I have a question for some of you that have maybe dealt with Usssa baseball longer than I have. I am asking for some input as to how some of you might handle this and if any of you have had similar situations with Usssa Baseball. Long post so beware LOL.

Usssa just implemented a new rule this fall that wasnt published or in written form and very vague that stated any player who has AAA or Major classification history could not play for a AA team. This rule plays in to the issue I am writing about.

My son was asked this last weekend to play with a AA team the night before the tournament. The team he was asked to play on only had 8 kids because two of them called the coach that night and couldnt play because they were sick.

The coach of this AA team told me that if my son couldnt play they would have to add an 8 year old to their 11u roster. We agree to guest play with them just to help out a friend.

So this coach called the tournament director here in Orlando and told him he had added my son to the roster and told him his teams situation.

The tournament director told this coach that my son could not play because he has Major classification history. Now my son is 10 years old, he is not a homerun hitter or a pitcher. He is just a solid ball player.

Well this coach asked the tournament director why my son couldnt play because of his major history since over half of the teams in this tournament had multiple kids with major classification history on their rosters.

One of the teams even had 4 of my sons 10u Major team kids on it from last year. This team was one of the top 10u major teams in Florida last year. Another team had a active kid on their roster that was also on a 12u Major roster. It goes on and on.

Well this upset me and got me to asking myself why would this tournament director single out my son to apply these new rules to but not to anyone else.

SIDE NOTE: This tournament Direct and I have a history.

So I decided to file a complaint with USSSA for discrimination and Unfair Practices against this tournament director. This was on Saturday.

So since we were not playing on Sunday my son wanted to go out and see some of his buddies who were playing that day. Just like some of you we are a baseball family and would rather spend time at the ball park then go to Disney or the beach. This is where all of our friends go as well.

Well while we were there at the tournament talking with our friends. The tournament director comes up to us in front of my wifes friends and my 10 year old sons and tells us.

To get out of his ball park that this was a private function and if we didnt leave in 2 mins he would have us arrested for trespassing and that he didnt care if I filed a complaint with the President of the United States.

I have spoken to some members of Usssa but it seems based on what has transpired that nothing is being done. I feel maybe they believe I will just drop this if its ignored.

So my question to most of you is how would you handle this.
Do you just let it go and allow them to apply the rules only to a certain few?

Would you pursue this legally?

Do you try to rally media, friends and peers to combat this?

What do you tell your kid?

Thanks for the advice.

What would you have to gain by taking some kind of action? Would there be more than self satisfaction in this situation? It's not likely the other person is going to change. USSSA is going to slap the guy on the wrist rather than lose tournament venue dollars. It may be the best thing to so is tell your son there are schmucks in the world he'll have to deal with, take it as a life lesson and move on.

quote:

Originally posted by RJM:
What would you have to gain by taking some kind of action? Would there be more than self satisfaction in this situation. It's not likely the other person is going to change. USSSA is going to slap the guy on the wrist rather than lose tournament venue dollars. It may be the best thing to so is tell your son there are schmucks in the world he'll have to deal with, take it as a life lesson and move on.

That would be hard to do. Usssa right now is the primary travel ball tournament provider here in Orlando.

The only other options are AAU which is in Tampa and Nations in Tampa. That is a 1.5 hour drive each way plus I figure about an extra 10k per year than what we are already paying.

The other option would be to move to another state that has year round baseball. This would cost an extra 20k to do so.

The third option is say ok well son you are not going to be treated here fairly so you cant play travel baseball any more. Now what do you think the chances of that are going to be LOL.

This TD= tournament director will not change and therefore this will prevent my son from playing. Also according to Usssa rules if any one files a lawsuit or threatens a lawsuit to correct an injustice then your child is automatically suspended from Usssa events.

So this basically tells me that Usssa has set themselves up to where they can ignore any issue because most parents will not take the chance of having their child suspended from all of Usssa.

