The First Pitch By Irv Porter

May 2003

The softball season is under way in Illinois as leagues are starting, and tournament ball with State, National, World, and World Series Berths are available to play for every weekend. Tournament results are coming in from all over the state to Illinois Softball Report (I.S.R.) and these tournament results are being posted for your reading pleasure.
April was an all-time record month for I.S.R. I had hopes of having 10,000 hits on the I.S.R. home page during the summer months and your interest in softball has already destroyed those 'high hopes' by having over 11,500 hits to I.S.R. in April. At the current rate after nine days into May I.S.R. should easily fly by last month's high water mark.
Your response to I.S.R. posting of tournament brackets is outstanding. Thanks for all the kind words on that subject. It is nice to hear good things about a softball related item these days.
Kudos' to the Crystal Lake Park District, they have decided as a safety issue to ban many of today's hot bats. This stance is unpopular with those mental midgets who think that hitting a rock hard softball back at a pitcher who is less than sixty feet way using a rocket launching bat at speed of over one hundred miles an hour is a god given right. This type of mentality has led softball to the brink of going out of existence. As a kid I remember the buffalo being at the brink of extinction too. But with sane minds and forward thinking they have come back. Today in softball with the lowering of both the C.O.R. of a ball and the compression of a ball softball came once again become a the game of choice for millions of Americans when they look to have some recreational fun in the warmer months of the year. Any other league and or park district that is willing to make such a stand, please do so. Softball is a recreational sport, and any recreational sport should be played for fun, with safety always being a top concern.
Chet Tyl, C.E.O. of the I.S.A. sent me their current newsletter that featured a story on Jerry Jackson become the Illinois I.S.A. state Director and the ISA Masters Director. What I also found in this newsletter were two other items that pertain to softball players everywhere. The ISA along with the ASA & the NSA had come to an agreement about a bat standard for next year. The intent of this bat standard was to give time to the bat manufactures to properly tool the bats for 2004. If three associations agree on a bat standard let's hope that all other associations will adopt the same standard. Today with each association banning different bats it's a major headache for the ball player. Granted the tournament softball player who plays in several different associations is aware of these bat rule difference. Where the biggest problem come in is at the recreational league level where a player who has used his bat all year long in his park league and now his team enters a local area tournament, which is run by a different association, and they are telling this player he cannot use his bat.

Conntinued:

I.S.R. Home Page