With Super Bowl XLIX less than a week away and a massive blizzard bearing down on the northeast, you might not believe anyone around is thinking about baseball. And yet, many youth baseball leagues are organizing for spring even as we speak.
I’m still on the parent email distribution list for Farragut Baseball, Inc. and I got an email from ‘baseball president’ last week reminding me that the deadline for sign-ups is just two weeks away (Valentine’s Day, no less). If you are the parent of a young baseball player gearing up for the 2015 season, you might want to go ahead and check that registration form off your list.
I tip my cap to the current league president and to all the league officials everywhere who are heading toward similar deadlines. Registration is a tough, laborious job. Yet, it is so rewarding.
When I was president of Farragut Baseball, Inc., I didn’t mind it – registration - so much. For some reason, there was something comforting about seeing the avalanche of forms that came in those last two weeks (after a trickle the previous four weeks). In those days – not so long ago - we had not switched the league over to any sort of automated registration system. I noted, a few years ago, that one of the guys who followed me in the seat had finally done so. But in the mid 00s, players were still registered by pencil and paper.
My dad was kind enough to build a small, wooden lockbox (with a slot on top) so parents could drop forms and checks into a secured place. Someone would clean out the box every few days – either me or the veep – and then we’d begin the process of, ahem, processing.
In our day, we took the extra step of having someone log the registration forms. The names were entered into a master database and checks were processed.
Fortunately for me, one of the league vice presidents was interested in overseeing this task and we had a volunteer, mom, who enjoyed doing the database work using Microsoft Access. So, it was really not all that arduous.
After she entered all the forms into the main file, we’d break out individual files for each age-group commissioner. We’d hand those out during a mid-February league meeting.
As a commish, you waited for the forms and that final list to come your way because you still faced the challenging of recruiting the requisite number of coaches. You knew there was always going to be an early February registration push; you knew you could count on more forms (and therefore more players) than the small numbers you had scribbled in a notebook in late January.
I served as a recreational league commissioner for three years, I did this job when our team was comprised of eight year olds, then nine-year-olds and finally 10. Interestingly, though my last four years of coaching was through our travel league, I never served as a travel commissioner.
As a rec commish, I always needed to add coaches because we had not instituted a registration cap and we had a very popular program. Most dads who were candidates as potential add-ons were usually good-natured about receiving the phone call when you started the process of twisting arms.
In short, it wasn’t so bad. I always had the number of coaches we needed and, generally, all were good guys.
I would imagine these days, with the automated system, the commish job is made easier. I’m sure there is a tracking formula that probably tells the commissioners what the target number is.
In any case, when I got that email late last week, I started thinking to all the fun times we had as youth coaches and commissioners. And I was thinking about all the fun the current group of dads must be having themselves.
JG
Editor’s Note - At the conclusion of a column that is baseball-related, I would be remiss if I did not make mention of the passing of MLB great, Ernie Banks, over the weekend at the age of 83. What a class act; what a great ambassador for the game. RIP Mr. Cub. Let’s Play Two!
Originally posted 1/26/2015
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