Weather The weather has not been kind to us with the last two Saturdays washed out. The replays of these washouts will need to be played by 23 December.

• The Under 14 Hay and Under 12 Douglass have provision for a wash out weekend in the draw on 22 December.

• It has been suggested that Hills determine which games in Ken Douglass and Graham Hay Leagues are played on the washout weekend  provided for in the draw on 22 December. We have done that and selected the round that was washed out last Saturday (10 November 2007). Clubs have been advised. Should teams agree to play the games earlier than 22 December then we would have no objection, in fact we would encourage that to happen.

Pitching Rules: The pitching rules are about to alter as we are concerned about a ‘loophole’ that exists if games are played on a Thursday. To prevent over use of pitchers we need to clarify our rules so as to reflect the number of days rest between assignments. We are proposing to re-word the rules to provide a basic rule which will require any pitcher who throws more than 30 pitches in an assignment cannot pitch again within 60 hours of the first pitching assignment.

The absolute limit of not being able to throw more than 128 pitches in any 5-day period would remain unchanged. The existing rule requires 36 hours between assignments (that was to allow games played on Thursday) - but really throwing 75 pitches Thursday - the pitcher should not pitch for three days (at least) - means misses pitching on weekend. The rules, as they exist now, allows the pitcher to throw another 53 pitches.

The change only affects games played on a Thursday. The "36-hour break" becomes a 60-hour window instead - effectively means that a coach playing on Thursday night at {say} 7pm needs to consider what he wants to do before 7am Sunday before he throws more than 30 on Thursday. That will mean that ALL of Saturday gets captured by the rule.

Suggest Rule 8.1(f) [relating to finishing the batter] is emphasized. Finishing the batter is an allowance when the maximum number of pitches has been reached. Finishing the batter after reaching the magic number of 30 has been reached means that the pitcher will need a 60 hour ‘rest period’.

New Route to Bensons Those travelling to Bensons Lane along Windsor Road should be aware of a new quicker route. The Government has constructed a new bridge spanning the flood plains at Windsor and there is no need to go all the way to the Jolly Green Frog Hotel and turn left. The new road is called Hawkesbury Valley Way (at Macquarie Street). Turn left after passing Bunnings and immediately before McDonalds on Windsor Road at Mulgrave (the street name may be Groves Street), follow the road through. It is now a straight run joining up at the lights at intersection of Macquarie Street and Richmond Road (where you used to turn right).

More Rules In the correspondence Kings Langley sought clarification on several Playing Rules. The underlying concern is that there are people who knowingly deliberately breach the rules for their own (team) advantage.

VSEG Grant We have collected and paid for the laptop and sundry hardware funded by the VSEG program. It will make its first appearance at tonight’s meeting. The LCD projector and some ancillary software is on order but hasn't yet been delivered. Due to the lag between applying for the grant and banking the cheque, the machine is actually far more powerful than the one we asked for originally.

After the obligatory countless hours of setup work associated with anything involving Microsoft, it is now functioning and is available to member clubs upon request. It will be useful next season in recruitment (eg: - running presentation material in shopping centres etc) but in the meantime will spend its life with Peter collecting archive material that will eventually end up on our websites. We are now able to deliver stuff that does not involve the personal computer equipment of members {although we will still rely on and be grateful for their time).

Equipment. Bats are back on the items to be discussed. Baseball NSW JLSC has included it on its agenda tomorrow night (at the request of The Dugout). That will be an interesting discussion.

Generally speaking the restriction of ‘high tech bats’ – two piece and carbon fibre bats has been accepted. Our problems are now (i) the length to weight ratio of – 7 and (ii) the diameter of the bat.

We will do the diameter of bats first. The rules state 2 ¾”” max diameter. The 2 ¾” dia bats were phased out in the USA as part of the solution that USA attempted to find a solution to the ‘bat problem’. Simply just read 2 5/8” dia. in lieu of 2 ¾”. You could ban the 2 ¾” dia bat however I think some are still being sold (dumped) in Australia. Read the printing on the bat.. Too light for use in High School play.

The length to weight ratio is more difficult. Our rules say – 7 in Under 14 but they are now difficult to obtain and bats being sold are becoming lighter and lighter. The norm for Under 14 bats are -8 but some as light as -8.5. Somewhere we need to draw a line in the sand and do what we believe. The same problem is happening in Under 12 and 10 with bats as light as -11 and -12 being common place in the stores. This problem transfers into Little League.

The problem is that the Australian Baseball Federation makes the rules. Its rules are for the only competition they conduct which use aluminium bats– the National Under 16 and 14 Championships where players are much more talented.

