What League?

[JohnT]

What league do you all have in your city? For the Illinois suburbs of St. Louis, its almost all Khoury League. (www.khouryleague.org) You probably have not heard of the league unless you live in the STL area. Whats your league, and do you like it?

[Umpire in Chief]

In the area I ump in PONY is the biggest, there is a good amount of LL. About an hour either north or south there is Cal Ripken & Babe Ruth.

[Stan W.]

As you might imagine, W.PA is the home of PONY baseball and we have a large amount of PONY programs around. There is a small smattering of LL programs... PONY has supplanted LL over the last 20 years......we still have a few despite the proximity to Williamsport...

I know Khoury league..........do they still use baseballs with Green stitches?....I have one in my collection....

In my past I also did some Dixie Youth....and Babe Ruth league...some elite travel league ball as well..

A little higher up we have COLT league and American Legion.........

Edited December 16, 2008 by Stan W.

[mstaylor]

We have LL up through 15/16 SRLL. We have Pony from 13-18. There is AAU and USSSA travel plus American Legion. No CR/BR or Dixie.

[catoblue]

Here, for non-school ball, it's LL thru Majors, then BR, then the older kids play Connie Mack, Legion, and Classic

[MCLEOD36]

For us in South Florida, it is USSSA. There are others, ie Boys and Girls Club leagues, some Little League and then recreational (more clublike), but most will migrate to the USSSA local league for the best competition.

[InDaZone]

Here, for non-school ball, it's LL thru Majors, then BR, then the older kids play Connie Mack, Legion, and Classic

Hey Cato,

why do you think programs switch over after LLMajors?

[We've done the same thing in my town in the past, as far as I can tell- reason i think that is because they call it "PONY" but at this point I believe they play under their LL charter at those 13-18 age groups.]

But, I guess my question is why do you switch to BR after the kids turn 13? Wouldn't your town just be able to pay one charter fee if they kept it LL through 16-18 or whatever?

idz

[mstaylor]

We have an interesting area. In my LL district, there are 8 JrLLs and 5 SrLLs. However, there is a single Pony league for the 13/14s. Then there is one Colt/Palomino league to cover 15/18s.

[catoblue]

Hey Cato,

why do you think programs switch over after LLMajors?

[We've done the same thing in my town in the past, as far as I can tell- reason i think that is because they call it "PONY" but at this point I believe they play under their LL charter at those 13-18 age groups.]

But, I guess my question is why do you switch to BR after the kids turn 13? Wouldn't your town just be able to pay one charter fee if they kept it LL through 16-18 or whatever?

idz

To be honest, I think that it has to do with seasons. We're a small community (mostly rural). LL regular season is during the same time that Modified and JV ball are going on (7th - 10th graders). So we wouldn't likely have enough kids to field a team (especially since soccer came to town and cut LL registrations in half) BR starts practicing right at the end of the LL season, and games start right around when school gets done for the year - making more kids available so that we actually manage to usually field 2 teams. Once school is out, the older kids play summer leagues (all the same kids), some of them playing Legion, Connie Mack, AND Classic ball (7 or 8 games/week). The kids who play ball in the older age groups, are hard-core ball players.

I grew up in a larger community, and Jr/Sr league were much more prevalent. Simply because we did not have a "modified" program, and there was a much bigger pool of kids to draw from.

[InDaZone]

Oh. That makes sense.

[JohnT]

Here is another question: Which youth league do you think is the best as far as rules, stability, etc?

[Umpire in Chief]

I like PONY, the only issue for me in PONY is the local league rules. My association serves many PONY orgs and there are chinstrap, sliding, metal cleats, stealing, dropped third strike, league rules it would be much better if the leagues got together and had a unified rule set. I think it puts some teams at a disadvantage come tourney time.

I don't care for LL.

[mstaylor]

I think in most areas it is between LL and Pony with some BR thrown in. Many complain about LL's rules, most are fine. I like the way Pony works their age groups to field size. They go up ten feet every two years.

As an umpire I like Pony's rulebook. They use OBR with a second book to cover the age appropreate restrictions. LL and BR take their rules and overlay OBR and sometimes it makes a mess.

[Dragon29]

mstaylor,

I agree that the incremental way Pony handles their infield sizes is the best way to handle players getting older/better. I've seen a big drop-off in the level of play between Majors (60') & Juniors (90') in LL. Mostly, it's pitchers having to adjust from 46' to 60'; all of the other 'adjustments' seem to happen pretty quickly.

The only problem w/the incremental infield size is the availability of fields. For smaller leagues, it's simply more expensive to have & maintain fields of various sizes - I've seen a number of Pony fields w/the adjustable infield but every one I've seen has that artificial surface (that I hate)

I also think that, while LL overlays OBR onto their ruleset and that can be a problem, the various LLs tend to have more similar rules to one another making it easier to work from league to league. Not better necessarily, just easier.

That's my $.02! (FWIW)

[mstaylor]

It wouldn't be a problem if the BOD's would leave the rules alone and quit writing local rules. There is an addage that says,"Local rules are made by fools." The best way to handle a multiple size field is to have a portable mound, multiple pins for the bases and a skin infield. We have tournament fields that can be softball or baseball. We have base pins at 60,65,70,80ft. We also have sleeves in the outfield for a temp fence at 200ft. I can also do a bang in fence at any distance above 200ft and below 300ft. We have two pitching rubbers for softball and portable mounds for baseball. At one complex we can do that on four fields.