MS,

The fact that I don't think this area has "great" teams has nothing to do with the fact that I think the area has "great" players, and I am not just talking about RHL teams. Part of the problem in our area is that we do not support great team softball in the way that it has been developed in other communities and our best players have to go to other communities in order to learn how to play on that level. Here is the reality, in order to have "great" teams in softball you have to have enough high level travel players and great coaches, neither one of those qualities exist in this area. Soccer and quality vacations tend to be a much larger priority in our area.

It isn't just your opinion, it is "whocares'" opinion as well. Do you gather a lot of pride by having the same opinion of a person who chooses to call themselves "whocares"?

Who do you think had a better team than Alverno, TC, South Pas, and LaCanada this past year FROM THIS PAPERS COVERAGE AREA? I think that Poly showed a lot of promise.

By the way you, to me sound like a very nasty and jealous person for making the general statement about RHL PLAYERS. There are excellent players on those teams with huge commitments to the game of softball and they have proven that by moving on to play college ball at a much higher rate than any of the leagues in the area in RECENT YEARS. You should nourish these kids and their approach and hope some of it rubs off on some others. The funny thing is that I am not the "RHL flag waver" that you think I am, but I am not going to change my opinion about those players and teams just to prove I am not.

(I can tell you 50 teams that are better from other coverage areas.)

chkyrslf, it's interesting that you don't view the "best in the area" as "great".

Just my opinion, but the Rio Hondo League (especially this past season), their teams, and players are all very far from the "best in the area".

They do have the biggest flag wavers ... I'll give you that, which support impression more than fact.

Who Cares,

You are amazingly uninformed. Your arrogance has blinded you.I have never promoted the RHL as being great teams, the only thing that I said is that they were the best in the area this year, and that does not say much compared to some of the teams in the leagues that you mentioned. (who are not in this papers area.) There have been several excellent players that have come through the area but have gained their excellence elsewhere outside of the high school field. I have pointed out these kids from all of the schools in the area not any ones in particular.

The thing I see in TC and SP is that they at least go out and play the better teams to try and get better.

You are the type of person that will directly or indirectly put kids down, such as your nasty no talent comments about SP. Its disgusting, really.
I'm done. I am not going to have a battle of wits with someone who is unarmed.

chkyrslf,

I stopped posting a month or so ago because it just got silly, and I'd identify you as the king or queen of the silliness.

The constant over promotion of this year's Rio Hondo league is annoying because it isn't justifiable. A recent poster hit the nail on the head in the 5/17/08 thread.

A couple recent PSN articles even discussed the sloppy play of Rio Hondo teams ... "bunt, bunt, bunt" and I think it was a recent SP/LC game that they described it as very sloppy and a battle of fielding errors.

Not really a big deal, but reading your posts all season, it just gets a little old. You make it sound like the UCLA has put on South Pas uniforms and Arizona has put on Temple City uniforms.

None of the Rio Hondo teams are even close to competitive with the Pacific, Olympic, or Del Rey Leagues. Loosing games to La Canada is difficult to understand. Frankly, I think the Prep League was more competitve this season.

TC is by far the closest thing to a complete team in the Rio Hondo league but their lack of quality pitching was going to catch up with them.

South Pas, if it weren't for their pitcher, I question whether they would have won a game all season. One excellent player doesn't make a team ... certainly not a "complete team". Terrible fielding and spotty hitting makes an "incomplete team".

Sorry ... just telling it like it is ... maybe now that high school softball is done you can turn your attentions to real life. Or there is probably some "mid-level" travel team you can terrorize that you can keep us updated on.

Who Cares (Apparently you do),

I do not claim to know everything, just more than you do, which isn't that much.

I presume that you would prefer for me to talk about kids that I am not familiar with and games that I have not seen.

I say what I say on a forum that, by its nature, is at the discretion of the reader and the writer, agree with me or disagree with me but I think that your comments would be much more interesting and relevant if they pertained to the subject rather than to me. And that being said, if you are so offended by me, you may want to use your discretion and not read my posts.

In this sea of schools there is undoubtedly an enourmous amount of student athletes that deserve recognition. I say we celebrate them all and I hope that the people who know them will help bring them to the forefront. I choose to never bring up kids names with negative conotations and hope that you do the same.

