Date: 11/19/2007
Time: 6:30pm
Location: Parrish’s
Teams in attendance: Warriors, Saints, Lakers, Bulldogs, A’s, Crosstown, JT’s, Groupers, Millers
Teams absent: NoneTopics of discussion, not necessarily in order:
Board Members:
The need to elect two alternate board members from teams other than those represented by current board members. This is in the event that one, or two, teams represented by board members are involved an incident needing board intervention. This was tabled until the next meeting.
There was a motion to strike the last line of article 8 of the bylaws which state, "Each Commissioner/Director shall be elected to a term of no more than three (3) years. Consecutive terms beyond three (3) years are prohibited." The motion carried 9-0.
There was a motion to pay the board members for their service with the amount paid per team to be determined annually. The motion carried 9-0.
The floor was opened to nominating new board members. None were nominated though each team was encouraged to speak with their players about the possibility of board membership.
Concept Group motions to keep the same board members in place. The motion carried 9-0.
Apple Valley motions to have each team pay $80 toward board salary. The motion carried 6-0 with the three board member team abstaining.
Umpires:
There was discussion about whether or not to use an umpire association or to continue finding our own umpires. After much discussion it was decided that we would pool our umpire lists with a cursory rating of each ump. We will eventually discuss the merits of each ump and try to come up with a core group of umps that can be agreed upon by the entire league. We will also put into place an umpire rating system so that, over time, we can best determine the strengths and weaknesses of each.
Player Participation:
For years, there has been much debate of how much a player needs to participate to be eligible for the State Tournament and just what constitutes participation. A motion stating that a player showing up for a game, in uniform and on the bench, constitutes participation. The motion carried 9-0. The league will provide line-up cards for each team, if necessary, listing all players and uniform numbers. Each team will is responsible for exchanging these cards with the opposing team prior to a game and listing which players are present. It will be the opposing teams responsibility to verify the presence of each opposing player listed on the card. In the event that a player arrives after the start of the game, it is the responsibility of that team's manager to point out the arrival of the player to the opposing team. Kent will work on an online system for entering player participation.
Schedule:
Most teams agreed that we need to increase the number of games played during the regular season though there was debate over exactly how to do that. The board will enter talks with the boards from other leagues to try to begin some sort of interleague play.
Tournament:
Kent will continue discussions with the other leagues about a season ending tournament.
Next Meeting:
The next meeting was set for some time in February.
Date: 2/13/2006
Time: 7:00pm
Location: Parrish’s
Teams in attendance: Warriors, Saints, Lakers, Bulldogs, A’s, Crosstown, JT’s, Groupers
Teams absent: MillersTopics of discussion, not necessarily in order:
Board members:
In accordance with league bylaws, article 8, a vote was taken to appoint league directors. The vote of attending teams was unanimous to keep the current board members in office.
Dundas:
Kent Rogers informed the group that Dundas was going to participate in the league just as they did in 2005, meaning they would play each team one time, in Dundas.
Federal League:
The Federal League has decided not to participate in any games or the tournament with The Classic league.
Regular Season Schedule:
There was much discussion about how many games to play this season and when to begin play. Some teams wanted to stay with playing each other team three times starting in early May, others wanted to play each team only twice and start in late May or early June. Myron Carlson of Edina offered a compromise whereby each team would play all other teams twice (except Dundas) and then break the 9 teams into three groups based on last season’s final standings and each team would play the other two teams in their group an additional time. This will create a 19 game regular season for all teams. The motion was seconded by Jim Block of JT’s and a vote commenced. The Lakers, Saints, A’s, Crosstown, JT’s and Bulldogs voted for the motion while the Warriors and Groupers voted against as the motion carried.
Interleague Play:
Most all teams agreed that playing interleague games is an important step in growing the popularity of The Classic League. Some teams argued in favor of scheduling all interleague games in May as “tune-up” games when the weather was less predictable, saving the better weather for league games. Others favored breaking up any interleague games over the course of the season. A motion was put forth by Kent Rogers to leave the first playable Sunday of each month unscheduled to allow teams to schedule interleague games with opponents from the Gaulke, North Star or any other leagues. Kent’s motion was seconded by Tom Clancy of Crosstown. The Lakers, Saints, A’s, Crosstown, Groupers and Warriors voted for the motion while JT’s and the Bulldogs voted against as the motion carried.
Rules:
Only one rule was modified. Rule 3n was inserted and reads:
Game Length: All Classic League games shall be 7 innings in length. A regular season game may be extended to 9 innings in length if agreed to by both managers prior to the start of the game.
Pre or Early Season Tournament:
There was talk of having a preseason tournament, possibly involving teams from other leagues. A 1 or 2 day round robin format was discussed and the weekend of May 12th & 13th was determined to be best. No decision was made and the Bulldogs are going to check on the availability of their fields.
