Opening:
Clippers Baseball Club meeting was held on Thursday, February 21, 2019 at Tiffin City Hall in Tiffin, IA at 6:00pm.
Club Members Present: Adam Henderson (President), Golda Monohon (Secretary), Nick Pfeiffer (Alternate) left at 6:40pm, and Seth Ickowitz (Treasurer) arrived at 6:30pm
Others Present: Bret Breard (Director of Umpires) and Trent Dekoter (present from 6:25pm until 6:45pm)
Clipper Classic:
Darci Roehler will take care of the check-in station at the Tiffin location. Golda will take care of the check-in station at the North Liberty location. Adam will mostly be in North Liberty during the tournament except while Clippers 13U is playing in Tiffin. In the absence of Adam, Bret Breard will be in charge.
The 12U AAA team (Coach Jake Smith) will not be present at the Clipper Classic since most brackets are A/AA. The 12U AAA team will play at the PST tournament that weekend instead since they have a AAA bracket for that age group.
7U, 8U, and 9U will have 1 umpire assigned per field
10U-14U will have 2 umpires assigned per field
7U-12U will have 1 hr 30 minute games
13U & 14U will have 1 hr 45 minute games
Adam and Bret discussed the details of a “Hard Stop”. For the Clipper Classic, there won’t be anything new allowed to start after the time limit
On Saturday (Pool Play), ties will be allowed.
On Sunday (Bracket Play), no ties will be allowed. In the event of a tie after the game time has been reached, both teams will play California Rules. The last two outs from the previous inning will take 2nd and 3rd bases with 1 out.
The umpires will need to keep the balk warnings consistent all weekend long. For 9U & 10U, the umpires will take the moment to alert the pitcher as a life lesson. For 11U & 12U, there will be one warning per pitcher. For 13U &14U, there will be no balk warning.
Umpires will be provided meal tickets at check-in. Bret will need 22 total umpires to cover all fields. Before the tournament, Bret will provide the list of umpires to Adam so that he can prewrite the checks. The list will include the total amount and number of games due for each umpire. Checks will be dispersed on Sunday by Adam, but if Adam is busy the umpires may need to wait until he is available.
The Optimist Club will operate the concession stand. Adam will schedule the games later in the day to benefit the concession stand profits. The later in the day, more people will be hungry and need to purchase food from the concession stand. The PST tournament is the same weekend which will affect the number of teams signed up for the Clipper Classic. In turn this will affect the profit from the concession stand.
The 1st Avenue Hy-Vee has already been reserved for the tournament. The Optimist Club and Kona Ice have also been reserved.
Currently there are 30 teams signed up for the tournament. Last year there were 46 total teams. In past years there has been ~75 teams. This year the goal is 60 or 64 teams.
7U – 1 team
8U – 6 teams
9U – 6 teams
10U – 4 teams
11U – 5 teams
12U – 2 teams
13U – 4 teams
14U – 2 teams
If we cannot fill the 7U and 8U team slots to reach a total of 8 teams, then we will need to limit to 4 teams per age for the tournament and remove the need for the Penn Elementary field.
The registration deadline is April 1st. Bret would like a hard stop on registration by April 28th so that he has plenty of time to adjust the umpires’ schedules if needed before the tournament begins.
Seth will need to speak to Jonas Zimmerman regarding 7U rules and the field set up.
Trent requested a lead umpire be available at the Tiffin fields.
Umpire Payments:
Lead Umpire – $50/hour
8U & 9U (one umpire per field) – $50/hour
10U-14U (two umpires per field) – $45/hour
7U (one umpire per field) – $45/hour
Trent suggested that each coach supply 3 game balls instead of 2.
This is Bret Breard’s last year to assist with umpire scheduling. He will be moving away from this area.
There will be a coin flip to decide home and away teams on Saturday. The higher seed will be the home team on Sunday.
Whoever has a membership to CostCo will need to assist with purchasing the concession stand items on Friday morning. Seth and Adam Henderson may need to take care of this task.
Rick Smejkal has the pitcher mounds and will deliver them by the shed at the Penn Meadows fields in North Liberty on Friday afternoon/evening. Since the NLYBS league has games on Friday evenings, we cannot set the mounds until Saturday morning. The city of North Liberty drags the fields in preparation for Saturday, but we will still need to chalk the fields. We will need to know the age group assigned to each field and the base distance measurements for those fields in order to set up and chalk on Saturday morning. Saturday morning is the most important for set up.
Trevor Johnson wants his logo on all team banners in exchange for golf cart usage during the tournament. Katie Schmelzer will ask the teams if there are any sponsors to place on the banners. Lindsay Nash will provide the scheduling for team pictures.
Bret Breard was curious if the Clippers Baseball Club would be interested in hiring him or someone similar to schedule umpires for weekday games. Bret can provide a contact to Adam, if interested.
Fan Apparel:
- Adam Zupancic is working with Elite Sports to set up matching coach’s apparel.
- Adam also has the fan apparel ready to disperse, but he is busy setting up a store for Scheel’s in Fargo. When he returns, he will get those items to teams soon.
Uniforms:
Uniforms are done with Ironside Apparel, but the hats are on backorder until mid-March. Adam will pick up the uniforms this weekend. 8U (Nick’s team) does have a tournament in March, but they have decided to use the hats from last year. For new players on the team, Adam has “blank” hats leftover from Ironside that he can provide to be used during that tournament.
Action Items:
- Adam
- Meet with Niki Frese to pick up the uniforms
- Golda
- Send club email to remind everyone that the second membership payment is due March 1st
Adjournment
Meeting was adjourned at 7:17pm by Adam Henderson. The next meeting will be Thursday, March 21st at 6pm at Tiffin City Hall in Tiffin, IA.
Minutes submitted by: Golda Monohon, Secretary