Friday Morning League
Board Meeting Aug 25, 2026
Call to order: 12:30 pm at 72 Tables & Taps (5413 S 72nd)
Attendees: Marty Boozilkee, Randy Matsunami, Bill Riggle, Bob Nash, Ron Franck.
Ron/director of fields:
We pay after field use, meaning we’ll owe for the Oct 2nd rainout makeups and field use in association with the planned Oct 9th picnic and fun games.
Randy/director of finance:
Randy confirmed we have about a $3500 bank balance. About $1360 is needed to pay the remainder of the field rental bill due at the end of the season. Thus, leaving about $2140 balance.
- We are expecting a few anonymous donations to help offset the cost of the end-of-season picnic.
Bob/director of umpires:
Down to 10 volunteer umpires with 6 backups. Bob pointed out the volunteer umpires come from only 5 of the teams, making it very difficult to fill the schedule. He also described how 13 out of 24 scheduled umpire slots became vacant when the umpire was called to sub on a team.
Marty mentioned Mike Gaughen (umpires in the TMSL) is available to umpire the rest of our season (all of September and the Oct 2nd rainout makeups) as a test of the proposal to use paid umpires next year.
- It was suggested Mike umpire both games on field 2 at $30 per game ($60 total per Friday). With 5 weeks left, that amounts to $300.
- Randy withdrew $300 for Bob to pay Mike on a weekly basis.
- There is potential for Mike to umpire the Oct 2nd noon makeup game on field 2. To be explored.
Paid umpires for next year- In our survey to the players:
- At the end-of-season, survey the league as to the continued use of volunteer umpires versus paid. Are players willing to pay more in registration to foot the bill of paid umpires?
- Both Paul Hamel and Mike Gaughen have said they are available to umpire FML at $30 per game.
- 20 weeks of 4 games a day equals $2400 for paid umpires.
- $2400 divided by 88 registered players adds another $27 to the player registration cost.
- Ask their opinion on the option to forego team hats to reduce (by $11) the increased registration fee to cover umpire fees.
- With registration currently $65, the final cost could be $92 ($65 + $27) per player; or, reduced to $81 per player without hats.
- Ron Franck would like to cap registration cost at $75. We would need other offsets to achieve that if we used paid umpires.
Rules:
The July 31st partial rainout of the 10:30 games required review of our definition of a complete game. Since we copied most of our rules from the Night League (NSS), we referred to their posted rules that list four complete innings as the determination.
- Our posted rules have now been updated accordingly (section: Games, item 3):
- A terminated game shall be regulation if FOUR or more complete innings have been played.
All/Director of Player Personnel:
Pool Players:
- Jeff Gassman has dropped out.
- Joe Johnson of the Astros had to withdraw himself to care for his ailing mother out-of-state. Therefore, after a phone call confirmation, Greg Beninato was assigned as Joe’s replacement.
- Greg sustained a hamstring injury Aug 28th and is done.
- Ron Williams registered that day as a Pool Player. He has become the Greg/Joe replacement.
- Brett Crossley will have cataract surgery on Sept 12th and thus become unavailable afterwards.
Bill/director of communications:
Bill will contact 72 Tables & Taps for sponsorship on Friday, Aug 28th. We do not want to impact their sponsorship of the TMSL. Our proposal will be:
- We are seeking a $350 sponsorship to help cover our annual website hosting fees and offset umpire costs.
- Looking further ahead for next year, we are also offering a $1,000 top-tier sponsorship package, which includes prominent placement of their logo on the right sleeve of all our team jerseys.
Marty/director of purchasing:
The suggestion to forego buying hats next year to offset some of the paid umpire bill.
End-of-Season Picnic/Fun Games: scheduled for Oct 9th with a backup date of Oct 16th. The intent of the picnic and games is to enhance league socialization and fellowship in a fun setting. Unless the managers decide elsewise, the games will be positional matches where: 1v2, 3v4, 5v6, 7v8.
Fun Games format (TBD)- We want the managers of the paired teams to decide their own format. Here are some options offered, but not limited to:
- 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.
- Batter has the option to continue batting even if ball four (covers intentional walks).
- No strikeouts nor walks. Play 75 minutes then finish that inning only if required. No open inning.
- With 10% of the league usually missing this event: no subs; just balance the teams with who you have.
Meeting ended at 2 pm. Next meeting will be Thursday, Sept 24th at 10am hosted by Bill.