OCTOBER 26 2007 UPDATE
THE FIRE IN ALL ITS HORROR
The America’s Finest City Tournament has been rescheduled for January 18-20, 2008. Plans are being discussed by the sponsors on how to use the event to raise funds to help those who were injured or lost property during this historic California burnout. Ken Weimer writes that his organization “right now we are in the process of “adopting” a family who lost everything. The dad perished trying to save his house…the only son is at UCSD Burn Center in an induced coma after receiving burns to more than 50% of his body…and the mother is praying her only son makes it through all of this as she has already lost her husband….to top it off their house was not insured as after the 2003 fires no insurance company would offer them fire insurance.”
RISING STARS FRIDAY – RAINED OUT
Still raining Friday night but hopes are high a complete schedule can be played Saturday. Negative comments by college coaches, travel ball coaches and parents are still raining down on NFCA and NCAA for cramming four weeks of college recruiting into one period which, parents note bitterly, falls into the midst of a critical marking period. Now, having been rained out of the first Surf City, then burned out in San Diego, teams with eligible players are planning to return to California for the Batbuster or Houston for the Ronald McDonald, and, hopefully, some smaller tournaments. Sure, they don’t have to play, but tell that to some 17yr old with D1 skills who is seeing her contemporaries getting early verbals – and she wants to play – and be seen. Even players who have written to college coaches are not certain they will be seen; the tournaments have expanded so much that there is overwhelming competition for the attention of college coaches, even after sending letters. Ironically, some of the college coaches who pushed for the recruiting restriction are the same coaches who jack up the pressure to play by taking so many early verbals.
NFCA served up a dog’s breakfast and NCAA forced the kids to eat it!
COMMITMENTS
Michelle Huber O.C. Lionettes 18G OF/SS verbal to Providence
Holly Holl '09 LH Catcher Texas Storm Demarini, 5A Texas State HS Championship Finalist Katy Tigers to the Baylor Bears
Kylie Wagner 2008 P/1B verballed to the University of Evansville
Kristen Little 2008 P/1B verballed to Humboldt State
NEW 23 UNDER TEAM
New 23U Team from Virginia, Maryland and Washington DC Metro Area is seeking players for the 2008 summer season. We are looking for Players that are enrolled in college and have a desire to play very completive softball this summer. For more information please contact Dean Wassmann at 703-554-3898 or e-mail at dean@barnyardball.com. Team is mostly funded…………You bring your game we’ll worry about the rest..
SOFTBALL PARK BECOMES MINI-CITY FOR FIREMEN
Cal Fire sets up base camp, command center, rest area
By Elena Gaona
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
October 26, 2007
When a fire is the top priority in the state, you call in a lot of help. And when you have all those firefighters, they need a place to stay.
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Beginning Monday, Kit Carson Park in Escondido became the base and command center for about 2,600 firefighters battling the Witch Creek fire. The 258-acre park with its scenic creek and picnic benches was quickly transformed into a mini-city by Cal Fire, the state fire agency.
“We're pretty much self-sufficient, and we're open 24 hours,” said Doug Lannon, the command center's lead spokesman, a San Bernardino battalion chief with Cal Fire.
The command center includes an area dubbed “Main Street” because two rows of trailers include a high-tech communications center, a supply shop, a printing shop, a fire information area and a finance center. Laundry facilities, showers, a kitchen, a dining area and restrooms are also on site.
Firefighters work in shifts, anywhere from 12 to 48 hours, and use the camp to clean up, rest, make calls to family members and to try to get a hot meal in between. There is a satellite television, but often firefighters can be found sprawled on the grass, gulping down food so they can shower and go to sleep, or just sitting in groups decompressing.
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It's not paradise. The showers and toilets are inside portable units. Sleeping is inside tents or on the grass. The meals are often sandwiches. Communication with the outside world is sometimes reduced to fleeting text messages.
But for a while, it's home, said National City firefighter Chris Tieman. This week he's fought burning brush in Rancho Santa Fe, Ramona and Poway.
