USSSA NIT Milwaukee, WI

I won’t write much about this tournament simply because I wasn’t there. I have talked to a few people from some of the teams that did participate, and they all pretty much say the same thing, the balls were hot, the bats are obviously good, and the fields are small (300′). The ball used was a .40 core, .525 compressed, which obviously is too much for these great teams and a 300′ fence. More than likely the compression of that ball was probably more like 600. The bats I won’t even talk about but what about 18 teams, 2 fields, and rocket balls. Do you think it might lead up to 100 runs a game, 3 hr. games or even 4hr. games? It doesn’t make sense. I’m sure when you went to this tournament you must have had a clue that with these balls, those small fields, and of course the hot bats, that the games would take 3 and 4 hours. All I can say is figure the math. You would have played until Monday morning in these conditions, therefore, obviously you would have missed your flights, pretty simple, it doesn’t work. You can holler and scream about playing on baseball fields, but I guarantee you that with good balls and good bats, you will have no more than 1 1/2 hr . games, 30 run games, and everybody will make it to their flights on time on Sunday, I promise you. This crazy stuff of teams missing flights, having to forfeit games has been going on forever on these 300′ fields. Back in the day with 300′ fences, 50 core. balls, we had the same results as today. You people that bash softball being played on baseball fields aren’t paying the bills that it costs sponsors to get players home on Monday morning, hotel rooms for Sunday night, meal money for the players, not to speak about players not getting to work on Monday morning, because games ran 3 hours or more and tournament directors don’t have the sense to spend more money and get more fields so these things don’t happen. Figure it out boys, it’s not that hard. Oh, by the way Resmondo/Hague/Taylor Bros./Sunbelt won this event even though there were some forfeits involved on route to the championship. Mountain Top/TPS took second place in this one, but were the only undefeated team up until the forfeits. Congratulations to Northwest Pipe/TPS for getting the berth to Disneyworld. Great job Larry. Q. Fourth place went to another very good team Benfield Electric/Worth who had beaten Resmondo earlier on in the tournament. That’s all I have for this tournament. Special note: I have had all I am going to take of the bashing on my message board about Don DeDonatis Sr. or Don Jr. I will ban anybody who posts anything about either of these people, I promise. You won’t get back on. I don’t personally know Don Jr. that well, but I find this young man to be a perfect gentlemen, and I know he is one hell of a softball player. This young man wants to play softball and has nothing to do with what his father does or doesn’t do in softball. I have said enough about this issue.