District 5 Upper Division News

Hello to all....as we prepare for the new season, we begin the process of communicating and making sure that all the D5 leagues are aware of the happenings as it relates to the D5 Upper Baseball programs. We touched on a few things at last night's D5 meeting plus we had a meeting on December 6th, but as you prepare to register players for 2009 the following newsletter hopefully can assist, plus a few attachments can assist your league in answering questions that registrants and parents may have about the D5 upper baseball programs. If you have any questions, please let me know. Thanks, Bill Leith

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Major Baseball Tournament of Champions

Even though this is not considered upper baseball divisions, we have incorporated this tournament with the upper baseball divisions. This tournament is for league champions only. It will be single elimination tournament. Tentative plan, depending on the number of interested leagues, is to play the week of June 8-13th. D5 will schedule the volunteer umpires for this tournament. Wish to stress this is for league champions only--this is not an all-star tournament. One thing we will require in advance is submittal of your league champion roster to District prior to the start of the tournament. We will discuss more aspects of this tournament at the 2/16 meeting. In the meantime if your league is interested in participating, please e-mail back with your league's intentions. As of this newsletter, Western LL has thrown their name in the hat to participate.

JUNIOR BASEBALL

Attached is matrix that describes the Gold and Silver Divisions. Also attached is copy of the 2008 D5 tournament that depicts the great games we had in this tournament that where in some manner an indirect result of the Gold and Silver success we achieved in it's first year of operation.

Gold Division will remain playing doubleheaders on Saturday evenings, while the Silver Division will play two games during the week. This will allow players on the Silver Division to be available to their league's Gold team if needed to prevent a forfeit. This falls under the LL Regulation V.

Opening night for the Gold Division is tentatively set for Saturday, April 11th. The Silver Division will again be split into East/West side format. The East Side plans on starting the week of March 30th, while the West side plans on starting the week of April 13th.

Timelines:

Monday, March 9 - 7 PM - D5 meeting @ Windmill Inn. This is the night that we need to have confirmation of leagues that will ernter teams into the Gold and Silver Divisions. Important that on this night a league have at minimum 9 players registered to enter a team. We need to make sure that you have firm numbers registered and not be estimating. Leagues that have less than 9 players registered on this night, we will begin the process of combining with another league to make a team. We are not going to stretch this out like we have in the past and hope that players come aboard. The reason is schedules have to be developed, reviewed, approved and distributed, plus the umpire assignment schedule needs to be developed and sent out to the umpires at minumum couple of weeks before the start of the season.

Tuesday, March 24 - 7 PM @ Udall Center. Manager rules/schedule review meeting for East Side Silver teams.

Week of March 30 - East Side silver division play starts

Thursday, April 9 - 7 PM @ Windmill Inn. Manager rules/schedule review meeting for ALL Gold Division teams and the Silver teams of the West side.

Saturday, April 11 - Gold Division play starts

Week of April 13 - West Side Silver Division play starts

June 2nd - Silver Division post-season tournament comprising of all teams from both the East and West side.

Managers: Besides registering players, try and get you rmanagers established as soon as you can.

Player Evaluations: Reminder that if your league has a registered a good number of players for more than one team, highly recommend that you have player evaluations to establish your Gold and Silver teams.

Standings: We will again maintain standings for both the Gold and Silver Divisions. The final standings for the Gold Division will go towards a league's seeding in the D5 all-star tournament, while the final standings in the Silver Division will go towards the post-season tournament that starts June 2nd.

SENIOR BASEBALL (Wood Bat Division) (ages 14-15-16)

As we briefly touched on last night, D5, D12 have met with area high school coaches regarding the possibility of the school teams made up of mainly freshman and jayvee players that are between the league ages of 14-16 entering and competing in a planned Senior Gold/Open Division. Details still have to be worked on (waivers, regular season and tournament play) and we should have more information on this by the 2/16 D5 meeting. Attached is a plan that we are going to give to the school coaches that outlines the process for a school team to register with their local league and the minimum relationship requirements between the school and the league. IMPORTANT: In the meantime during the upcoming registration period, proceed and register all players that come to you--don't wait for the school teams----if we get school teams involved it will be at a later date and then at that time we will shake things out.

