Budget cuts trim baseball schedules to 20
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- November
- 25
I’m sure many of you read last Friday’s story in The Journal News and on LoHud.com about budget cuts forcing Section 1 to condense the boys and girls basketball schedules at the County Center from seven days to two. What you may not have noticed is that our stuggling economy will have an impact on the baseball season, too.
For the forseeable future, baseball teams can only play a maximum schedule of 20 games – four less than in the past. The max had been 24 for several years. I’m not exactly sure for how long, although I believe my high school team played 24 regular season games as far back as 1998.
The spring season is so condensed that this change won’t hurt everyone. It will actually help teams with shaky pitching depth, allowing them to pitch their No. 1 and 2 starters more regularly. It will also prevent rain (like those soggy early April days) from ravaging a team’s schedule late in the year. Oftentimes, clubs were scrambling to schedule games in late May, leaving them running on fumes come playoff time.
The greatest impact comes for schools that schedule games outside of the section, be it within the state or on spring trips to the south. Let’s take the defending Class AA state champ, Mamaroneck. If the Tigers still must play league opponents three times apiece, that’s 12 games. Now if you add in two games from Mamaroneck’s annual tournament and games against the first-place clubs from the three other leagues in Conference 1 (a fairly standard part of the schedule for most teams), here’s what I’d imagine the Tigers’ schedule would look like:
Mount Vernon (3)
New Rochelle (3)
Scarsdale (3)
White Plains (3)
Mamaroneck tournament (2)
League 1-B champ
League 1-C champ
League 1-D champ
Total: 19 games. That would leave Mamaroneck with one game to schedule. The Tigers would have to choose between the likes of Don Bosco, Clarkstown North, Clarkstown South, Ketcham and Arlington, rather than play them all.
The verdict: slashing four games is a big, big deal
If you’re a coach or an AD out there who has started looking at the spring schedule, e-mail me at jthomson@lohud.com and let me know how trimming four games will affect your baseball season.
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, November 25th, 2008 at 12:35 am by Josh Thomson. 
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Josh Thomson has done some of everything since joining The Journal News in
March 2003. He began working for the Gannett weeklies during the winter of
2002 as a freelance writer. He joined the daily staff soon after and has
since covered various high school and pro sports. Away from sportswriting,
Josh lives in Westchester and spends his free time either with his
fiancee, Sarah, or expertly managing his various championship-winning
fantasy sports teams. He's visited 21 major-league baseball stadiums and
insists that Fenway Park and Wrigley Field are the best by far. Josh
graduated from Carmel High School in 1998, then went to Boston University,
where, in 2002, he received a degree in communications with a minor in
history. 
Jake Thomases has covered baseball, hockey, girls basketball, and girls soccer for the Journal News since arriving in 2003. He previously interned at The Poughkeepsie Journal while attending Vassar College. He is socking money away under his mattress to buy the Knicks, at which time he will trade Jerome James to Cleveland for a ham sandwich.
Here is another suggestion, play teams near by. Stop the hour long bus rides past neighboring districts to play similar sized schools. Little Leagues play local tournaments and on to states with no regard to “size”.
Consolidation of districts would be great, eliminating duplication but in the meantime why can’t these tiny districts just play just down the road?
This stinks. Rumor had it that Mamaroneck and Kennedy were to play this year and that would have been a huge crowd. 2 State Champs looking to repeat square off.
I wonder how much money is being saved?
2 home games and 2 away games…bus ($300? x 2 games), umpire fees ($150? x 2)...few baseballs. Coaches pay I am sure remains unchanged. So are we saving $1,000 per school?
These kids are playing baseball for only about 8 weeks, would like to see them get as much baseball in as they can in that short amount of time. I bet they would rather do a car wash and raise the funds then play less baseball.
plus mamaroneck is suppose to be going away this year for a tournament
If mamk played 12 league games, 2 tournament games, and 3 crossover games, wouldn’t that be a total of 17 games, leaving and extra 3?
*an extra 3
They are also looking at realignment for the shorter bus rides. Another factor is those schools that play only 16 games. This hurts the schools that love to compete. For two years we had the Mount Vernon rule for sectionals, what next?
Mamaroneck has also been accepted to participate in the Anderson Bat National Classic in Placentia, CA. (the most competitive high school baseball tournament in the nation)
How many of those games then will count towards their final record?
Rich, all of the games that M’neck plays in California will count. They cannot count them as scrimmages its a bracketed tournament. Just ask Ketcham about going to Cal. and trying to count them as scrimmages. They were the number 1 seed about 5 or 6 years ago and were disqulified from the Section 1 tourn. for playing too many games.
a couple of concerns that immediatly come to mind:
1)will there be enough innings to develop the # 3,4,and 5 pitchers?
