Upon Further Review: If they send it, it will run
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I have come to the conclusion that some of these folks don’t understand that their kid can’t be in the paper every week.
With over 500 ballgames played at the Civic Center complex, church league, county league, golf tournaments and summer programs at the high school, everything can’t make the paper every week. We try to be fair and cover as many events as possible and for the most part do a pretty good job at it.
Don’t get me wrong, 99 percent of the people understand. But there is that 1 percent who you just can’t please.
When Rob or myself pull into the parking area at the ball parks we are usually verbally attacked before we even make it out of the car by that 1 percent.
We get phone calls from a few who ask why this or that was not in the paper. Usually it was in the paper, but when you tell them what issue they usually say “well I don’t get a paper every week I must have missed it.” If you don’t buy a paper and read it then yeah, you’re going to miss some of the information we put in.
I have kids that play ball, and as a parent you would like to see them get their name in the paper every now and then, I understand that. And for those of you who may be wondering, one of my kids’ name’s was in the paper once and the other has not.
This brings us to another point. We provided the leagues with forms to fill out after every ball game. It is a very simple little form, which takes about one minute to fill out. You put the score down, names of people who had hits, winning and losing pitcher. Just some basic information that we can use to put in the paper and keep up with all the leagues.
We gave them to the commissioners of each league and the scorer fills them out and we usually receive them once a week.
Let me correct that, almost every league sends us this information every week. We take the score sheets and make a little story out of it and run it in the paper. The leagues love it, it’s simple and it insures that the kids and the leagues are recognized each week. Sr. league, Jr. league, Boys coach pitch, Babe Ruth, pitching machine league and even the girls 13-15 year-old fast pitch have no trouble at all with this system.
But we have a few that just don’t turn in any information. We even go to the ballparks during the day and get a key and check the score booths, but there are no books, or any information, left for us to use.
Sometimes we’re lucky enough to sneak a scorebook away for a day or so. More often, though, that’s not the case, and getting information is as hard as pulling teeth.
Like I said, it only takes a few minutes to fill out a form and all the other leagues do it. So why is it so hard for the ones that don’t?
Maybe if you’re a parent and this is one of your leagues in which your child plays, you need to ask the commissioner and not get mad at your friendly neighborhood sports department.
It just seems funny how all but two leagues keep us updated on what’s going on in their league. I keep every score sheet that is sent to us until the season is over, and have a stack on my desk about four inches high. For one league I have nothing and for the other I have one game — one game out of about 20 the league had played. Just remember if we don’t have it, we can’t run it.
We say thanks to all those who sent us information and for those who come up to us and thank us for doing a good job. But for the few who may be upset because there is no information in the paper about their league, don’t throw all the blame on us.