It is this kind of behavior that opens the door for other organizations like Nations and Super Series to build a customer base. Free enterprise will correct the situation eventually. I know that does not help your son in the near future. These organizations spend big bucks building brand awareness. USSSA is not the beat all end all of baseball. At your son's age they do run travel ball in some areas. Continue to work hard and look for other opportunities to play ball.

That really is a raw deal. No matter what you do your son is probably not going to be allowed to play ball with his friends.

If it was me, I would go after the guy. Your son is screwed either way. Teach him that some times it is good to fight on the side of right irregardless of the consequences. USSSA only runs the 14 and under crowd around here. There are other organizations but the the best ball is USSSA around here.

Rattle some cages, what do you have to lose?

quote:

Originally posted by Doughnutman:
That really is a raw deal. No matter what you do your son is probably not going to be allowed to play ball with his friends.

If it was me, I would go after the guy. Your son is screwed either way. Teach him that some times it is good to fight on the side of right irregardless of the consequences. USSSA only runs the 14 and under crowd around here. There are other organizations but the the best ball is USSSA around here.

Rattle some cages, what do you have to lose?

Well since this posting I have contact the county where this tournament was held. I was told they dont condone this type behavior and that they would speak with someone within the county government to get an answer.

I have personally had 6 phone calls from others who where there that day he threw us out of the park and every single one of them said it was despicable and unprofessional what this tournament director did.

Hey in your opinion do you think this would be something the media would be interested in. I know it would get some attention if a lawsuit was file locally but other than that I wonder if there is some type of human interest story laying around in this LOL.

If I understand your son is a AAA/Majors player who was not allowed to fill in on a AA team even though others kids were. I don't see the long term ramifications.

quote:

Originally posted by RJM:
If I understand your son is a AAA/Majors player who was not allowed to fill in on a AA team even though others kids were. I don't see the long term ramifications.

There may or may not be any long term ramifications. However there are most definitely financial ramifications. If my son is not able to play Usssa then to play competitive travel ball we would either have to:

AAU or Nations which is in Tampa and 1.5 hours away. This I figure would cost an extra 10k per year.

Move which since we dont live in a small home it requires a semi truck and moving companies cost about 15 to 20k. However if we have to move I can promise I wont absorb those cost. LOL

From what I read in your original post your son hasn't been banned from playing AAA/Majors. So what's the long term problem?

OCB,
Was this strictly a AA tournament with only AA teams? You did not mention whether the other teams, you son's former teammates played with, were AA also, or maybe have been AAA. If they were AAA, then the rule was not violated for them, just your son with the AA team. (I am just filling in the blanks)

This is not specific to USSSSA, I have seen such action in other organizations as well. It is really a regional thing where some tournament director dominates a particular area and decides to make his own rules, or enforce the existing ones subjectively.

Luckily it was just a fill-in tournament and not one with his regular team. I would just tell my son that the guys an idiot and that we were not going to worry with him. He was just going to play with his regular team and have fun playing. No need to expell energy on a knucklehead like that.

You may want to seek further clarification. Unless the rosters are locked he may be able to play.

USSSA seems to have a real problem with State directors doing their own thing.

My son went through the same thing here in Virginia and until or unless the rosters are locked, he should be able to play.

Once rosters are locked then it is more difficult.

They put in these rules because too many coaches have cheated over the years having Major kids play on a AA team just to win a AA state championship.

Shame the bad apples ruin it for boys like your that just want to play.

My only worry would be the fact that he kicked you out of a tournament that you were just watching. Sounds pretty vindictive and petty to me. If the TD is willing and eager to do something like that, I will bet that he will be more than happy to kick your son out of USSSA over some made up excuse.

