What team?

My son is on the U12 Columbus Sharks, Columbus Ohio.

12U Kirkwood Redhawks, St. Louis Missouri area.

12U KC Stix, Kansas City, MO area

13u Central Jersey Future Stars

Redhawks, werent you guys the ones that beat us out in AAYBA U11 last year?

quote:

Originally posted by Eric G:
Redhawks, werent you guys the ones that beat us out in AAYBA U11 last year?

That would be us, however my son just joined the team this past fall.

12u Houston Banditos

Redhawks I take it they got stronger then is that right?! What a game that was. I rarely say a bad thing about umpiring but that was one of the worst officiating games I had seen in 4 years of elite travel ball. Anyhow, it was nice to see they won the tourney.

Eric,

Yes, the team got stronger as one player left and two came on board, both pitchers. My son and the other boy were the #1 starters on each of their prospective USSSA Major teams. The team is very deep in starting pitching now so I'm curious to see how far they go this year.

I'm not a huge fan of AAYBA. My son played up last year at the 12U World Series with another team and the umpiring was pretty good but they are all about the mighty buck. I think they have the highest gate fee of anybody. Since we weren't at the 11U Series, I can't comment on what you had as officiating but I think we've all been through a few bad games before.

My personal worst umpiring experience was the KC Sports Memorial Day tournament in 2004. We had a lady field umpire that was absolutely clueless. If it wasn't an out of town tournament for our team, I would have gotten myself tossed early. Luckily her calls didn't effect the outcome of the game for us and I got to continue coaching the rest of the tournament after a warning.

Good luck this season. We're doing AAYBA's wood bat World Series this year before we go to Cooperstown.