At the end of the 2013 season, the league found SOM back on top for the first time since 2009, meaning the commissioner from the infamous 2010 season would be back in charge in 2014 (Side note - please read one of the Original Founders of
SLAM's history piece on the league website to see how the structure changed from a constant commissioner to a rotating "based-on-who-won" commissioner). During the 2013 awards party, every manager expressed concern - led by OJ, the head umpire of our prestigious league. "Do you really want to be commissioner again? Do you remember how bad 2010 was? You don't? It was bad. etc, etc, etc".
But it is written into the league rules, and so it was set. If you win, you get to be in charge of the league for the next year (as long as you wanted to of course). And who would possibly turn down a leadership role that is resume-worthy? I mean, even if every single person in the league thought you should say no, you'd probably still say yes. I get it. And with the pressure on in 2014, the leadership from SOM stood tall, and delivered a perfect season with a responsive, thought out approach from the very beginning acquiring the needed permits, all the way to the final trophy awarded at the end of the 2014 season (to themselves of course). SOM is an outstanding softball team, and Scott Habjan is not just the best pitcher in the league (sorry Solomon), but is probably the best pitcher of our era.
Ahh, but enter the 2015 season. Clearly SOM had performed in their leadership role in 2014, so the rest of the league didn't give it a second thought. And then radio silence. March came, and still no manger's meeting scheduled. A last minute scheduling threw the managers together, and everything seemed okay except for one small detail: There was no schedule. And when the schedule was finally posted, it was only for the first month. Then the second month was added to the website. The season started, and teams did not know when the games would be played after May. A rush to get the games posted, and the obvious happened: mistakes, errors, omissions, and inequalities of who played at what time on which fields. At least one team found themselves playing a doubleheader on two different fields.
While OJ attempted to make sense of all this - and make sure umps would be at each game (which is of course what the league pays him to do) - we got a polite seemingly innocuous email from the commissioner:
"Adjustments to the schedule have been completed to address
certain mistakes, inequities and injustices. Please check your schedule asap. The changes are few and far
between but they do involve 1 game as early as next Thursday."
So let's ignore for a moment that the league managers were literally trying to schedule their team's games "as early as next thursday". Let's talk about the schedule itself.... For the past few years the schedule has always had a few built in rain-out dates. Typically these start in June and are perhaps twice a month. The theory being that if a team suffered a few early rainouts, they would not have to wait until the end of the season to make everything up at once. This is an excellent concept, and should continue to be the norm. However, part of this concept means immediately re-scheduling a rain-out so that all the teams have adequate time to prepare. So one would think that when the four games were rained out on 4/20 and 4/21, at least one of them would be re-scheduled for the first open rainout date of June 4th. But alas, this didn't happen, and the June 4th date sat there staring at us as an unused permit. And of course our next rainout would occur on June 1st. At which point another loving email was sent to TPG and RAMSA (two fierce rivals who have meet in the playoffs almost every year):
"In putting together the schedule, we built in certain days
for make-up games. We have one of those days this Thursday. Granted it is short
notice and there is a 50% chance of rain, but if OJ can find an umpire, and in
the interest of sparing you the potential of multiple regular season games in a
week – I think it would be great if we could reschedule your game for this
Thursday 5:30 at Hecksher. Please let me know asap if we can go ahead and do
that. OJ please let me know if you and your crew can cover it."
After a lengthy back and forth based on the simple fact that less than 1/2 of each team was available that Thursday, the league agreed to just leave the permit unused. For those of you who have been in this league for many years, you don't need me to tell you that the success or failure of our league comes down to one thing alone: Permit Availability. losing a permit is the worst thing that can happen.
When asked for comment, Commissioner Scott Habjan told this reporter:
"Like the past couple years, we built in some opportunities for make-up games throughout the season (not just waiting until the end.) Unfortunately the only games we needed to make-up were for earlier this week and it was too short notice to make it happen."
Which would be fine if that was indeed the reality of the situation. This would have been avoided if the 4/20 games were re-scheduled in a timely fashion.
Simon Yeung (TPG Co-Manager) had this to say:
“Due to the rain out on Monday, TPG on short notice scrambled to assemble a team late Monday for a proposed rescheduled game on Thursday vs one of the top teams in the league in HMRamsa. We were unfortunately unable to get 10 people to commit and therefore we had to respectfully decline playing on Thursday. This potential game was very important to us and we didn’t want to lose against one of the better teams in a league that has so many playoff implications.”
And even former commissioner and RAMSA Manager David Solomon chimed in:
"my legal counsel has advised me not to comment on the schedule drama from a week ago for fear of facing a heavy fine or possible suspension."
In this reporters opinion, the idea of a rotating commissioner based on who won the last year is a bad, bad idea. SOM is definitely the best team in the league these past few years, and no one can take that away from them. But running a league is a completely different skill than winning a game.
Time to get your act together before OJ quits on us. No more scheduling crazy. No more drama. Please. For the sake of the league we all love.
