Purpose

The purpose of this board is to create open discussion and provide a means of exchanging information. It is geared towards the baseball and softball community in the New York Metropolitan Area.

For years there have been many different organizations, leagues, committees, teams, whatever you may want to call them. All of them with the same goals of providing an outlet for a games that we all love, Baseball and Softball.

By creating this forum we hope to give teams, leagues, coaches, parents, etc., a better means of communicating with each other. Communication can take many forms and the expectation is that there will be disagreements along the way.
If teams display poor sportsmanship by running up the score in a u10 game then they should expect to be "reprimanded" by the masses. Similarly if a team shows itself to be a class act in win or lose situations they would expect compliments from the same "masses".

Posting anonymously

You will notice that anonymous posting via a reply to a previous posting is permitted without moderation. We feel that posting anonymously enables people to be completely honest in their opinions of situations and of their opponents. It is not permitted at this time to START a new thread anonymously but that could change at any time.
As long as the posts stay short of completely vulgar profanity or racist remarks they will be permitted to stay, i.e. NO Editing by the Administrator.

Use of a Moderator

The board will remain UN-moderated as long as possible, hopefully forever. Moderation would mean that after EVERY post, someone would have to physically review it and then release it to the board. This is time consuming but is done on other boards due to abuse by posters. Hopefully it will not be necessary in our community. If it does start to become necessary, moderators will be chosen from the frequent posters to volunteer. This is highly unlikely since baseball players/parents/coaches/fans are responsible human beings and can control their emotions.

Starting a new topic

To start a new topic(thread) the poster must register. Registration simply involves having some type of email address and a name that you give yourself. Nobody knows who you are and nobody really cares. It is just a way of keeping some control over starting new topics. Your identity will never be disclosed on this board.

The benefit of posting under your username

You may notice "titles" under a user's name. Those titles change depending on the number of postings that a person has made to the board, from none to thousands. The benefit of posting under your username and not anonymously is in the accumulation of posts. Your "status" increases with each posting. Eventually, depending on the types of posts that you make, people will start to recognize you and you will attain a certain degree of respect on the board. If this is unimportant to you then just continue to reply to messages anonymously. Trust me though, nobody will be able to know who you are unless you tell them yourself.

Evolution

This board will change over time. We continuously acquire links to other programs, college teams, etc. We want to be a resource and communication venue for baseball and softball in our area of the world.

Tryout Listings

Unless you are editing your own tryout listing, or need general information that has not been answered in an email or phonecall to a team,LEAVE THE TEAM LISTINGS ALONE.

Anyone can have a gripe against any team. You are free to start your own thread on the subject. A team's tryout request thread is not the place to air your complaints about a team.

People can make their own decisions.
And, like in anything, let the buyer(parent/child)beware.


Posting a kid's name

Using a kid's name in a post BELOW freshman HS level is out, and has been against the rules from the start. Remember, most will stop playing after 8th grade because their fly balls are no longer homeruns for mommy to cheer about. Criticize the coaches, methods of teaching, teams in general, but not the player by name.

For those remaining above the HS level, their skin should be thick enough to take criticism. If not, then they will have a rude awakening when they compare their skills to the other good players in the country.

At the lower levels its better to emphasize learning the game, hitting line drives instead of fly ball homeruns, developing arm strength, core strength, and speed, etc. We should want to encourage the kids and coaches to expand our great sport in a weather-shortened baseball area. Let the kids take the direction of their coaches on the field. Parents, as in other purchases, buyer beware. Think of the big picture and what you want out of your child's baseball experience. Do you want a tournament trophy now or a potential scholarship athlete or draftee in 5 years? The two are sometimes mutually exclusive.

Postings that are deemed derogatory, racist, obscene will be deleted after it is brought to our attention. This isn't a moderated board whereby the posts are screened prior to being posted so there may be a delay. Simply disagreeing with a posting isn't something valid for a deletion. Naming a kid below HS freshman year is a valid reason for a deletion.

There will never be a board, group, club, country to totally agree on anything. If, for example, you didn't "argue with the coach", or didn't "poach players from another team", state your reply and be done with it. Based on the intelligence of the initial posting and the reply, the board listeners/users will be able to decipher the truth. There are always 2 sides with the truth being somewhere in between.




We encourage linkings to any of your programs, just email the information to admin at the bottom right of the front page.

Check back often
It should be fun!

As of today we have begun using moderators. The volume of complaint emails, now over 300 per day, and poor-taste posts, has become unmanageable.

A group of us tries to remove the crazier things that get posted, including the obvious rule violations. Those things include using names below 9th grade and comments and language that are just not appropriate for u8-u13 baseball. Despite our best efforts, sometimes posts linger or are missed that are in poor taste to our users and members.

By moderating the board, a responsible person will see every post before it hits the public eyes. This does not mean that everyone will agree on every posting. Hopefully the more insulting comments will be kept from view of the public. There are enough members with "moderator" privileges so that there should not be much of a delay before a posting is live.

Remember, anonymous or not, every IP address can be traced, if necessary. Having a username enables the user to acquire a "title" as the number of posts from his/her user account grows.

Thank you for your participation. Enjoy the board for its purpose, a discussion place for Long Islanders to help expand the greatest sport of all.

awesome- thank you administrator. Sorry there are so many jerks out there that make this necessary

late

but never too late

THANK YOU!!!

now lets just play some ball

How long before a post are posted?

Great, Its about time, maybe now a whole thread devoted to discrediting a coach won't linger for months for everyone to jump on the band wagon. Good Luck to all the moderators who going to have to wade through all the BS.