Red Sox updates for 2010

Gents:
We have our winter meeting on Thursday night at th Wilton Y.

Several items will be discussed:

1) Playoff format -groundswell seems to point to two playoffs. The first is top 4 teams play for league championship. The next 4 teams play for Presidents Cup.
Teams finishing lower than 8th are excluded from post season play

2) Schedule and playoff timing: seems to be movement to want to have playoffs concluded by labor day and indicates playoff games will be in August despite number of guys being on vacation

3) Teams in league: it seems the stamford mets are splitting up and most of them are leaving mets to from the Brewers who report they wil be playing out of Bridgeport
the Mets are still in the league and their manager is eagerly recruting new players .the bridgeport team has represented that they are in and they are out--we shall see at the meeting
the Marlins have been told they will need to attend anger management classes if they keep whining at the umps, each other ... where this makes a difference is in our schedule. if we have 11 teams then the schedule is more awkward and involves bye weeks

4) Schedule: upon concluding the # of teams, the schedule will be created but it seems likely we will have more doubleheaders scheduled to get all the games (21) in and playoffs.
As you recall we tend to not play DH in Wilton( because kids game start at noon) but one Sunday and a Monday night game. I will try to arrange same kind of schedule


5) July 4th tourney-this is basically an idea i have proposed: As you know I have gone to several tournaments in Arizona as well as up to Cooperstown and must report these are a lot of fun and great to play. Charlie joined me in Arizona last year and can affirm tournament ball is a great time. By the way they loved Charlie out there!
Toward that end I thought a July 4th tourney would be fun for those who are around and would enjoy playing a new opponent. The model I have in mind now is that our league would supply 2 teams comprised of whatever players they want to bring . I would run one team and start with Red Sox players who want to play and fill in with guys from around the league that are "friends of the Red Sox". Another guy will have to run the second team of guys from our league. Danbury League will supply 2 teams comprised of guys from their league although they can draw from any of the teams. Lastly, up in Cooperstown for the last three years i have played with and against a team from Westchester called the Kensington Mud Hens. They will bring twp teams. The idea is we would play 4 games , I think 2 sat and 2 sun . the Fairfield teams would play both Danbury and Westchester teams but not the other Fairfield cty team. As Red Sox last year we played one scrimmage game as a team vs Danbury guys and they didn't have much pitching that night and the game was a runaway. After that game Danbury brought very good pitching including some young college fireballers. I know both Danbury and Westchester will bring good teams and i suspect this will be fun. The precise details have not been tidied up yet but we will sort that out. red sox need not feel that have to play this tourney and if you are planning to go to Newport and sail in a regatta then please don't change your plans. If not it should be a fun weekend. This tourney will be an extra expense though to pay for the additional umps and balls and i figure it will be about $ 50/man for the tourney. My expectation is 4 games and we will run it like we do our regular games. I still have to sort out some the details but we will be eligible to create our own fireworks for the 4th .



if you want to attend please do so ( 730at the Y otherwise if you have something to bring up please let me know by Thursday


Red Sox Specific items

1) Team communication: we created the blog last year and used that to post all relevant information such as game times, locations, directions , and rainout information and gossip.
I was thinking maybe i can also use text messages. My phone supports group texts and therefore if you all use text messaging i could send one text on sunday am regarding rainouts etc.
of course beautiful sunny days will not likely require notification but we all remember last year seemed to be risk of rainout every sunday. so if you want me to text you send me the number you want me to use and i will load it. I plan to keep the blog going like we did last year as well
the link will be the same http://wiltonredsox2009.blogspot.com/ I have updated the screen to reflect it is the 2010 seson
I will always load these messages to the blog in case.


2) we have 2 new players; Raff Bevilaqua is a former Red Sox who took time off to run triathalons and have a few kids. He returns in good shape and will help us in the field. Guys who remember him recall his fierce competitiveness and great outfield play. I am hoping he can play some right field for us. Matt defsco comes to us via a connection with Tim S. Matt played at Brown so he and Mike can regale us with Ivy league highlights.
Matt play the infield but has offered to play anywhere. Upon hearing that i can only hope he is as versatile as Bobby U who played everywhere last year and made every play!
Chuck has moved to Colorado . I did mention to him that umps out there call third strikes too but he seemed to think he will get better calls:)


3) Jim Lewicki returns from Florida this week after dominating at the Mets fantasy camp. We expect a big year from Jim in 2010.


4) Winter hitting: I have booked and paid a tunnel at Batters Box for next 8 weeks on Monday nights at 730-830. Upon pondering how much work can get done in one tunnel in one hour we have a few guys coming tomorrow night.
Roneil, X, Charlie, Tim, and Matt ( our new guy) should be there along with me.( each will have paid their portion of the rental.)
I know we have guys allover the place( Queens, ansonia etc and schedule issues). let me know if you want to hit and i will try to get additional time alloted or substitutions.I realize it is relativly early but it is fun to go get some swings and throws in. Charlie may bring his gear and soon we will have "live"at bats. The good news is the season is getting closer!


5) Uniforms: my sense is we will stay with our uniforms form last year. The white red sox . Raff -you may have yoru earlier sox uniform. Matt>we can discuss tomorrw but guys last year got nice Red Sox jerseys on Ebay and you should have white pants. we will get one hat for each player as part of the season fee. I am thinking we will retain the design we had last year from Charlie which was a big hit around the league. of course we will ask Charlie to weigh in and see if he has a creative statement to make.

6) Video: i got a new camera that is easy to use. I also got a new computer at home and loading videos etc is easier. So i plan to video each of us in action and load to you tube or the blog.
I will start at the winter and video some hitting so we can see what we are doing and maybe learn and identify some adjustments.

7) Season fees: I think we will be able to manage this at $250 per player. Jim will handle the money for us and collect the season fee and pay our bills and umps. Please make this chore easy for him and send him the fee as soon as possible. We have some early season fees ( league fees insurance balls equipment that we have to handle soon)

8) I hope Jose and John can maintain the Red Sox site