Fleet Park Little League: FPLL News

Fleet Park Players, Parents, Families,
Over the week of Jun 28th through July 4th, Fleet Park Little League hosted 2 District 8 All Star tournaments—Major Baseball and Senior Baseball. At times there were 4 games going simultaneously, which is not unusual for us, except that during All Stars the crowds tend to be much larger and more boisterous!

The Park and the fields were in excellent condition! I received innumerable compliments on the conduct of the tournament, the staff that supported it, and the condition of the playing fields. Many folks admitted that they have seen no better facilities in all of District 8 and that they very much enjoy coming to Fleet Park to play baseball and softball.

Although there were “many hands making light work,” there are three people that I want to recognize for their efforts above and beyond—

Amber Pickrell—Tournament Director. Her attention to detail was paramount to our success. Her untiring effort to secure the needed volunteer announcers, scorekeepers, Duty Officials was the reason that games started on-time (or slightly before), that the fields were in Harbor Park condition, and that all the key personnel were at the appointed place and time.

Mary Ellen Triplett—Snack Bar Manager. Over the 8 tournament days, the Snack Bar receipts were over $5000! More significantly, through the use of high school students working the concessions, she minimized the need for players’ parents to spend additional time doing the heavy lifting (cooking) in the inside & outside Snack Bar. Innovative ideas, such as grilled bratwurst and Italian sausage, and snow cones paid huge dividends in the bottom line.

Jim Morrison—Daily Field Maintenance. There were many hands involved with getting the fields prepared to host the tournaments. However, after Jim finished his portion of managing a 9-10 All Star team, he spent some of every day making sure that the fields were ready for the Major Baseball tournament on 3 fields!! That is not a small task. I saw him there, by himself, watering, cutting grass, grooming the fields and putting down the lines. Herculean effort by a parent who didn’t have a player in either tournament!

The number of people that helped, in addition to these 3, are numerous--Matt Dolan, Mike Milligan, Rich Radford, Pete Markey, Lois Bashara, Gary & Weston Boswick, Tony Califano, Cynthia Riddick-Powell, The Califano boys—Patrick, Daniel, & Andrew, Shawn Eaton and his brother “T”, Tara Franklin and her softball mates Sidney & Kyle, Blair & Jimmy Hurley, Daniel DeSmitt.

My “Thanx” to each and every one of these people who volunteered part of a week of their summer vacation to make another tournament at Fleet Park a huge success. When you next see them, give them a handshake/pat on the back!

Charlie Triplett
President, FPLL

Come see the two Fleet Park 10-11 All Star teams play at Azelea Little League in Norfolk. The attachment has the bracket, follow the link to get to Azelea.

http://eteamz.active.com/azalealittleleague

Go FPLL!

Come see the Fleet Park 10-11 Softball All Star team play at Plaza Little League in Virginia Beach. The attachment has the bracket, follow the link to get to Plaza.

http://eteamz.com/PlazaLL/

Go FPLL!

Come see the two Fleet Park 9-10 All Star teams play at Plaza Little League in Virginia Beach. The attachment has the bracket, follow the link to get to Plaza.

http://eteamz.com/PlazaLL/

Come see the Fleet Park 9-10 Softball All Star team play at Virginia Beach Little League in Virginia Beach. The attachment has the bracket, follow the link to get to VBLL.

Go FPLL!

6/24/08 - updated tournament bracket: http://www.va8ll.org/Files/9-10SB.pdf

Come see the two Fleet Park Majors All Star team play at Plaza here at Fleet Park. The attachment has the bracket.

Go FPLL!

Come see the two Fleet Park Major Softball All Star team play at Plaza Little League in Virginia Beach. The attachment has the bracket, follow the link to get to Plaza.

http://eteamz.com/PlazaLL/

Go FPLL!

Come see the two Fleet Park Juniors All Star team play at Aragona-Pembroke Little League in Virginia Beach. The attachment has the bracket, follow the link to get to APLL.

http://www.eteamz.com/AragonaPembroke/

Go FPLL!

Come see the Seniors All Star teams play at Fleet Park The attachment has the bracket.

http://eteamz.com/PlazaLL/

Go FPLL!

 
A LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT OF FLEET PARK LITTLE LEAGUE

We only have a few weeks left in our inaugural regular season of Fleet Park Little League. I’d like to say that, as a new League, we have done a lot of things right. If you are truly interested in the health of Fleet Park Little League, please read this entire letter and refrain from jumping to the last paragraphs where I address the post-season and All-Stars.

Board Meeting Participation
It has been much better than years past! Not as long and to the point. Board participation is important and there will be plenty of opportunity for new members as some of the “gray beards” move out of the Major and Junior/Senior divisions. Our new board will stand up in September. If anyone is interested in serving in this capacity, please contact one of the current members and make your interest known. Our newest member, Tommy Leeman, stepped in after Dan Wisniewski stepped down from uniform manager ... a post he held so long it stretched back to before there were buttons!

