Opening Day - January 1

We will have New Years and Opening Day simultaneously on January 1, 2012 at 10 am at the PS 141 Field in Riverdale at 237th Street. Havelock will do a Manhattan pick-up at 96th and Broadway at 9:20.

Our Peculiar Rules by Havelock Hewes

Over the years, SFLOI has adopted only a few special rules...

1) The Tree Rule - Trees, though not roots, are considered air. Any ball deflected off a tree may be caught for an out or land in fair territory for a hit. Balls lodged in trees may be plucked out or dislodged by ambitious fielders. Any ball lodged in a part of a tree in foul territory but not dislodged after 19 minutes shall be called a foul ball and play continues. Any ball lodged in a part of a tree in fair territory but not dislodged in 19 minutes shall be declared a triple.

2) The Havelock Rule (Named after Havelock, the rule was created to stop him from fouling pitches off and extending at bats to up to 15 minutes.) After two strikes, batters are allowed two foul balls. If they foul off a third pitch the batter is declared "struck out."

3) No runner is allowed to run into a catcher. The runner may slide into the plate or try to step around the catcher to touch home plate, but he may not initiate contact with the catcher. If he does initiate contact with the catcher he shall be declared out.

4) No runner may advance on a pick-off attempt.

5) A pitcher may ask one and only one umpire, for any reason, to not umpire in a game and this request shall be granted.

I think these rules have served us well. In an upcoming blog I will address the adoption of new rules. For now, I want to hear any comments from players who think we should repeal any of these...

Dues

For the last few years we have kept the annual dues at $35. However, all players are allowed to get in games unless we have 27 or more players. If we have over 26 players those who have not paid their dues can't play. In practice, in the small number of games that have a 26+ attendance, the non-dues payers strike a bargain with our treasurer, Gil Schmerler, to play at a reduced rate.

The parks department permits have gone up by over 50% and we have run through our windfall of cash from selling our baseball cards, so we will need to collect more in dues (or do more merchandising). We could put the dues up and/or collect from more people. One way to do this is to enforce the dues rule anytime we have 21 or more players (down from 27). Another suggestion, in addition to reducing the number of players needed to invoke the rule, is to have a steep $10 per day one-time fee and $20 for anyone who plays 10 or under games and a $35 fare for 11-plus games. The bookkeeping required to enforce this may be more than Gil is willing to take on.

More merchandising is another way to raise money. I am considering making a 30th Anniversary SFLOI Strat-O-Matic game. The hours that I would have to put into this project make it impractical for me to do for no money. But I may do it and keep half the profits from the game (to pay me about minimum wage for my work) and give half the profits to the league. Anyone else who would like to make this same merchandising deal with the league (baseball cards, yearbooks, t-shirts, etc) is welcome to do so.

I am interested in any thoughts or ideas...

THEME GAMES Havelock Hewes

From time to time, we eschew our normal practice of making up even teams in favor of a theme game in which sides are made according to preferences of, or facts about the players. Some of our theme games have been Fathers vs. Non-Fathers for Father's Day, Mets Fans vs. Yankee Fans during the mets-yankees world series, Manhattanites vs The World, and Marvins (those in Marvin Cohen style garb) vs. Freds (those in Fred Lang style uniforms) for Halloween, Communists vs. Capitalists and Christians vs. Jews. After the players have been divided into groups there are usually some players who don't fall into either group, these are divided in a way to make the teams as evenly skilled as possible. We also play some theme games based on innovating the game, such as our Backwards Game in which players ran from home to third base to second base to first base and home again. Some suggested games of these sort which we have not yet tried are a Both Ways game in which batters could decide to run to first or to third base and the defense would have to adjust, and the NyQuil Game in which all players would be required to take a large dose of NyQuil before the game. There is often some grousing from players about these games. "What if I don't consider myself a Capitalist or a Communist?," "Its not fair to make me drink NyQuil!" On average, we play about one theme game a season, though we encourage more. We have always imposed these games on the players with the caveat that no player need fall into either category to play, and, if we really played the NyQuil game we would allow players to opt out so that an even number of NyQuil players would be on each team. As for rules experiment games, everyone is required to play by the new rules. It has been suggested that we run a small number of games with some limited form of base stealing or that we try out some rules changes regarding retarding the ability to throw hitters out at first base from the outfield over a period of, say, ten games. It is expected of players to have, if not a positive attitude toward these games, at least a reluctant acceptance of them.

This winter, beginning with today's blog, we will be reviewing many of our rules and practices in order to have a codified rule-book and a more consistent set of practices. Your input, in the form of comments on these blogs will be given serious consideration before we make any final decisions. At the end of this process the rules will be presented for a vote by all the 2011 dues players.

