Three Thoughts for the Third Year

		Coffee Time
		by Carl Coffee

After two seasons of Wiffle in Southeast Michigan, I can’t help but look back and reflect on what this league has become. What started out as simply tournaments at Brownstown Middle School with old high school buddies has now blossomed into one of the largest and most respected leagues in the country. Friendships have been formed within the league, and on a larger scale, I have met and become friends with wifflers from all over the country. It has been quite a fun ride, and I still don’t believe we have hit our peak. With the year coming to an end, I just wanted to share a few ideas/thoughts/opinions/etc., which I think will only help our league.

My first idea is based on something the NHL does: giving out stars to players after each game. The NHL gives out a 1-star, 2-star, and a 3-star to the top three performers in a game. My idea is to give out stars to the top hitter, pitcher, and fielder in each game, or maybe just for the two game series. There can be a few different ways to determine who gets the stars. Either two players (preferably the captains) on each team can decide together who gets the stars. Another idea is if someone keeping score is not a member of either team, they can decide who gets the stars. It won’t be rocket science, and I doubt any controversy would come about from it. If no one player can be decided, I wouldn’t have a problem giving out ½ stars to two players. Why add this Carl? What is the point? Well, my main reason is because I would like a better way to determine the Diamond Digits. Having stars attached to players would be an easy way to determine the best fielders in the league. Giving out stars to the best hitter and pitcher will also help with weekly awards, and it could be a neat little stat to have. Maybe I can even have WSEM Stars made, and players who win them can add them to their hat like college football players do on their helmets. This will be a very simple and fun addition, and it will help me not get ridiculed ever again when I decide the Diamond Digit winners.

My second point is something I am very excited about, but I am not even sure other people in the league know we are doing this. It has to do with scheduling for next year. The way WSEM has handled scheduling in the past, has been each captain making their schedule by communicating with the other captains. If we had only one or two fields in a central location, I would go about with set times on set days the way most leagues in the country do it. We are unique in having each team use their own home fields. In 2011, everything was new to us, so a lot of flexibility was there. Last year we were a bit stricter in scheduling games, but we still let you decide during the season when you would play the other teams. This year we are going about it in a whole new way. We will be having a scheduling meeting in early April. Corbett has laid it out nicely on the webpage: In early April a meeting will be held to schedule each team’s ENTIRE SCHEDULE BY WEEK (I.E. Team X will play Team J in Week 1, Team R and Team B in Week 3, etc.). A representative of each team is expected to attend with knowledge of weeks that look bad for their team (i.e. prom, weddings, or a few guys have vacations/business trips scheduled), so that you can help make the best schedule possible for the entire league. If a team is unable to attend they may inform us beforehand of their “bad weeks”, and their schedule will be set by the rest of the league around that. Specific days of the week scheduled may be decided any time up to day of. We are doing this so that the league can see when big series are occurring and may properly hype what is going on in the league.

I love this idea, and I think it will help smooth out a lot of scheduling problems in years past. Here are a few reasons why I like this. 1. Knowing ahead of time when you will be playing only makes life easier on your team. 2. It still gives you flexibility to determine the day and time you will play, all you have to do is pick the day and time within the week you chose in April. 3. If you know ahead of time one of your players won’t be around that week, you will have plenty of time to find a replacement. 4. No longer will teams refuse to play at times because their star player can’t make it. 5. Road trips can be planned ahead. Say Whiteford has to play the Warriors and King Friday on the road. They can schedule both for the same week, and then knock both series out on the same day. 6. It is simply a cleaner and more polished way of doing things. 7. We will know in advance when big series are coming up, and then tape them and put them online.

My third point is more of a concern. Towards the end of last season I saw a lot of ugliness from certain teams, and I hope it doesn’t carry over into next season. If I wanted to play a game with a bunch of jerks and crybabies, I never would have stopped playing softball. I believe over 90% of our league treats wiffleball the way it should be treated, but there’s some in the 10% that let their emotions get the best of them. I love winning as much as the next guy and losing can sting, I know. Luckily, we have never had a physical altercation which I know other leagues have had to deal with, so I wanted to be proactive with this. Just remember, wiffleball is a children’s game that we take way too serious, but in the end it will always be a children’s game. Thanks guys for two awesome years of WSEM, and let’s make the third the best one yet!