Field Maintenance
Excellent. We had a slow start in the spring, but the fields were ready in time for opening day. More impressive has been the weekly field maintenance work that kept our ball fields safe, professional, and continually improving. Our clubhouse has most of the siding on it, and it even stayed on when the tornado came through Naval Base Norfolk. The fence isn’t falling down next to the road entering the park, thanks to some willing hands. But if softball doesn’t do something soon, their fence is going to enable them to retrieve foul balls from the Navy side! Thanks to Weston Boswick for the Eagle Scout project of erecting a fence to keep the little siblings out of the ditch next to the right field side of T-Ball.

Capital Improvements
We have spent nearly $8,000 to repair the dugout roofs so the plywood and shingles didn’t end up on someone’s head and the rafters wouldn’t join in the rotting process. After a season of curing, it would be nice if someone could find the time to paint that salt-treated wood that should be fully dried by the end of the summer. We had to spend $2,400 repairing scoreboards. I hope you have given careful consideration to making a pledge to help fund the replacement scoreboards. So far, we have received a very welcome $500 total.

Snack Bar
I trust that you’ve had good eats from our primary moneymaker. I think the Weekly Duty Snack Bar Manager operating procedure has worked well. Thanks to all who took on this responsibility and helped streamline the process of getting the Snack Bar open and operating. Thanks to Sharon Litton for overseeing the staffing, and to Mary Ellen Triplett for making the runs to Cosco to keep the hot dogs and Gatorade handy. I applaud all the teams for their willing and able support. A special kudo to the softball Crusaders who played a morning game at Naval Air Station and still showed up at Fleet Park for their Snack Bar duty that same afternoon.

Division Vice Presidents
Excellent job of recruiting managers and coaches, arranging schedules, and providing the leadership to your respective divisions to keep the season on track.


POST-SEASON and ALL-STARS

8-year-old Graduation Series
This series isn’t as much a tournament as it is an event where the 8 year olds say “good-bye” to the most important division in their Little League experience. It is a time for them to demonstrate that they have worked hard to develop the skills which will serve them well in the minors and eventually the majors. No, it is not open to anyone other than the rising 8s and 9s in the Coach Pitch Division.

There are a couple of reasons for this. 1) This is their year. This is their turn to show that they have developed the skills that will serve them in minors and majors. 2) This is not a 7-year-old’s year. He has another year in coach pitch to continue developing those same skills.

In recent years, especially this year, there was a tendency to hurry players from T-ball into coach pitch and then to hurry through coach pitch to minors. The result: good players who could help make coach pitch a better division ended up moving to minors where their 8-year-old skills lowered the overall level of play in that division.

Next year, we are going to divide coach pitch into two separate divisions — 8s and 7s, and 7s and 6s. They will play within their own division with operating procedures appropriate to each division. This will allow for a higher level of baseball and competition for the 8s in coach pitch, while continuing the focus on player skill development for both divisions.

This is the most important division in a player’s Little League development. The players that are representing Maury and Granby High Schools in the Eastern Region tournament all spent their time in coach pitch, moving up to minors when they were league-age 9. I know because I was a coach in coach pitch and my son is now a sophomore at Maury playing baseball.

District 8 All-Stars
The All Star teams representing FPLL, this year will be:

Senior Baseball
Junior Baseball
Major (11-12s) Baseball
10-11 Baseball (2 teams)
9-10 Baseball (2 teams)
Major (11-12s) Softball
10-11 Softball
9-10 Softball

The selection process
All-Star selection will take place the first week of June and the teams will be announced along Little League International guidelines, with most teams announced June 15. The 9-10 Baseball All-Stars will be announced a bit earlier because their tournament begins earlier than all others.

For baseball, the Junior and Senior teams are selected by the managers of those divisions. For all the other baseball categories, the managers of the Major Division baseball teams will select the teams. The procedure is this: The managers have canvassed all the teams to determine which players will be available for the tournament (District 8 and Virginia State) and for the practices that lead up to the district tournament. From that list of available players, each manager will nominate players they feel are qualified to play on the respective teams.

Voting is done by secret ballot; a unanimous vote is required in the first two rounds of voting for a player to be selected to the team. If after the second round of voting the team is not selected, then the majority vote will place a player, or players, on the team. The last two positions on each team are reserved for “coach’s choice.” Coach’s choice allows the team manager/coach to make sure that the team has key position players like catcher, outfield, special pinch runner, etc.

Softball will be a bit different since, for our league, the softball resurgence has come just at the time of the combining of the leagues. We may end up having only two teams, due to player eligibility based on number of games played. However, the selection process will be very similar to baseball.

I assure you that no All-Star team has been selected. The teams will all be selected by the procedure described above.

Fleet Park hosting District 8 All-Star tournaments
We are hosting two District 8 tournaments this year, the Major and Senior Baseball tournaments. Both begin June 28. Amber Pickrell is the Tournament Director and anyone interested in helping is more than welcome to volunteer. Hosting a tournament is both hard work and exciting. We will need people to help prepare the fields, announce the games, keep the official score for the games, help sell tournament T-shirts, and generally make the Park hum while we host teams from the Eastern Shore to Chesapeake. If anyone is interested, please contact either Amber or me. We will make sure you have an opportunity.

A final thought
Thank each and every one of you – parents, players, siblings and family – for making the 2008 season a great one, a season on which we can continue to improve.

Charlie Triplett
Proud President of Fleet Park Little League