These rules do not transpose to local competitions which has a large difference in the individual player’s ability. This difference is not only from team to team but within teams.

Independence means that Associations should be able to make rules for their competitions (they know their situation best) – not what manufacturers want to sell.  This is the same sort of argument as the New York Council raised – the right to do so.

Little League is back on our agenda. If we are going to run it we need to run it in January School Holidays just to conduct the 12 game competition. Having made the decision we should go ahead and see what happens. This means that we will be writing to players in the next fortnight to gauge the interest.

Cumberland was only able to form one Little League team. On the other hand Greater Western has six teams playing in a mid week competition.

My information from Victoria is that clubs do not like the rules ( quoting go backwards 20 years) and that it is not being implemented at club level rather it is the representative teams that are the Little League teams…. The playing field is not level across Australia.

BNSW. Our disillusionment with Baseball NSW continues to grow on a number of fronts. 

We were absolutely ‘gobsmacked’ to receive a Breach Notice against Greg Giffin  charging with a Grade 4 charge of Bringing the Game into disrepute. The penalty, if Greg was found guilty, would have been between seven to 26 weeks.

The basis of the charge was brought by Baseball NSW based on the Umpires reports, not a protest by Bankstown. The claim was that Hills players made errors and an umpire (both umpires were Hills ‘people) thought that the errors were deliberate and the players were told to make them. He used three plays to illustrate his claim – two of these ‘errors’ resulted in outs anyway. The facts were- Hills won the game 19-3, scoring runs in every innings, made three errors in the game and the three pitchers averaged an overall 12.3 pitches per innings.

There were inconsistencies between the two Umpire’s reports. In the end Greg was found not guilty and apparently the Judiciary Committee was surprised that he was cited on such flimsy evidence.

It certainly was a very difficult time for Greg. The hearing lasted 45 minutes.

# They do not answer any correspondence. Mark Bricknell sought clarification re the number of defensive outs required by the Under 14 Association Cup team. That was weeks ago, well before the Bankstown game and to the best of my knowledge has yet to receive a reply.

# The conduct of the SJC and Association Cup competition is totally foreign to what we were used to under NSWJBL – basically there is no one is at the wheel.

Last weekend was totally frustrating. On Monday of last week we advised Baseball NSW that, in accordance with the rules, we were playing the washed out games in Under 12 and 14 on Sunday 11 November and asking to transfer the Under 16 game from Castle Glen to Colbee. This was to make it easier in the allocation of umpires.

By Thursday with no reply we prompted Baseball NSW as to what was happening(yet another example of correspondence being ignored). The verbal response was basically if the teams agree then do it – obviously it is too much trouble to administer a competition that basically should run itself.

As it made a significant  difference to the time the game was to be played ( 2pm instead of 9am) and the lateness in the week we opted to leave the game at Castle Glen.

It was not until Baulkham Hills Council closed its grounds on Friday that we started direct negotiations to alter the venues with Bankstown and Ryde and Manly Under 14 Association Cup teams.

On Friday after I had Bankstown ( Under 16) and Ryde and Manly  Under 14 Association Cup teams agree to change the venue to Bensons - Baseball NSW advised Manly it was calling the round off because Baulkham Hills Council closed its grounds and 60% probability ( after three inches of rain) was not a guarantee of playing.  I was never informed of the decision neither was Ryde– just completely ignored us and completely forgot about the Bankstown game.

I’ll leave you to guess my response when Manly forwarded the advice to me. Ryde’s coach’s response was similar – in the end “If you want to play then you can”

# I wrote to clubs warning them that the Baseball NSW Invoices for player’s registration and insurance may well be incorrect in relation players nine year old born before 1 May (the cut off date of LL) were being charged $55 in lieu of $33. These players are eligle to play Mod Ball or T Ball. It certainly affected Hawkesbury’s invoice.

Clubs We owe a great deal of thanks to Hawkesbury and Oakville Clubs ( Rod Tuckwell , Garry Bailey and Dave Frew in particular) in preparing their diamonds for play on Sunday morning. It was not an easy task – Friday was a pretty good weather day with only about 2mm of rain falling – but both venues received two lots of rain during Saturday which undid a lot of the drying process that had been achieved on Friday.

On Sunday both venues, with five diamonds, were open and available for use by 9am. Garry and Dave toiled extremely hard for absolutely nothing when Ryde did not turn up at Colbee- neither myself nor Peter Schmidt heard from them or Baseball NSW.

Hills21 DVD  Greg Robinson has provided more copies of the Hills 21 video – cost is $10 if any one is interested.