OCB:

The media probably won't care. If, by chance, they do, you probably will come off looking just as bad or worse than the other guy. No doubt it would be better to let it go. Make friends with the tournament director. Life is too short.

quote:

Originally posted by EC_Dad:
OCB,
Was this strictly a AA tournament with only AA teams? You did not mention whether the other teams, you son's former teammates played with, were AA also, or maybe have been AAA. If they were AAA, then the rule was not violated for them, just your son with the AA team. (I am just filling in the blanks)

This is not specific to USSSSA, I have seen such action in other organizations as well. It is really a regional thing where some tournament director dominates a particular area and decides to make his own rules, or enforce the existing ones subjectively.

Luckily it was just a fill-in tournament and not one with his regular team. I would just tell my son that the guys an idiot and that we were not going to worry with him. He was just going to play with his regular team and have fun playing. No need to expell energy on a knucklehead like that.

Yes sorry my sons other teammates are playing on the 11u AA team and yes it was a AA tournament. Several of the kids that were on these 11u AA rosters all had Major/AAA roster history. There was one kid on one of these 11u AA teams that is also on the roster of a 12u Major team.

As much as I would like to just move on and let my son play based on this TDs past history and his attitude I dont think that is going to be possible.

See this guy is not a state director he is a tournament director trying to act like he is the state director. His favorite intimidation tool to use even though he doesnt have the authority is to threaten any coach who disagrees with him with moving their team up in classification or sticking them always with bad schedules during tournaments. He has done this to me and others that I have witnessed.

quote:

Originally posted by Doughnutman:
My only worry would be the fact that he kicked you out of a tournament that you were just watching. Sounds pretty vindictive and petty to me. If the TD is willing and eager to do something like that, I will bet that he will be more than happy to kick your son out of USSSA over some made up excuse.

See this is a potential problem. See Usssa has a by-law that states any parent who threatens to file a lawsuit or files a lawsuit that child of that parent and the parent is suspended from Usssa events.

To me that seems like an easy way for Usssa to control any issues their organization faces without the complainant having any real recourse if they decide to ignore it.

quote:

sticking them always with bad schedules during tournaments

What's a bad schedule? Playing all good teams?

Bad schedules are having the 7:00 AM game and the 9:00 PM game in Pool play. Or maybe having all of your pool games scheduled in the middle of the afternoon in FLA or AZ. Good luck.

Thanks for answering for the original poster. I only have twelve years of tournament ball experience. He has such a can't do, doomed approach to the situation I wanted his take on bad seeds.

Given the situation I have to think the original poster has been in some terrible confrontations with the tournament director. He said there's a history. TD's don't arbitrarily pick someone and penalize them. There's another side to this story.

Aside from the beef with USSSA, there should be plenty of AAU and independent teams in and around Orlando. It was only a couple of years ago when we were playing AAU, and we played in Orlando, Winter Haven, Lakeland, Kissimmee, all the time. Doesn't the Juice practice in Orlando? OCB, if you haven't already done so, you should check out sunshinesports.net. I know there are some other very good organizations for older players, like the Scorpions. Maybe they have younger divisions - I don't know. But in a place like Orlando, surely there are other options.

I see this as two seperate issues. The first being the conduct of the director on asking you to leave the park. If you or your family were not creating a disturbance, and it does not sound like that was the case, he was definitely outside the scope of his authority. It sounds like you are already getting that addressed. The other issue being the USSSA rules on playing down to a lower level. It has been my understanding from my son playing in USSSA for several years that the rule has always been you could play down one level (Ex: Major to AAA) and you never could play down two levels and if you did do that you were now classified at that level (in this case AA)for the rest of the season and could only play up one level (AAA) for the rest of the season. That has been common practice (right or wrong) for some time in the area we were living in. So if that is in fact the actual rule, the director might have been dooing your son a favor in the long run because it could have hampered his participation in the Major level. I understand your son just wanted to play ball with his friends (we have been in the same position) but the levels are there for a reason and a part of the concern is injury to the players that are not as skilled. Again, this is my understanding of the rules and I could be incorrect as I am not a USSSA expert.