fastpitchfever16 wrote:
Back to my original point of the elite teams shutting other teams out. I have no problem with these teams getting toghether and playing each other and obviously I cant do anything about it even if I did. My problem comes when a fairly large group of teams who are obviously the best teams in North Texas get together and decide to circumvent the system by dropping several tournaments in favor of playing in these "friendlies" in order to not have to play the weaker teams and save some money. This friendly was not the last of these in fact there are going to be many more of them from what I understand and these teams are going to play in far less N Texas tournaments. This is bad for N TEXAS softball. If you take all of the best talent out of VTD/ASA tournaments then how are the other teams supposed to get better if they never get to play the best teams. How many fewer tournaments will make as a result of this. How much less money will the venues that host our tournaments make and will they in turn host less tournaments. What if all the other age divisions follow suit and you have the top 10 teams from each age division who start playing less tournaments. This is a slippery road that I dont think we want to go down and I were the head of an organization which obviously I am not I would not allow my teams to take part in this. It is bad for North Texas softball which should be important to all of us. I know we all have our team affiliations which is fine but we should also care about advancing our sport in our region in order to represent us at national events and get more North Texas girls into college softball which I thought was all of our goals.
which came first. the chicken or the egg. the reason these teams are doing this is that the vtd/asa tournaments are so watered down. every team that places in a tournament thinks its time to play up. every dad that gets mad because his dd isnt the #1 pitcher and batting cleanup starts his own team, struggles to attract talent, and waters down the tourneys. how are these so called elite teams supposed to get better to "represent us at national events" if they are forced to play teams that are not even close to playing them.
i just dont get it. people on here went crazy when some team beat another 20 to nothing this fall (or whatever it was). what do you think is going to happen if these elite teams show up to vtd/asa tourneys?
how about the sanctions stepping up? come up with some regulations for teams playing up or lets go back to A/B. they wont. know why? turning away teams equals turning away money. i didnt see you on here complaining when the A/B disappeared. looks like ASA is making an attempt with their invitational next month but thats one opportunity.
i dont see why those other teams would have a problem. this gives them a chance to win a trophy and the "elite" teams can prepare for nationals. they are in two different worlds. why is a semi-separation a bad thing for softball. if anything, its probably a good thing.