2)this tremendously helps the staffs that are only 3 deep
3)can the schedule be pushed back 2 weeks to allow for warmer weather.
4)smaller pitching staffs
I have been studying the economy ever since I was in my mother, Siefude Buffet’s womb. My father, King Buffet, taught me the ropes of the economy during my birth. As my umbillical cord was being cut, I promised myself that I would never let the economy shorten the baseball season for high schoolers, no matter how bad it gets. And what’s this? Four games? Why not make double-headers on four weekends to cut the bus/gas fees for those extra games? Listen to the guru. I know.
Sincerely,
Warren Buffet
Many of the Section 1 schedules are on the Boces sight. Most teams have 16 games assigned to them (league and crossover) that leaves 4 games of the coaches choice. Play in a tournament with 3 games and your done..
I had heard that another item on the table is re-alignment of leagues based on school proximity to save on fuel costs. Is something like this being considered for baseball?
lohud is right….there would be three leftover games for Mamaroneck to scedule… not 1
The season will be shorter, Be ready early:
For any HS player looking to get ready fo the season The Clippers are offering 8 weeks of open workouts in Elmsford at the brand new HardBall Training Center. Checkout the website http://www.clippersbaseball.org or email info@clippersbaseball.org
For any of you that want to check out the New York Nine… They also will be holding winter workouts. Go to newyorknine.org
Many have posted questions about some of the “elite programs” in the area (ie; Clippers, Bayside, etc.)
At the very least it will give you an overview of the “Nines” program.
How much for the workouts .Are there any openings on the teams for next summer?
Baseball 2010
The Winter workouts are a way to get excellent training for the upcoming season and they also give the coaches an opportunity to evaluate your skills as a potential player. You need to check out the websites and contact info. I do not work for either The Clippers or The New York Nine and am merely providing the “Nines” contact info. My son played for them and had a great experience.
The NY Nine wants 375 for 8 training sessions. The Clippers have no info on the web site about winter training.
It says e-mail for more info. I went to the meeting and it is 8 weeks also for 200. It’s open to all hs players not just those looking to tryout. They have a team just ofr SR’s.
The “Nines” winter training is not about specifically tryouts. There are a lot more participants then play on their teams.
I’ve been following along here for a while and I had to just write and comment. I had my son attend the Clippers workout last night for the first time even though they started last week. I as a parent was delighted. Yes, there were a lot of players with the talent ranging from very good to OK. I believe this is because it is open to all. There was very little if any standing around. So much happening it was tough to follow. What really suprised me was that working the event were 3 college coaches, Fairfield U, High Point and Stony Brook. A few high school coaches and 2 Pro Scouts on hand were evaluating a few kids. These were not you neighborhood scouts either, these guys traveled hours. The college coaches worked different stations and spoke to many of the kids individually as well as in groups.
BTW, right next door to the facility is Velocity speed and strength training. It seems some of the players at the workout get there early and do a speed and strength session before they pick up a bat and ball. The 2 facilities are in the same building but are seperate business. Some players were asked during the baseball workout to go next door and run a 40yd dash. It’s a very cool place.
I’m not going to say that my son will make the team, or is better then guys that were there but I defintely feel this will make him a better player. This was just my evaluation as a parent of the workout. Next we are hoping to go to a NY9 workout and get a feel for where he fits. Being that they are at different times on the weekend, the only thing spent is a few dollars.
The Clippers really have the right idea on how to go about things from what I can tell as everything they do is geared to getting the kids who play for them an opportunity to play at the next levels and this winter workout they are doing is another example. My son came home today and reported he received e-mails from two of the schools in attendance. It was well run, as they were able to showcase some of the better players to the scouts, but not at the expense of any player, as no player was shortchanged as far as any drills and reps were concerned. The fact that these scouts were present certainly caused a different vibe in the building from the usual mid-winter indoor workout. I was surprised to see how many kids showed up, and wondered how they could run the thing in an efficient and worthwhile manner given the amount of kids and the space limitations of the building , but I thought it was handled well.
From a John Jay standpoint…
how many league games was there before? and when do we get to face Mamaroneck?? I want a shot at them. And does this mean we only get to beat Ketcham twice? -N. Boyd
You will still play Ketcham 3 times and I am sure they would like nothing better than to see you out on the mound in one of those games. Let’s see you do something first as a player before you do any talking. Also, you were lucky to beat them in 2 games last year with two legit D1 players in your line-up. This year, other than Luksis , there is no one like that at John Jay. Ketcham should have deeper pitching depth and a better line-up so it won’t be so easy to do what you say.
You made some good points there. I did a search on the topic and found most people will agree with your blog.