I suppose you feel that I am biased because I insisted throughout the year that TC and SP were the best teams in the area. I will let the end results of the season speak for themselves. Alverno gets the obvious recognition for winning two CIF games and having the best record in the area. This areas succes is relative, there are so many great teams outside of our area and that becomes obvious during CIF. Refer to my post below for some reasons why.

Which teams in the area do you promote? And if it is CV you are right they are considerably better than anybody in our area and are a perfect example of the previous posts.

One word- Sliderz.

chkyrslf, It is truly a crack-up how you always self proclaim yourself as the authority on softball. If you are going to keep presenting yourself as the be-all authority, try and extend yourself beyond your constant narrow-minded promotion of the same players and teams ... your love affair with the low level of play in the Rio Hondo league really hurts your credibility. You seem to always be the only one that has the time to constantly fill this blog with your long winded bias assessments. It's certainly great to be a fan of certain players, teams, and leagues but when you always present yourself as the all-knowing expert, you should balance your promotion beyond those certain players, teams, and leagues. There are far better out their than the ones you endlessly barrage us with your verbose endless flag waving.

MS,

Interesting commentary, I agree with most of it. I think that your suggestions are things that coaches and AD's should look at. (One addendum that I would put in is, that local coaches do not try to force kids, with the new rules, to play on their hs summer team instead of their travel team although I do support the summer hs teams for kids who don't play travel.) But, I actually believe that softball in the San Gabriel area has consistantly gotten better over the past few years because people have gotten the travel ball message and they have gotten down to Orange County during the summer to see how vast and popular high level travel ball really is, and they have seen how a couple of of players on their team who participate in it effects the overall quality of their High School team. The next step is the critical one. Does this area embrace that type of participation to the point where these types of players become commonplace rather than anomolies?

Look at the past few years that Scott compared this year to, as a "down year." The players who raised the bar, and I would include players from this year as well as travel players that are currently playing college ball. Some of these players are Jenna Rodriguez, Cassie Gogreve, Dusty Gibbs, Katie McWhirter, Krissy Mihm, Veronica Grant, Annie Martinez, Curly Grimes, Nicole Parada, Michelle Escamilla, Michelle Mun, Megan Stone, Katrina Skogsberg, Alex Aguirre, Kaitlin Ellingsworth, Liz McBride, and several more. These are players that played mid to high level travel ball, most of them on the gold level. These kids pushed their hs teams into CIF where they faced teams that had 8-10 seasoned travel ball players and they had no chance of advancing beyond the second round when the rest of their team had no experience playing on that level. And, I should point out that half of these players had parents that somehow or another advanced the hs teams' programs either by coaching or helping to administrate the teams because of the softball knowledge and the work ethic they had developed along with their kids in travel ball. Look at Monrovia softball this year. I bet Coach Medina would have loved to a have a few more travel ball players and Coach Mihm back in the dugout and Coach Rodriguez back at Arcadia.

As far as how travel ball helps out a player, it is the difference between going into a test after cramming overnight and gathering information and knowledge by spreading your studies out over the year, some can pull it off cramming, but most can muster a "c-"grade at best. C- is a passing grade but I hope that people do not to continue to settle for that over the coming years.

Local travel teams are starting to pop up around the SGV. Teams, such as the Velocity, Ringers, California Thunder, along with Jim Guido's long standing Cal Rage and Pride (who had an excellent year last year on the Gold Level) do not usually compete on the same level as the Corona Angels, OC Batbusters, The California Cruisers, and the other top travel teams in Southern California, but as long as they continue to grow and push themselves by getting in the right tournaments, these teams can help build the success of our high school teams in the area for years to come.

Shoot Hi, it is worth it and it is not as time consuming and crazy as people make it sound. Talk to some of the college and current players who played or play travel ball, I have a feeling that you will get a much more positive response than you might be led to believe. And I should say it is never too late to start if you are a quality player, ask Julie Franklin who is playing at the University of Hawaii who only played travel ball for one full summer after her junior year at TC and got a scholarship out of it. Here is a link to find a team in case you do not know where to look to find a team:

http://www.eteamz.com/fastpitch/announcements

Select "California" and "looking for players" and be picky, this isn't high school where you are stuck with the coaches you've got.