YL Draw There is going to have to be a change in the draw for Youth League. The Youth League in Hills returns to play on 19 January – the problem is that the National Under 16 Championship does not conclude until 19 January. This will be achieved by swapping the rounds of 14 December and 18 January. This change will see Baulkham Hills v Kellyville – the two teams that have five State players between them. It will avoid one unnecessary midweek replay for two clubs

Development The midweek development program was to commence last week but was affected by weather. We are offering pitching and catching development at Centenary on Thursday nights and are prepared to conduct sessions for clubs on most Tuesday and Wednesday nights. So far we have been to Carlingford (twice) and have bookings for Winston Hills tomorrow night and Hawkesbury tomorrow week. It is not a program to teach players to throw and catch. It is a specialized pitchers and catchers program.

Equipment The breakaway bases are on back order. They have left China and will be here soon.

Dispensations Tonight’s meeting would not be complete without having more dispensations to consider. There are two for consideration. In addition Peter has the results of the questionnaire on the Dispensation Policy. A summary of the responses are as follows:

• The clubs want two different policies: - one for kids playing up and a second one for those playing down.

• Parental waivers will avoid most of our current internal red tape.

• Formal assessment of players, one-by-one, is going to remain a core requirement.

• Balancing team numbers is not a reason for a dispensation.

• The bulk of the advisory "guidelines" currently in force will remain guidelines, not hard rules.

• Any child playing under dispensation will not be allowed to pitch or catch.

• The clubs want to maintain control over Little League dispensations.

The Secretary’s report was accepted.

• The Under 14 tour to Thailand has been cancelled due to insufficient interest.

• Proceeding with one last try for the Under 13 Christmas tournament in Taiwan.

• NSWJBL have been informed that an organisation can obtain Public Liability and Medical Insurance for teeball at $6 per player.

Mr. Catt reported on the NSW JLSC October meeting.

• There will be a Level 0 umpires accreditation course at Aquatic Reserve, Frenchs Forest on 19-26 October.

• Little League Finals will be held at Samuel Marsden Reserve. Illawarra and Central Coast teams will be involved.

• Under 16 games that are washed out will not be replayed.

• Scorers are to advise umpires when pitchers are about to over pitch.

• The re-entry rule for pitchers was supposed to make it quicker, but in fact is making games appreciably slower.

• Statement of Financial Position was presented.
• Payments were approved.
• Debtors and liabilities were disclosed.

Pitching rules:  It was agreed that the proposed pitching rules requiring a 60 hour rest period after pitching 30 pitches or more be altered.

Dispensations:  One item dealt with.

Dispensation Policy:  Mr. Schmidt reported on the responses to the Policy Questionnaire.  Mr. Schmidt stated that a lot of thought had been put into the responses by use of the comment boxes on the questionnaire.

• The majority of clubs consider that dispensations need to exist and the assessment of players is the preferred method in determining the dispensation.

• The responses indicate that the clubs require two different policies, one for players playing up and the other for players playing down.

• There is a question involving players playing ‘down’ in age.  How do you make a rule when players play in a younger age group and potentially place other players at risk.

Mr. Schmidt advised that the responses indicate we are close to a framework of consensus.  This consensus is in areas Guidelines not rules; Expert panel to assess players that dispensation are being sought (prefer not club officials); no automatic dispensations for girls; agreement from parent is necessary, however this such waiver will not ‘stand up’ legally.   

Other areas in apparent agreement are to:  discourage players playing down to balance team numbers;  clubs have right of appeal to Board of Directors on dispensation matters also if players are considered to be better than the assessment; playing up in a high standard in an age group does not require dispensation.  Clubs are to organise a day where players seeking dispensation can be assessed.

The age/height matrix is to be retained.

Mr. Bailey advised that both A.F.L. and Soccer allow players to play up one age group without dispensation.

A draft Dispensation Policy will now be prepared.

Payment to Baseball NSW: Mr. Schmidt reminded clubs that the payment to Baseball NSW is due by Thursday, 15 November, 2007.

Bat Rule:  It was agreed that the playing rule relating to weight/length differential be altered from -7 to  -8.  This change was necessary as it is not possible to purchase -7 bats. The change does not affect the decision to ban high performance bats in Under 14 nor allow 2⅝” dia. bats in Street South Conference.

Rules Queries:  Mr. Yard drew attention to the letter from Kings Langley re deliberate ‘abuse’ of our playing rules. Unfortunately it appears apparent that there are coaches who are prepared to apply an interpretation of the rules that best suit themselves. Mr. Yard replied that the Association does not know who is registered and who is not. It relies on who was registered last season – maybe that has to change.