Team Manager: this position could also be referred to as the head coach. Responsibilities include: selection of players, bringing equipment to practices and games, uniforms, scheduling time and date for pictures, scheduling practices, designing and executing a practice plan, game lineup and substitutions, field preparation and field recovery after games, communicating with parents, and interacting with the league and its officials. Delegating tasks to other members of the coaching staff and team parent is also your responsibility. A thorough understanding of the rules of baseball is essential to managing a successful team.
Team Coach: the duties included with this position are to assist the team manager in order to carry out the team’s daily and seasonal goals. A strong understanding of the rules of baseball is essential to successful coaching.
Team Parent(s): a team parent is responsible for assisting in gathering information that is required throughout the season. The main roles of the team mom or dad are uniform sizing and concession.
General Volunteer: a general volunteer is for the individual who does not desire to be a team manger, coach or team parent but would still like to be involved.
Uniforms: The team will need fitted for uniforms. In past seasons, Broughton’s has compiled a couple of boxes of different sized shirts and pants that are cycled through the teams to size the players. A listing of team name, player names, sizes and jersey numbers then need taken to Broughton’s to be created. When the uniforms are completed, the team parent will need to pick them up and distribute them to the team.
Concession: Each team in the league is assigned a time slot to work concession. The team parent(s) is responsible for opening the concession stand and get it up and running during their team’s scheduled time. The team parent(s) is responsible for scheduling player parents during that time slot. If parents are not willing to work the concession, we will have teenage helpers available; however, the team parent IS responsible for being there to open the concession and get it started.
Catch All: additional duties include assimilating and disseminating picture forms, medical release forms, and any other paper work as the team manager requests.
MANAGERS
Read the Rule Book and make yourself knowledgeable before taking on this endeavor
Team Selection (except T-Ball)
Team equipment
Schedule team meeting
Collect team information
Medical Release forms – you as the manager will keep your team’s medical release forms with you and have them at all team functions. If the parent of a player is not available the release form will be necessary to treat the player.
Check your contact information
Lay down your team rules, practice plans, etc
Select your Team Parent or Parents
Schedule practices – 9-10 and 11-12 and softball-practice schedules will be designated by the league for use of the River Bend facilities. For extra times you will have to find your own spot. (Tee Ball and 6-8) our league carries insurance on the City of Elkins, Randolph County Schools and Davis and Elkins College.
RCBOE and schools - You will need to contact the principal of the school you wish to use for permission ( once they verify insurance we have never been turned away)
City of Elkins property – we only need to avoid the soccer fields. We stay off their fields and they in turn stay off of ours.
D&E – Permission is required for use. Contact the athletic department (304-637-1222)
Games
Providing the Player Agent with a list of team members willing to serve as pool player as it becomes necessary.
Saturday Manager meetings and facility maintenance
COACHES
Your role is to assist the manager in all of his duties listed above and to read the rule book and know the game.
LOCAL RULES FOR MANAGER AND COACHES
*Home Team Managers/Coaches
Responsible for getting the field ready for play
Responsible for returning bases to building, raking the playing field and ensuring the lights are off (last game on that field for the day).
Responsible for providing an ADULT scoreboard operator (if score is kept for your division)
*The last game of the day: the home team manager/coaches are also responsible for checking ALL doors on all buildings and ensure that they are locked, ensure that all lights are out, and remain until the concession stand is closed for the evening. It is generally dark when the concession closes and these ladies need to be protected.
Facility Maintenance
Many parents believe that someone or some entity is paid to maintain the facility, but that is simply not true. WE, all volunteers without monetary benefit, maintain the facility. It only takes one trip to an out of county baseball park to realize the quality of our facility. Maintaining that level of quality requires a continual effort.
Umpiring
Keeping a game moving actually begins before the first pitch is thrown.
- Umpires should strive to arrive at the game approximately 30 minutes prior to game time.
- Introduce yourself to the Managers and tell them that you will meet them approximately 10 minutes prior to game time in order to inspect the equipment.
- At five minutes prior to game time, after inspecting the equipment, arrive at home plate to meet the Managers for ground rules.
- The ground rules meeting is primarily for discussing any unique rules for that field. (I.e. what happens if a batted balls rolls into a tube that holds the tarp).
- This meeting should be brief. Do not issue a whole bunch of warnings at this meeting about player and coach behavior. It sets a negative confrontational tone that is not necessary or desirable. You should set the tone with an aura of cooperation and mutual respect.
- During this meeting, ask the Manager to have a player who is not actively involved in the game to come out with a helmet between batters and retrieve the bat.
- Ask the Manager to have the catcher ready to take the field as soon as the last out is made of his offensive half of the inning. If the catcher is the last batter of the inning or on base, have a back-up designated to warm up the pitcher between innings.
During the game:
- Always keep at least 2 balls in your ball bag.
- On foul balls and passed balls (with no runners on base), let the catcher retrieve the ball. Take a ball from your bag and toss it to the pitcher. (Just make sure the pitcher is awake and ready to catch the ball that you toss to him/her... (I’ve hit a few pitchers in my time!)
- Avoid calling time out unnecessarily!
- Many times, infielders will ask for time out as soon as they catch the ball. Avoid calling time out every time the ball is returned to the infield.
- While behind the plate, maintain a well-balanced stance, properly positioned in the “slot” with good head height, and timing. Call those borderline pitches as strikes starting early in the game and maintain consistency throughout the game.
Between innings:
- The plate umpire should take a position about a ¼ of the distance between home plate and on the side where the defensive players are coming out of their dugout.
- Remind the players to hustle on and off the field.
- Limit the pitchers to 8 warm up pitches in the first inning, or a new pitcher, and 4 during the rest of the game. (In softball, you can get away with 5 and 3, respectfully).
- Rule 8.03 tells us that these preparatory pitches shall not consume more than one minute.
- While we are not going to use a stop watch to enforce this, we do want to ensure that we are not wasting a whole lot of time with warm up pitches.
- If the last half inning was long, or if it is cold, you may want to give the pitcher 5 or 6 warm up pitches. Conversely, if the catcher is not ready and an alternate does not come out immediately, you may want to reduce the number of warm up pitches.
By following the above suggestions, you may be able to reduce your games by as much as twenty minutes! For more information about plate mechanics, please visit Little League’s Umpire Resource Center at: www.littleleagueumpire.org
Game Cancellations
Prior to team/manager arrival a board representative may cancel the game
Once teams arrive and before the lineup cards are given to the umpire, the team managers, if agreeing, may cancel their game.
Once the lineup cards have been given to the umpire, the umpire is in full control of the game and may pause or cancel the game as he/she sees fit.
All effort and diligence should be exhausted before cancelling.
Pool Play
A list of pool players will be received from the team managers and maintained by the Player agent or his/her representative. The player agent is to be contacted if a team needs a pool player and the PA will randomly select a player to fill that need.
Players not showing up and not giving notice is becoming more and more regular. The technological world we live in provides no excuse for this to occur. So, if you have not been notified by 30 minutes before your scheduled game time that a player will be late or not there, you may contact the PA and request a pool player if you require one more to make 9 players available to play. If the player who gave no notice of being late shows up after you have requested a pool player, he or she should NOT be added to your team roster for that game.