Wicked Wings

Both Monday morning Leagues – Gold Senior and Gold Legends games are cancelled today (Mar 27, 2023) due to copious amounts of rain past couple days. Reschedule notices to be issued as soon as possible.

Gold Legends League and Gold Senior League games on Monday morning March 20, 2023 have been cancelled due to weather conditions. Reschedules will be shown on the League website calendar.

Welcome all new and returning players to our soon-to-begin Spring 2023 Season! Evaluation days are now complete, and while the draft is underway, we have some open practices this week for you at the Hobgood Park diamonds, weather permitting. Here’s the basic schedule, but if weather gets in the way of your league’s practice, just come to any practice you can make.

Monday March 6th 9:30a.m.-12:00 noon (Open to Cornerstone and Les Taylor Leagues)
Tuesday March 7th 6:45 p.m. – 10:30 p.m. (Open to Masters, Legacy and Patriot Leagues)
Wednesday March 8th 6:45 p.m. – 10:30 p.m. (Open to Legacy and Masters Leagues)
Thursday March 9th 6:45 p.m. – 10:30 p.m. (Open to Skip Wells League)

All new and returning players are encouraged to attend practice on the day(s) and or night(s) your league regularly plays, with Masters and Legacy practice dates interchangeable. This is a great opportunity to get some swings in and field some balls under the lights for evening players. See you at practice!

Note: Some leagues will start their season the week of March 13th, and others will start the week of March 20th. You’ll hear from your managers when the draft is complete.

CSSA BOARD MEETING MINUTES
February 6, 2023

The meeting of the CSSA Board of Directors was held February 6th, 2023, at Wicked Wings, Kennesaw, and called to order by Norman Thiem at 6:40 P.M.

Board Members Present: Norman Thiem, Dick O’Connor, Mike Maguire, Dewey Hom, Maria Burden, Bob Werner, Mike Parson, Leland Brown, Robbie Crider, John Humeston, Randy Bergman, Dan Bonham, James Bauch, Ray DeLuca and Steve Fleming.

No Board Members were absent. Marty Aftewicz and Anne Ryan were guests.

A. Minutes of the January 11, 2023 meeting, having been emailed to all, were Board approved.
B. Pre-Registration Online: As of today, 129 members have pre-registered and paid their fees at the payment portal. All returning players must pay their fees, (preferably online) by March 4th. Players cannot play in a game until their fees are paid. Here is the returning players payment link:
https://www.cssasoftball.org/product-category/uncategorized/
C. 2022 Sponsors: A draft of a new sponsor brochure was presented by Norman Thiem and was well received. As of today, 17 sponsors have paid their 2023 fees, and Ray DeLuca is working actively to secure payments. All members of CSSA are encouraged to seek new sponsors for teams in our growing organization. Sponsors receive a great deal of community recognition and patronage from our organization. Dan Bonham has made fee payment easier with a new online payment portal for sponsors at this link: https://www.cssasoftball.org/product-category/sponsor/
D. League Reports on Returning Players: Each league director reported on the results of their manager polls of which players will be returning to play the Spring 2023 season. New players are needed in every league, as always due to attrition from injuries, illness or players moving up or down to a different league this year.
E. Spring 2023 Evaluations: Evaluation dates are February 25th & 26th from 12-2 p.m. and March 4th and 5th from 12-2 p.m., at the turf fields behind Hobgood Park. Directional signs will be posted along Towne Lake Parkway to ensure that new players can find the location on tryout days. Information will also be posted on the NextDoor App. CSSA has established a new phone number for interested new players to call for info on tryouts: (770) 400-9121. Mike Parson confirmed which volunteers would perform which jobs at evaluations, and Maria Burden and Anne Ryan established the procedure they would use for on-site new player registration and payments. Dan Bonham will create a special payment portal for new players, since they are not yet assigned to a league. We are hoping for 40-50 new players.
F. New Player Packets: Sample packets were distributed to everyone present, for review and suggestions for any necessary revisions for 2023. Stacie will make any necessary updates and prepare packets for the evaluation days, when all new players will receive a packet after their tryout.
G. Game Scheduling: James Bauch recommended that no games be scheduled during spring break as many families will be away on vacation and it may be difficult to get enough players to fill lineups that week. It was decided that league directors, with input from team managers, should decide specifically for their leagues whether or not to schedule games during spring break.
H. New League Proposal: Throughout 2022 Marty Aftewicz coordinated a regular pickup game on Thursday mornings at Skip Wells. The group regularly had 28 players each week, and they played 10 games. They play using league-specific rules of the Lowell Lawson league and the group is composed of players who are aging to the point where they might have a reduced skill level, making play in the currently available leagues difficult or dangerous.

Marty presented a formal written proposal that a new league be established in fall 2023, possibly called “Dreamers,” for these players. The league would begin with a spring 2023 season of 10 pickup games while preparations are made for the league to formally start in fall 2023 with 2-4 teams of 16 players per team. Not all players can play a full game and more player absences should be expected in this league.

The criterion for inclusion in this league would not be age, but diminished player performance due to injury or natural age progression. Currently, players donate $3.00 per game to pay for equipment and accessories. Umpires volunteered for each game. Lewis Newman generously paid for the field rental for each game last year and will continue to do so for the proposed spring season until the league becomes self-supporting through regular player fees in the fall. Marty proposes that through donations, umpires be paid for the spring season and any fees in excess of those needed to pay the umpire will go toward the purchase of infielder protective masks. Spring season softballs will continue to be donated by Steve Fachler and many other offers were made for supplies of softballs by various board members.
The proposal was anonymously accepted by the Board and plans will go forward to include the new league in the CSSA organization for fall 2023.

Norman Thiem reminded League Directors and Team Managers that they must tell returning players to pay all fees online by March 4th. Players must pay fees before they will be allowed to play.

The meeting adjourned at 8:25 p.m. The next BOD meeting will be Monday, March 6th at 6:30 p.m. at Wild Wings, Kennesaw.