State Tournament:
There was quite a lot of discussion about what format to use for the state tournament but no decisions were made. Kent said he would come up with a couple of options and email them out.
Next meeting:
April ?, 7pm at Parrish's
Meeting adjourned at 9:00pm
Date: 9/26/2005
Time: 7:00pm
Location: Parrish’s
Teams in attendance: Warriors, Saints, Lakers, Bulldogs, A’s, Crosstown Traffic
Teams absent: JT's, Millers, Groupers
Topics of discussion, not necessarily in order:
2005 season:
All in attendance agreed that our test merger with the Federal League went well, especially the tournament which was deemed the "best we've ever put on." All teams were in favor of continuing in a similar situation in 2006
New team: Billy's on Grand
All teams in attendance agreed that Billy's seemed to be serious in their bid to join the league and everyone was willing to let them in, contingent on a few items on top of the info they provided in their letter to the managers:
- $300 "earnest" payment prior to the next league meeting
- Current roster with names & DOBs
- A little solidification of the field issue (Fields must have an outfield fence and a grass infield) including what field(s) they might use
Also, 2006 would be a "probationary" year for Billy's. In the case that something drastic were to happen (team folds or ends up forfeiting a bunch of games for whatever reason) the league would revisit the issue and possibly reverse course. This has all been communicated to Billy's manager.
Dundas:
(Kent Rogers) As of the meeting, I had not heard what Dundas' plans were for 2006 but my guess was that they'd be interested in continuing in the same capacity as 2005. We voted and agreed that that would be acceptable. Since the meeting, I've heard from Dana Kiecker and he confirmed my assumption. He said they might be willing to play some home/home games if the league were split into north & south divisions, but they are still only looking to play 10-12 games.
Red Wing:
(KR) I've heard rumors of possible interest from a team in Red Wing, but nothing concrete. We discussed it briefly but decided that it wasn't worth any more effort until we actually hear from a representative of the team with specific information, similar to what Billy's has provided.
Federal League:
(KR) The F.L. has yet to have their fall '05 meeting, so it is not clear how they feel about the relationship with the C.L. or whether they'd like to continue. It is my opinion that there are still one or two teams that would like to go back to the way it was before. Those teams might be willing to go for a little less inter-league play and a tournament closer to the A/B proposal they made right before this year's tournament.
The one thing that some of their teams are worried about is recruiting of their players by our teams. Recruiting of F.L. players by C.L. teams would destroy any relationship whatsoever and will not be allowed.
We talked about how, if we play inter-league again next year, the inter-league games should be spread over the entire season, not just isolated to one month.
North Star League:
(KR) A couple Classic teams played a few non-league games against North Star opponents and the Saints also played the North Star champion, Mayer, after our tournament and their leadership has expressed interest in joining our post-season tournament. They have yet to hold their post-season meeting, but they still play with the 3-2 count AND use aluminum. Those seem like fairly big obstacles, but we will see what they come up with at their meeting.
Gaulke League:
The commissioner of the Gaulke league had also expressed some interest in combining for a post-season tournament but has now backed off and will not pursue anything with us until next winter.
Rules:
We discussed a few rules, some of which are already on the books and some of which are new.
Lineup cards:
According to rule 3a: “Roster cards must be completed and given to the opposing manager before every game. If a player is not listed on the card or if no card is given to the opposing manager, credit for that player for that game for state tournament eligibility may be denied.” The wording of this rule was changed to "Lineup cards" instead of "Roster cards", so as not to confuse with the roster that needs to be submitted to the league secretary and we agreed that this needs to be enforced.
Player eligibility:
It was reaffirmed that playing defense or running will not count toward the minimum number of games played for postseason eligibility. According to rule 4b “A player is deemed to have played in a game if they have had at least one plate appearance or pitched at least one inning.”
Scorebooks:
It was agreed that we need to be more diligent in keeping our score books. A motion was made by Tom Clancy of Edina, seconded by John Czwarnog of Apple Valley and passed 6-0 that we will implement a new rule in 2006 where every manager will make a copy of their score book for all regular season games and present them to the secretary at our pre-tournament meeting in August. The copies will then be "on file" at the tournament in case there are any questions about player eligibility.
Rosters:
We are returning to our official rule that says final rosters are due by 7/1. Each team is also responsible for their roster on the website so careful inspection is needed by managers to make sure the website agrees with their roster. In addition, initial rosters are due to the secretary by the start of the season. A motion was made by Tom Fisher (Burnsville), seconded by Tom Clancy (Edina) and carried 6-0 that players will no longer be allowed to play for two teams (i.e. C.L. & F.L.) during the regular season or the post-season tournament.
