First, apologies that I did not get the blog from the previous weekend done. I started it a couple of times but I just ran out of time. And apologies in advance on this one, it’s going to be short (stop cheering) as my focus this week is the Big Show – the ISC World Tournament which starts in Kimberly on August 10 along with the ISC II Tournament of Champions the same day.

As for this past weekend, the biggest item on the table was the 2008 ASA National Championships in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. First off, we had no expectations at all that we would be receiving any results at all from them. We did offer but were politely declined; it appeared they had things in hand. They had their own web site with intentions of keeping it up to date. Our good friend Bill Plummer III was not going to be there this year either, he was busy putting the final touches to his new book, “The Game America Plays”, a 75 year history of the ASA. Bill has been a strong supporter of AlsFastball.com and over the years has done his best to either send us results when he is at the tournament or at least encourage the hosts to send us results. Before I forget it, there is a news item on http://www.alsfastball.com/ about Bill’s new book and there is a link on our front page to that item.

To our surprise over the weekend we did get results from the ASA’s. A hard working chap by the name of Jim Strick asked if we would like to have the game results and the box scores. The answer was “YES” of course. Had we known this was coming we would have featured this big tournament like we have done for others like the Legends, Snapper Shootout, Explorers, Monkton, Vancouver, etc.. When we know in advance that we are going to get a steady flow of results, we set up a page to show all the results in the sequence we receive them. For the ASA’s we simply built a news item http://tinyurl.com/6lkdty

We also set up a quick feature page with all the info received
http://www.alsfastball.com/uploads/File/2008%20ISC%20Files/ASA%20tournament%20results.htm
linked from our front page with their logo.

As it turns out, it’s probably a good thing that Jim Strick sent us the results in a steady stream of updates, as it appears the host site at Stevens Point was down quite a bit and as many fans pointed out, was a few hours behind the info we had. I have no idea why that happened, my communications with Stevens Point was all one way, info straight to me when they could send it, and they had no time to chat. But bottom line is they did a good job. I found it funny that whenever the host site was behind a few hours, I would get a handful of complaints from fans asking what the delay was. Maybe they thought I was in Stevens Point. I wish. It sounded like a good tournament and as personal notes from players came in yesterday, it was a great location for their big tournament.

Hopefully (according to some ball players) Stevens Point will get the ASA’s back again some year soon. I am pretty sure they will benefit from “lessons learned” and make sure that regular updates on their host site is a priority. There are a lot of people who cannot get there but they are keenly interested in what is going on with their favorite players/teams, etc. For 2008, we are glad that we could help in a small way and make the information available. The box scores and cumulative stats were excellent.

 

Also this past weekend, the OASA had its big weekend in Cobourg with the Intermediate and Senior Eliminations. The Senior side was almost a non event, with only Jarvis and St. Thomas playing, but important to both those teams none the less. St. Thomas won, but unfortunately we are still waiting for the WP and LP. ISC Statistician Gary Baughman was all over me looking for that information as he tracks ALL senior men’s teams in that lap top of his. I am sure other fans of the men’s game are also interested. The page with the report on the Elims is at: http://tinyurl.com/6m7jkg

The intermediate results were very good. (and we received WP and LP for the two Senior games played after this note went out - thanks to anon and anon2).

 

While I did not have the time to write a blog about the previous weekend, there was a lot of ball that weekend.

We had offered to feature the Vancouver Challenge. Bob Henning and Jim Johnson kept us updated with scores on a regular basis over the weekend and the results are featured at the page we built for them at:
http://www.alsfastball.com/uploads/File/2008%20ISC%20Files/Vancouver2008.htm
Sounded like a quality tournament. Maybe we will get out there one of these days to take it in.

The same weekend our ISC Travel League had their annual League Tournament in St. Catherines. This is an important tournament as it identifies which ISC team gets a berth for the 2009 WT and which ISC II team gets a ToC berth for 2009. I should have been there in person that weekend but I had some family obligations that weekend so best I could do was post what was phoned into me. Thanks to Colin Smith for keeping his cell phone busy calling me with the scores. See http://tinyurl.com/5gkzcj
We eventually got all the WP and LP so Gary Baughman should be happy.

 

Another “Big” tournament that was held the same weekend was in Middleton, Wisconsin, the annual NAFA/Farm Tournament. Results that we had are at: http://tinyurl.com/5nf7lj
Sorry, some games did not end up with a box score sent to us but you can find lots of info on their own site which is in the link above.

The same weekend, the Cubs Classic was held in Waterloo Ontario and our good friend Dennis Dosman did an outstanding job of writing up a good game report for every game. The work done by Dennis could easily stand as a glowing example of how to report games from a tournament. Always a pleasure Dennis! See his reports at: http://tinyurl.com/6rbgq4 

This week there are a few national tournaments being played and we will post what we receive while we are still on line however I encourage everyone to visit and support the host sites for the Midgets in Brantford http://www.2008midgetboys.ca/

Brantford has a nice feature of a live camera in action on Diamond 1 for all games.
http://www.2008midgetboys.ca/webcast.asp

And the Junior Canadians in Owen Sound: http://www.owensoundfastpitch.com/index.html

 

We will be offline this week (yes www.AlsFastball.com will close down for two days) while we travel to Kimberly Wisconsin. We will be down Thursday and Friday, August 7 and 8. Sorry in advance for the inconvenience. I will try and catch up when I get settled into Kimberly and have a connection, maybe Friday night.

On Saturday, August 9, I hope to be at the ball park in Kimberly checking my internet connection and giving my new ergonomic chair a spin.

On Sunday, August 10, the day starts off with the Hall of Fame Breakfast. This year it is NOT in the host hotel, it’s at Tanner's Grill & Bar address is 730 S. Railroad Street - Kimberly 54136. 
8:30am – see http://tinyurl.com/56ln7s

This link has maps.

The ISC II Tournament of Champions kicks off at 10am in Appleton. The results from the first two games should be reported on the ISC web site by noon when I hopefully will be in place ready to go in Kimberly. For the remainder of the ToC, until the championship on Wednesday, we hope to bring you game results right after each game ends. While I will be in Kimberly working, I have been assured by ISC II staff that they will be sending me instant updates for each and every game.

Book mark those links however I will be posting reminders once things are underway in Wisconsin.

 

The World Tournament kicks off at NOON on Sunday, August 10.

 

Also watch the news items section on http://www.iscfastpitch.com/

 

It is our intention, once again, to bring inning by inning updates from the World Tournament via the news page. Each game will be set up to show the inning and the score, plus pitching changes etc.
This is relatively easy to do as I am watching the game in front of me. We also plan to do the same for the games from Diamond 2 (the upper diamond) where Bret Baughman has a wireless connection and will be sending me inning by inning updates. Bret also plans once again to do live voice webcasts via his Yahoo connection as he has done in past years. More info on that option to follow from Kimberly.

So, in summary, we plan to once again bring you inning by inning updates via the news page on
http://www.iscfastpitch.com/ and scores and box scores on the 2008 Master Schedule page.
Generally the box scores are available within a few minutes after the end of each game. Those box scores come to me from Gary Baughman, the ISC Statistician who sits next to me, and from Bret Baughman, the Assistant ISC Statistician who will be working on the upper diamond.

For the fun of it, we saved all the inning by inning updates from 2007 and have posted them to:
http://www.iscfastpitch.com/uploads/File/2007%20ISC%20Files/2007%20ISC%20WT%20GAMES.htm

 

We will have more updates from Kimberly on a number of things so stay tuned.