By the way congrats to to the teams that made it in to CIF this year and the kids that are graduating. May you Live Long and Prosper in life as well as softball!

PS - This weekend starts the NCAA DI Super Regional softball playoffs followed by the College Softball World Series on ESPN, ESPN2, and ESPNU. DADADA DADADA!

In the bottom 3 CIF divisions, you can get into CIF playoffs with an “incomplete team” with a decent player or 2 and a suitable coach. In the bottom 3 CIF divisions, that type of “team” can even make it through a couple of playoff rounds (depending on the draw). But when it gets to CIF playoff quarter-finals, only “complete teams” persist. Such a high school softball team does not exist anywhere in the western San Gabriel Valley. In the bottom 3 CIF divisions, especially this year, it goes beyond an assessment of “incomplete team”, there were some pretty lousy “teams” (from our area in particular) that made it into CIF playoffs. In the top 4 CIF divisions it is an exception that an "incomplete team" makes CIF playoffs. Nevertheless, good for the area western San Gabriel Valley players who's teams made it to CIF playoffs … I’m sure it was a good experience and maybe it will motivate them to elevate their commitment to becoming better softball players to being more competitive and will take them beyond the very weak softball leagues in the western San Gabriel Valley. Also, it would be nice if the area high school AD’s and softball coaches would work harder create high school softball programs that would create the venue for local kids to compete effectively with “complete teams” beyond the area leagues. There are a few exceptions, but for the most part the area high school AD’s and softball coaches do an extremely poor job of developing competitive high school softball programs … in my opinion you are cheating the kids.

To create competitive high school softball teams in the western San Gabriel Valley that will excel outside of the lousy local leagues and maybe move beyond the quarter-finals of the CIF playoffs, this is what is needed:

- AD’s, hire better softball coaches with competitive and true softball experience.

- AD’s and Softball Coaches, create high school sponsored softball programs (all the CIF restrictions are now gone) for the fall and winter for the kids that aren’t playing other sports during the fall and winter seasons.

- AD’s, get rid of the high school Softball Coaches that show-up on the softball field in February and disappear from the softball field in May. There should be a year-round commitment by every Head Softball Coach to actively promote their high school’s softball program with the kids.

- AD’s, get rid of the high school Softball Coaches that are teachers (or local losers, who aren’t teachers) who just want to make a couple of extra bucks or want to add something to their resume for 3 or 4 months of easy work on the softball field.

- AD’s and Softball Coaches, seek out some of the softball experts (travel ball people) to assist in your programs (again, all the CIF restrictions are now gone) and many of these people will do it for no pay.

- AD’s and Softball Coaches, develop competitive game schedules earlier (now for next season) and enter your softball teams in 2 or 3 competitive tournaments outside of the western San Gabriel Valley.

- AD’s, hire strong and knowledgeable Softball Coaches that can invoke zero-tolerance of parental politicking (some of these so-called “booster clubs” and “team moms” are killers with agendas and they destroy programs). Parental involvement is fine, as long as it doesn’t come with personal side-agendas or meant to allow for influence.

- AD’s and Softball Coaches, develop meaningful Junior Varsity programs with good coaching that truly promotes player development and aren’t just a place to dump players that don’t make Varsity.

- Softball Coaches, do things that encourage the kids to at least pick-up a softball from late May to early February.

- Softball Coaches, encourage the kids to play some level of organized softball during the summer.

- Softball Coaches, don’t allow for prima-donna players or uncommitted players on your team.

Bottom line, greater commitment from Schools, Players, and Parents is necessary to improve the competitiveness of local high school softball. It would be nice to have a CIF championship team come from our area but I don’t see it happening without the above basics happening. If these basics don’t start happening, don’t get upset when someone says, “your league is uncompetitive” or the PSN Sports Editor says, “it’s a down year for area softball”. It is a fact, there are some individual players that are standouts (all of which play outside of the area when not playing high school softball) but relatively speaking, the teams from this area are uncompetitive and area softball is down (actually in my opinion, it has never been up).