“It's the most intense fire I've ever had the opportunity to deal with,” Tieman said, sitting with his crew over lunch. “The wind made it so unstoppable. You can't prepare for those kinds of winds.”
THE ISF BACK SOFTBALL CAMPAIGN
Manila, Philippines 26th October 2007: On the eve of the general assembly of the International Softball Federation’s (ISF) annual Congress here, close to 90 national federations attended a half-day Back Softball workshop designed to inform and engage them in the programme for the reinstatement of softball onto the Olympic Programme in 2016 and beyond.
The workshop began with a full explanation of the aims and objectives of the Back Softball campaign. This included a full run-through of the Back Softball blueprint, a ten-point charter for far-reaching change in the sport designed to generate even more softball players of all ages and gender, in more countries and watched by more fans both in the venues and on TV.
The highlight of the workshop was a two-hour breakout session where all national federations were encouraged to develop their own initiatives to support the global Back Softball campaign.
Commenting on the success of the workshop, ISF President Don Porter said, “This was an historic day for softball. To have nearly one hundred federations attend – including our newest from Jordan – is a sign of how committed the whole global softball family is to the reinstatement of our sport onto the Olympic Programme. They all recognize that we have to earn that right, but I am convinced that with their involvement we will continue to gain momentum and eventually succeed in Copenhagen in 2009.”
Delegates also learned about the Back Softball international relations and communications plan designed to convince International Olympic Committee (IOC) Members about the value that softball can add to the Olympic Movement. This plan will peak at the IOC Session in Copenhagen in October 2009 when IOC Members vote on the Olympic programme for the Games of the XXXI Olympiad in 2016.
A RECURRING NIGHTMARE
Couldn’t get a flight out of San Diego until next Sunday, but there were teams SPY did not see at Surf City, who were going to Rising Stars, so I paid an additional $360 to fly the red-eye out of LAX Wednesday night, and another $380 to fly to Ft Lauderdale in time for Friday’s games at the Rising Star – which were rained out. The frantic four ends for SPY at Houston with the Ronald McDonald; nothing then until the NFCA Convention.
The “red eye” ordeal was compounded. The middle seat on the B757, not wide to begin with, was filled by a 300 pounder who overflowed both seats. He immediately gorged on a sack of food and was asleep when the wheels went up. He belched twice, farted once, then began to snore, dropping his head into his lap, then raising up and snorting loudly, like a beached whale gasping for breath. Gave serious consideration, after failing to wake him, to taking an insulin syringe out of my bag and sticking it in his gut. Finally, since we were in the rear of the plane, his snoring (like the sound a garbage disposal makes swallowing a sink full of water) caught the ear of the attendants and they sat him amidships on a stewardess’s landing seat – where Kong annoyed a few dozen more passengers. Naturally, none of us got any sleep.
But, I’m glad I didn’t stab him with a needle. Got up at 430am to catch the flight to Florida and just settled into an aisle seat – when King Kong’s baby brother, still wearing the same soiled dress shirt and dirty t-shirt, took the seat opposite. Incredible. Vegas wouldn’t book odds on my drawing him again. Sure enough, he was asleep as soon as the plane moved. This time, however, I had alerted the attendants to this threat to their sanity and every few minutes or so they would wake him. Don’t know what he did for 24 hours in DC but I suspect it would make a confessor blush.
John the Venerable wrote in Revelations that the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were war, famine, pestilence and death or devastation (he who rode a pale horse). Surely, somewhere behind them, unnoticed by John, was a mule and on him rode Gluttony. Or, maybe he was a Messenger, sent to tell me to lose weight!
LIKE HAILEY'S COMET
Which is seen once every 75 years. The Renaissance in Ft Lauderdale has an old-fashioned saloon singer at the piano -- the good Cole Porter, Johnny Mercer, et al stuff. I asked for a number, he had trouble remembering the melody and words, so, we harmonized very briefly on "A nightingale sang in Berkley Square." You know the refrain "... and when we kissed, and said good night, a nightingale sang in Berkley Square...." A lot of memories evoked by that song! A London night, a girl in a Burberry with moonlight in her hair.... It was all so very long ago, but the song brought back the memory.
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