may2006

Wood Bat League thoughts...

May 29, 2006

Lafayette, CO

 

As we started this league and entered into a partnership
with the NSA to host a national tournament we felt we had
two issues.

The technology of the bats had surpassed what the game
was supposed to ever play at. The second issue was the
raising of the strike zone back to the letters(at least).
Our first concern was bat durability,could we find a bat
that would be durable enough to play with and not become a
financial burden to play. We have found that Ash Bats will
break and we do not recommend them,at least not unless a
very high quality Ash.

We have found that Maple and Bamboo are very durable. In
fact, we have yet to break either bat in a game.
We wanted to make sure that the bats were durable but
also very playable. We still wanted the speed of the
fastpitch game without some of titanic shots being hit at
people the last several years. We found that a .47 core
ball with a wood bat is the Fastpitch game we were looking
for. The .44 Core ball is a little too dead and there is no
need for .50 Core.

The infamous Strike Zone issue. We have cussed and
discussed this issue for the last several years. Here is
the biggest positive...8 games all played to seven innings
with a 1:40 time limit. The game is picked up. There are a
few more riseballs thrown and not for waste pitches.
As a pitcher, I move back and forth between playing in
this league and our local league in Colorado. It is night
and day. There has not been an issue with an umpire with
the higher zone and umpires get screamed at nightly with the
lower zone.

The travel league concept this year was one team
traveling to play 3-4 games at someone elses home. Home
team pays all field,umpires and balls. The traveling team
pays to get there.

This concept has worked brilliantly. No ridiculous $350
entry fees plus travel expenses. No friday night motels and
early monday morning returns home in time to go to work.
Just Fastpitch Softball.

Al, thank you for keeping this list alive through the
years to give the fastpitch community a place to promote the
game.

I can't stress enough how willing these teams are to
play. If there is a team wanting to host or to
travel(especially in Colorado!!!HintHint,there are two teams
less than 2 hours from Denver willing to play)just drop us a
note.

Thank You,

Dave Parker
President
Rocky Mountain Fastpitch Association
Lafayette,Colorado
wyofastpitch@wyoming.com

 

 

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