Uniforms:
Rule 7 states that matching pants are required, but some teams sport quite a variety of pant styles. The majority opinion is that this is not appropriate. If a team's official pants are plain, piping or pin stripes are not allowed, and vice versa. Also, duplicate numbers are not allowed. We've let this slide in the past, but let's all do our best to start complying.
Tournament:
We discussed a few items regarding the tournament. We all agreed that it was a fantastic tournament and that we'd like to do it again next year, if possible. A couple of suggestions for next year:
- Burnsville didn't mind hosting the tournament, but it did get to be a long two weeks for them. It would be nice to figure out how to spread out the workload a little. Ideas included farming out the concessions and having participating teams help with some of the field maintenance.
- Stagger start times if only two games.
- Plan a day off, if possible.
- Use the same rules we use during the regular season (e.g. position sharing). In order for this to work, we would either need to unify all rules with the F.L. or get them to play our rules during the tournament. Other alternatives: play home team's rules or alternate rules from one year to the next.
- If we need to split up into some kind of separate A/B tournaments, we might want to look at some number of pool play games before splitting into separate single-elimination tournaments. This would be similar to Roy Hobbs. If other leagues want to get involved, the number of single-elimination tournaments simply goes up.
Scheduling:
It was decided to return to our old method of scheduling regular season games. i.e. Have a scheduling meeting where teams can schedule their games directly with other teams and then send that schedule to the secretary to create the master schedule.
Next meeting:
Monday, December 5th, 7pm at Parrish's
Meeting adjourned at 9:15pm
Monday November 22nd, 2004
Location: Champps Richfield
Start Time: 7:00pm
Attendance:
Executive committee:
President: Alan Arthur
Vice President: Myron Carlson (Absent)
Secretary: Scott Gatzke
Teams:
Apple Valley A's: Brian Betts
Concept Group Groupers: Absent
Edina Crosstown Traffic: Absent
Minnetonka Lakers: Absent
Minnetonka Saints: Todd Radam
St. Paul J.T.'s: Absent
Woodbury Warriors: Kent Rogers
Burnsville Bulldogs: Tom Fisher
Northfield Millers: Mike Grossman
Primary purpose of meeting: To begin the process of electing a new president as Alan Arthur has stepped down.
Kent Rogers was nominated and an email was sent out to all managers informing them they have until 12/3/04 at noon to nominate anyone else for the position. There will then be one week for voting on the eligible candidates. The proposed merger between the Classic and Federal leagues was also discussed at length and was supported unanimously by the attending teams. An email was sent out asking for feedback from all teams.
Other items addressed:
Moving the state tournament in its entirety to either before or after Labor Day rather than splitting it over the holiday. The possibility of changing the pinch runner rule to the Roy Hobbs "Shared Offensive Position" rule. We agreed to look into acquiring a league insurance policy. Agreed to purchase a domain name for the website and move the hosting to a higher bandwidth site. Created a subcommittee for marketing.
No plans were made for a future meeting. The meeting was adjourned at approximately 9:00pm.
Monday August 9th, 2004
Location: Parish's
Start time: 7:00pm
Attendance:
Executive committee:
President: Alan Arthur
Vice President: Myron Carlson
Secretary: Scott Gatzke
Teams:
Apple Valley A's: Chuck Murray
Concept Group Groupers: Dave Salwasser
Edina Crosstown Traffic: Myron Carlson
Minnetonka Lakers: Jack Peterson
Minnetonka Saints: Joe Perzel
St. Paul J.T.'s: Jim Block
Woodbury Warriors: Kent Rogers
Burnsville Bulldogs: Absent
Northfield Millers: Absent
Primary purpose of meeting: To finalize the bracket for the state tournament.
Numerous changes were made to the tournament bracket including dates, times and field locations. Some items were still pending field availability. Changes will be distributed to all managers within 48 hours. Entry fee for the tournament was set at $290 per team and T-shirts for the winning team were added to the budget. Jim Block will be collecting the money from each team. Apple Valley will provide six dozen baseballs in lieu of the tournament fee.
Other items addressed:
A clarification to the pinch-runner rule was made. Classic League rule 3.g., previously named “Pinch Run Rule”, will now be titled “General Courtesy Runner Rule” to avoid the possible impression that a substitution has been made instead of a courtesy runner inserted. The rules will be distributed to all managers shortly. (Probably within 24 hours)
There was an issue regarding advance notification that a team would be unable to play a scheduled game. It was again determined that there would not be a firm rule put in place regarding this issue but to keep to the longstanding "gentlemen's agreement" that with "adequate" notification both teams would do their best to reschedule and play all games.
An issue between Apple Valley and Edina regarding a disputed make-up game was resolved. Chuck Murray for Apple Valley and Myron Carlson for Edina agreed to play the game on August 15th 2004 at Apple Valley prior to the A's scheduled game vs. Woodbury.
No plans were made for a future meeting. The meeting was adjourned at approximately 8:00pm.
