http://www.ourmidland.com/articles/2009/06/14/sports/doc4a3463f3a29e8726834966.txt
ISC leader likes what he sees in Midland
(Midland Daily News)
By John Kennett
of the Daily News - Midland, MI
jkennett@mdn.net
Published: Sunday, June 14, 2009 2:04 AM EDT
It’s still over a year away, but already preparations are in full force for the 2010 International Softball Congress World Tournament to be held next August.
These past few days, ISC Executive Director Ken Hackmeister has been in town making sure that everything is on track.
“We put in a full day,” said Hackmeister on Friday evening. “This morning we toured prospective hotels for our headquarters. Then we had to be here and meet with the (Midland) Parks and Recreation staff and toured all of Emerson Park and Redcoats (Softball Complex). And we went to Sports Junction and talked to them about possibly handling souvenirs and awards.”
With the potential of up to 80 men’s fastpitch softball teams descending on Midland next August, Hackmeister is pleased with the progress of preparations.
“I have to tell you, I take my hat off to the Explorers, they have done a tremendous job in getting things organized in a very short period of time,” he said. “They put together a tournament committee and have already solicited and obtained several sponsorships.”
Midland has been on the ISC’s list of potential host cities for years.
“We’ve been talking to Midland for about 10 years,” said Hackmeister. “The problem in the past has been a political situation where Midland has always been (Amateur Softball Association) oriented. Unfortunately, that prevented getting approval for hosting the ISC tournament. Apparently, that has changed in the last couple of years.”
Hackmeister is eager to see Midland host the 2010 tournament.
“We are genuinely excited about coming to Midland,” he said. “A lot of us played here in the ASA nationals in past years. Everyone is familiar with the facilities and the reputation that Midland has as a host community is outstanding.”
One thing Hackmeister is not excited about is the declining popularity of fastpitch softball.
“Our sport has been losing teams for over 50 years to the point now where it is critical,” said Hackmeister. “And you can’t have a tournament like ours without a reasonably competitive host team. So, many locations are precluded because they don’t have a competitive host team. That dynamic really restricts who we can approach.”
Hackmeister believes a lack of strong, national pitchers has led to the decline of men’s softball.
“It is my opinion that the U.S. has gone downhill because we have not developed pitchers,” he said. “Everybody out there is buying a foreign pitcher. Almost everybody (at the Boulevard Lounge Tournament) has a foreign-born pitcher. We have been trying to put a huge development on pitcher development. But, unfortunately it has fallen on deaf ears.”
With the top teams having available funds to buy pitchers, it only contributes to the decline of the sport.
“The teams with money are able to buy the best pitchers and have dominated to the point that they are forcing the less well-financed teams out or down,” he said. “It’s a huge problem and there is absolutely nothing we can do about it. We don’t govern the teams.
We can’t go to a sponsor and tell them how they spend their money. It’s totally a free enterprise system.”
To show how far the U.S. has fallen, Hackmeister boldly predicted that the USA. National Team would fail to place at the upcoming International Softball Federation World Championship.
“For the first time ever, the USA will not medal this July,” he said. “Even with that prediction, two of the three pitchers on the USA National Team are Canadian born.”
The problem of obtaining host cities is indicative of the decline in popularity of men’s fastpitch softball over the years.
“Ten to 15 years ago, it was not unusual to have 2-to-5 cities at our tournaments competing to host the World Tournament,” said Hackmeister. “They would all put on a presentation and do some wining and dining, and then we would have a vote. The last tournament that we had an actual competitive bid was 2004 and we awarded that bid in 2002.”
Since then, the ISC is being forced to see which cities are willing to host a championship and enter into negotiations with them.
“With Midland, we didn’t have a bid, we just negotiated,” he said. “In 2011, we are going to Kitchener, Ontario. There, we didn’t have a bid, we just negotiated. We did not have a bid to eliminate anybody, but we knew from our conversations that there was nobody else out there interested.”