CHOOSING TEAMS, CAPTAINS AND PITCHERS

Our practice is for Havelock (or, in his absence, other league officials) to make up two even teams. The results, over the years, have ranged from very successful (in 2010 almost 70% of our games ended with a 3-run or less difference) to modestly successful (above 50% within 3 runs). Opposed to a choosing-up process the system has several advantages...1) Since the aim of the chooser-uppers is to get the best team possible, it is quite likely that one chooser will outmanuever the other...2) When Havelock makes up the team, he makes sure to have the two best shortstops on opposite teams, a quality centerfielder for each team, etc. so that the overall quality of the game is as consistent as possible, 3) Havelock makes sure that if one team has a liability it is adjusted for with more high quality players on that roster...4) we get about 15 minutes more playing time by not having a choosing-up process.

For the last few years we have had captain/managers for each team. His duties have been 1) To make a batting order, 2)Assign positions and substitutions 3)Make sure an umpire is in place when his team bats, 4)Settle any disagreements with the opposing captain, 4)Make decision as to late-coming players entering the game (when there are an odd-number of players the team with less players gets the new one. when teams have an equal number of players, the team trailing at the end of an inning gets the choice of taking the new player or giving him to the other team),and 5)negotiate any trades to make the teams more even if the first game did not finish within 3-runs.

Most players do not want to take on the responsibility of being captain, so, in practice, it has turned out that about eight guys take turns.

The captain chooses a different pitcher for each game from among those players who regularly pitch. I have heard criticism of this approach, mostly from pitchers. Some desire a rotation of pitchers, others would like to engineer match-ups that are more even (say two sub-5 era pitchers going in game one and two higher-than 5 era pitchers going in game two). The results of leaving it to the captains has been more close games and a more even spread of innings pitched than when havelock used to assign pitchers.

Some time is lost between games when, after a lopsided game, captains have to come to an agreement on a trade. My suggestion is to give the captains a strict 5-minutes to do this, after which Havelock (or, in his absence, another league official) will impose a trade.

Please feel free to comment if you have a suggestion to improve these practices or if you feel we have hit on a successful way of choosing teams, etc.

Games of Dec 18

21 players braved near-freezing temperatures to play in the season finale.

Hewes 11, Melendez 7
Eric Schulman was 4-for-4 with a HR and 3 RBI, Cisco Velez was 3-for-4 with a HR and 5 RBI, and Bobby Echevarria also homered, as Havelock won his 21st game of the year. For Freddie's team, Jorge Davila homered, and Sam Melendez had 3 hits.

Parfrey 11, Garcia 9
Trailing 4-1 in the 5th, Parfrey's team exploded for 6 runs, and never looked back. Sam Magnus was 4-for-5 with 3 RBI, Bobby Echevarria was 3-for-4 with a HR and 2 RBI, and Josh Balsam's 2-out 2-run single was the go-ahead hit. Jorge Davila hit a pair of 3-run HR's for Garcia's team.

I am in the process of updating the stats, and in the next few days it should be complete. We will be back in action in January 2012, weather permitting.

Games of Dec 11

Hewes 11, Nilva 9
Havelock Hewes won his 20th, settling in after a rocky start. Sam Melendez was 3-for-5 with 3 RBI, and Sal Cipriano and Sam Magnus each added 3 hits. Bobby Echevarria had 4 hits for Nilva's team.

Velez 15, Melendez 6
Cisco Velez won his SFL pitching debut, backed by the bats of Sam Melendez (3-for-5, 4 RBI) and Sal Cipriano (3-for-3, 3 RBI). Alex Rivera hit his 21st HR, and broke last year's alltime RBI record-- Cid now has 94.

Games of Dec 4

Magnus / Hewes 19, O'Connor 11
The ball was flying out of MS 141 this Sunday. O'Connor allowed 9 runs in the first, including 3 2-run HR's. The game settled down after that, and O'Connor's team closed to within 13-10 at one point. Alex Rivera led the offense by going 4-for-4 with 2 HR's (#19 and 20) and 4 RBI. Sam Magnus also homered twice with 4 RBI, and Eric Schulman homered and drove in 3 runs. Mike Sulyman added 3 hits, and Havelock Hewes had 3 hits and pitched an effective 3-inning save. Bobby Echevarria homered twice for O'Connor's team, and Sal Cipriano was 3-for-3 with 3 doubles.

Melendez 9, Garcia 8
Freddie Melendez (18-10) took a 7-3 lead into the 6th inning, but Garcia's team rallied-- Eric Schulman hit a tying 2-run single, and Rich Rowlands brought in the go-ahead run with a flare down the RF line. Garcia seemed to be on his way to a win, but Josh Balsam reached on an error with one out, and Havelock Hewes walked. Both came around to score on walk-on Nick Bressers' 2-out, 2-run double to center. Melendez retired the side in order in the bottom of the 7th for the win. Sam Magnus homered twice more, and drove in 4 runs.

Rosengard 9, Sulyman 3
Dave Rosengard picked up his 3rd straight win, baffling his opponents with offspeed pitches. He was backed by the hitting of Ian Parfrey (3-for-4, 3 RBI), Cisco Velez (3-for-4, 2 RBI) and Eric Schulman, who homered and drove in 3.

This weekend also featured appearances by Larry Savell (2-for-3), Bill Vernick and Bill Weinberg (both DNP), and Ian Parfrey broke Zach Nilva's 1-year old hit record, and now has 155 hits on the year, most of them singles to right.