One of the main goals by going this route is to attempt in having our local high school coaches work with their local league for the purpose of developing coaching and player clinics. One of the main areas of improvement that we have noted in the upper baseball divisions over the years is the lack of coaching and understanding technique, practice scheduling and game strategy. It is hoped that if this relationship can be fostered that it have a mutal benefit for both the school and the league.

Players league age 14 is the "swing" age and they can play up in the Senior Division and can then play down in the Junior Division D5 all-star tournament provided the player meets all eligibility requirements.

The league/school partnership alignment is as follows:

LEAGUE SCHOOL

Amphi Amphi and Salpointe

Canyon Del Oro CDO

Canyon View Catalina Foothills

Continental Ranch Marana

Coronado Ironwood Ridge

Flowing Wells Flowing Wells

Frontier Catalina

Marana Marana

Tanque Verde Sabino and Tanque Verde

Thornydale Mountain View

Tucson Mountain Cholla

Sabino Canyon and Western do not have schools within their boundaries.

All leagues are eligible to enter a team into the Gold/Open Division if they have the registration numbers and feel they have the player skill level to compete at this level. It is planned to have a Silver/League Division for those individual or combined leagues that have players that they feel do not wish to compete in the Gold/Open division.

If the Gold/Open division becomes a reality it is tentatively planned TO have this division interdistrict with D12 and possibly D8. Depending on the number of Silver/League Division teams playing within D5 is planned. We are looking at again playing the Senior Division-Monday-Wednesdays and Fridays.

The school teams that enter will be coached by the school coaches. These coaches will still be required to complete the LL reguired volunteer application form and go thru the background process. The league teams will be coached by volunteer individuals that apply to the league to coach a team and receive approval by the Board of Directors.

Timeline:

Monday, April 13 -7 PM @ Windmill Inn (D5 meeting)- Deadline for league/team entry. Leagues that have registered less than 9 players will be combined with another league at this time.

Thursday, May 7 - 7 PM @ Windmill Inn - Manager rules/schedule review meeting.

Monday, May 11 - Regular season play starts--number of games dependent on the number of teams that enter.

June 30th - end of regular season. NOTE: D5 tournament not scheduled to start until after July 4th weekend in 2009.

BIG LEAGUE (ages 16-18)

There has been some interest expressed from a few leagues and school varsity teams in D5 about Big League. The Big league program is chartered and insured thru District 5. During the registration period, please accept all registrations.

The fee established for a team to enter and is paid directly to D5 is $800. The District will pay the charter, insurance and umpire fees out of this funding. The league/team entered still required to provide jersey, hat, equipment and game baseballs.

Timeline:

Big League play will not start until after Memorial Day weekend and play thru to July 3rd.

UMPIRES:

If you have individuals from your league that wish to umpire upper division baseball they must attend one of the umpire rules/mechanic clinics that Sara and Albert discussed last night to be eligible for consideration and scheduling to Junior Baseball Division games.

AIA umpires will be assigned to all Senior and Big League games.

Bill Fronzaglio will be assigning umpires for all upper baseball division.

Albert Calderon will assign umpires for the Major Division Tournament of Champions

Fees:

Junior Division $30 per umpire ($60 per game)

Senior Division $40 per umpire ($80 per game)

Big League $45 per umpire ($90 per game)

Payment Procedure:

Same process as last year. Home Team required to pay the blues at the pre-game meeting at home plate. Game Day Card will again be used and will be signed by the blues and returned back to the home team manager after the game. The manager is required to turn this game card back to the league which will represent receipt for the league financial records

Game Day cards will be issued to all team managers at the respective pre-season meeting

UPPER BASEBALL COORDINATOR:

We are getting some good response from leagues towards this position that represents your league with D5. For those leagues who at this time have not yet found someone for this position, if and when you do get such an individual please let me know.

D5 UPPER BASEBALL ADMINISTRATION:

Bill Leith, Upper Baseball ADA

e-mail: EBleith@comcast.net

e-mail: leithw@fm.arizona.edu

cell: 907-7870

Junior Silver Division East Side Coordinator:

Irvin Richards

e-mail: homemeister@comcast.net

cell: 982-0181

Junior Silver Division West Side Coordinator/Umpire Assigner

Bill Fronzaglio

e-mail: sales@bronlyn.com