers? Air conditioned restaurants?

over 100 degree temperature? I hope all the stands and dugouts are equipped with water sprayers.

[PDad]

I'm not a big fan of "intheknow" but the truth is, if this is about the girls and about the sport...then this is not good business. Kind of sounds like business as usual and it feels like a Triple Crown Tourney or an ASA tourney. I thought things were going to be different? See through coolers? Air conditioned restaurants?

over 100 degree temperature? I hope all the stands and dugouts are equipped with water sprayers.

What is the rental fee for one of these coolers?

See-through cooler.jpg (5.37 KiB) Viewed 3429 times

[larry111]

I sat here and read all the post about this because I spoke to Doug G. today. I was told about all this going on here and just wanted to read peoples opinions on here. I have a few comments myself.
1. Being charged gate fees to get in to play ball.
I bet not one complaint is ever launched when one of these parents complaining here about paying a gate fee or having to buy from concession stands at parks because they don't want to walk back to their vehicle; when they are going to Texas Motor speedway to spend probably 500 hundred plus dollars per family, or Six flags , The Ranger game, the new 400 million dollar tax payer payed cowboy stadium, The movie Theaters that people go to every week and spend a 100.00 plus to see a 90 plus minute not including the 20 dollar bucket of pop corn and the ten dollar coke. They don't demand that these facilities allow them to bring their own coolers in. They gladly go and take their kids and pay 10 dollars for a coke or 5 dollars did you hear it 5 dollars for a bottle of water. Everyone gets the point.

Everyone wants nice facilities to play at but does not seem to want to pay for it. It cost money to rent these nice facilities. They are nice because they charge higher prices. There is not one place in this country that allows youth sports to be played on a regular basis that are allowing kids to drop dead from dehydration. It is utterly ridiculous to even suggest such a thing. Any place you go to will give you a cup of water for free. You want bottled water then you are going to have to pay for it. It is a convenience. We all have to pay for conveniences. They are not free. You want cheap bottled water then go buy some from walmart.
The same people in here trying to make private businesses change their policies are probably the same ones that go to a privately owned restaurant and demand that the owner not allow smoking or alcohol sale. You do not like the service go some where else. Don't try to make everyone suffer because you don't like something. This is the way it is in life. You want nicer things you are going to have to pay for it. For every one team that does not want to play at these parks that have policies like BLD or any other park, there are 10 who do want to. As long as there are teams that make a FREE CHOICE to go to these facilities then there will be nice class A facilities to play at.

[TexasSoftball]

Per Larry: Everyone wants nice facilities to play at but does not seem to want to pay for it. It cost money to rent these nice facilities. They are nice because they charge higher prices.

What are the tourney signup fee's for if they are not to pay for the use of the facility. And with these gate fee's, shouldn't we see something that we didn't see the last time we were there at that same field and there was no gate fee? Also, how come they allow us to bring in our coolers to all of the other tournaments, except for the NATIONALS?