Friday Morning League
Board Meeting June 30, 2026.v2
Call to order: 12 pm at Tanners (72nd & Harrison)
Attendees: Marty Boozilkee, Randy Matsunami, Bill Riggle, Bob Nash. Ron Franck was unable to attend. We also had Kristina (Yankee manager) & Jim Bacca as guests.
Website:
Zach McIntyre has continued to make improvements to the layout, design, and report generation. He added another team “Pool Players” to better view those players, with their equivalent draft round.
Bill will email Zach to add the planned activities for October to all teams’ schedule. Show Oct 2nd as another Rainout makeup slot, Oct 9th as the planned League Picnic, with Oct 16th as the picnic backup.
With his latest rounds of edits these last months, Marty will contact Zach to ask if we owe anything.
End-of-Season Picnic/Fun Games: scheduled for Oct 9th with a backup date of Oct 16th.
Fun Games format (TBD)- options to consider with managers’ input:
- Consider positional matches where: 1v2, 3v4, 5v6, 7v8.
- Voluntarily swap up to 4 players (like4like) to advance fellowship.
- 6 innings and 60-minutes limit so everyone can get to the food in a timely manner.
- Start each inning with your last out batter (or 11th batter for the 1st inning) on 2nd base.
Randy/director of finance:
Back from vacation, Randy will update the website for the status of pool player’s payment.
Bob/director of umpires:
Down to 11 volunteer umpires with 6 backups. While Bob has scheduled umpires for the remainder of the year, the uneven distribution of volunteers and their potential unavailability if called to sub may mean we have a few more self-umpired games.
- Jim & Kristina gave a good example of how they self-umpired in their Rhode Island league: plate umpire but also include base coaches’ input. Something to consider for next year.
Rules:
While the rules address like-for-like subs (Rule 4b), we do not address what to do if an error is found after the game starts. Play should stop, an appropriate sub found, else the team plays shorthanded unless both managers come to an agreement. Considering this issue, managers SHOULD exchange their list of subs pre-game to confirm like-for-like replacements.
Another rule discussed: players running bases CAN backup to avoid/delay a tag. Only the batter running to first is called out for backing up.
We need to remind umpires to be consistent (with other umpires) in calling illegal arcs (especially low) in a timely manner.
Ron/director of fields:
We pay after field use, meaning we’d owe for the Oct 2nd rainout makeups and field use in association with the planned Oct 9th picnic and fun games.
Marty/director of purchasing: N/A
Future topics- items to be considered next season:
1.. Courtesy Runners (CRs)- everyone pays the same to play and some feel slighted when told to step off the bag for a courtesy runner. We have put competitiveness above fun & fellowship.
a. Pre-game each manager identifies the only 2 players who get CRs.
b. If a player becomes hobbled in-game and a sub is not available, that player can get a CR.
c. The current rules state if a player becomes injured, the team can play shorthanded without taking an out when that players’ batting slot comes up.
2. Umpires:
a. At the end-of-season, survey the league as to the continued use of volunteer umpires versus paid. Are playing willing to pay more in registration to foot the bill of paid umpires?
b. TMSL is paying their umpires (Paul Hamel and Mike Gogan) $30 per game. Both Paul and Mike could be available to umpire FML. With Paul playing, he would schedule a replacement umpire when needed.
c. 20 weeks of 4 games a day equals $2400 for paid umpires.
d. $2400 divided by 88 registered players adds another $27 to the player registration cost.
e. Marty suggested dropping ordering hats to save $11 per player’s registration.
f. With registration currently $65, the final cost may be $81 per player.
Meeting ended at 2 pm.