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Last time we had an ASA Gold Regional in Beaumont, it was at College Street. However, in my opinion it was not not what everyone thought it might be. Lots teams were already qualified, those that did qualifiy once the tournament reached a certain leave, left and did not play final games. There was also another tournament going on as BHBLUE suggested, during this event, so a lot of the better teams did not show in Beaumont. However, as also stated by a previous poster, it will help the local economy. BHBLUE is referring to the inaugural "Premier Tournament" in California which is basically invitation only that will begin directly competing against the ASA Gold nationals this summer.

Ford Park or College St?

According to the ASA District 39 website, Beaumont will be hosting one of the Gold Regional Qualifiers next summer: [Hidden Content] Can anyone else confirm?

That was TOO good, MomX2!!

What was the previous procedure? If you attempted to qualify in a gold "classification" tournament and failed, were you done for the summer in ASA or could you then attempt to qualify for ASA 18A nationals?

Why would colleges go to the Premier tournament if most of the players are already signed? Bound to be more unsigned players at past ASA Gold Nationals. Will the absence of those teams actually create more of a recruiting draw at Gold nationals and slightly weaken the recruiting at 16U nationals?

Any more updates?

I saw the following announcement on eteamz: IMPACT GOLD 2010 TRYOUTS Be part of something special. Impact Gold will have its tryouts August 23rd from 10am-3pm at Collins Park (Spring Klein). If you wish to play for a 20 year program with a National reputation, come try out for us. We have placed all players on college scholarship. We travel and play the best competition, California twice and Colorado, along with all major recruiting tournamnets in the area. This year we will have 2 teams. This year we finished 17th at ASA Gold Nationals. Come be part of a dynamic organization and achieve your dreams I think I see how this is beginning to unfold. The perennial powers will each form 2 teams. Team #1, made up of high school kids, for the "Premier" tournament and Team #2, made up of college kids with remaining eligibility, for the ASA Gold Nationals.

Latest update from Gary Haning..... I have to admit that I don’t read the softball boards too much, the Father of one of my players told me there was quite a bit of talk and speculation about the Premier Girl’s Fastpitch Tournament for 2010 and beyond and I wanted to give a brief explanation. Sorry but I will not be able to answer a lot of questions, information about the tournament(s) will be available at [Hidden Content] over the next few weeks. Some of the what is mentioned here is not totally worked out as I have to wait for the return from Gold Nationals of the other coaches involved in planning whose teams did not stink up the Gold Nationals such as mine did. First, this ABSOLUTELY IS NOT a Gary Haning vs ASA issue, I am one person, I have one team and after two consecutive bad Nationals that team barely qualifies for an invitation to what we are planning. A number of long-time Gold coaches have discussed this for years and now we are going to try and implement what we feel is a better way of doing things. Remember that this is an overview and may change in some way. Only players who fit the Jan. 1 age cutoff and have a current year HS identification or can show that they are home schooled and their would-be grad class is from the current year or later will be eligible. THIS WILL NOT CHANGE, except that we may decide to include JC players There will be two 18U Divisions, both will play in Huntington Beach at the main complex the second division could have some games at the new Fountain Valley complex, the exact number of each is to be decided but 48 and 32 is a rough guess. Some teams will be invited to each division, there will also be qualifiers throughout the country. The teams listed below have accepted invitations to the upper level tournament. No invitations have been yet offered for the lower level event. Sorcerer Gold Gold Coast Hurricanes Worth Firecrackers So Cal Choppers Corona Angels Marty So Cal Athletics Valley Breeze Georgia Elite East Cobb Bullets AZ Hot Shots Gatti Wichita Mustangs Beverly Bandits So Illinois Force Texas Impact Gold Virginia Shamrocks Texas Glory OC Batbusters We have invited some other well-known, successful teams but we are not ready to list those teams until we are certain of their interest. We also are inviting teams from all of the prominent softball playing countries in the world. We do not care of it is an all-star team or a top club team. We are putting together qualifiers around our country to add teams beyond the invitees We plan to have a 16U division that will pitch at 43’, we may have a 14U division. We will have the use of the new Fountain Valley fields as well as Col Bill Barber in Irvine. The dates are August 2nd through the 7th, 2010, championship games may be the 8th. We hope to play all championships on the same day at the Bill Barber Stadium, we have some very promising talks going about these games being televised, at least on a delayed basis. NO FALSE PROMISES, NOTHING IS CERTAIN AS TO TV. There will no gate passes nor entrance fees for spectators. College coaches will be fed and informed and not asked to pay for a booklet. That is it for now, look at our website for updates. WEST Don Minard Bruce Richardson Gary Haning Once they are all set we will list the committees for elsewhere

**SUMMER FINAL?**

When ASA tiered 18U between Gold and 18A several years back, what was the procedure at that time on how you qualified just to be considered a gold team in order to play in a gold national qualifier?

Same song, different verse..... I recall that Verde/Trout's Blast Gold team's only had a few to tryout every year and those teams qualified for gold nationals 3 or 4 years in a row in what was a tougher qualifying format at the time. There were only a few "local" players on those teams over the multiple years (probably missed a few). Verde Trahan Lemoine Parker Blythe Godwyn Autry So, what was the deciding factor for local players back then on not to attempt a tryout and is it any different from today? They were a tremendous sucess story back then, but for the local community, not many noticed all their accomplishments until they won the AFA nationals, and then that was only thing they were known for locally.

This past year's "gold" schedule would have only consisted of anywhere from 1 to 4 tournaments. If this thing goes off as planned I doubt you'd see as many teams chasing qualifications in far off tournaments (i.e. Tx teams traveling to Ga territorial this past June where 26 of the 52 teams were from Tx). The ASA Gold Nationals would lose a lot of its prestige and may not be worth the effort/expense. Although, I could be wrong. More teams may decide to jump on the opportunity to play in more diluted tournaments to qualify. Don't know if it would be practical, but there ought to be procedure to qualify to become a gold team each year prior to the national qualifier tournaments. The rest could compete as 18U.

I've also read where college players with remaining age eligibility will not be allowed at this tournament.

Just in case someone gets confused, the reference to Orange County is California's Orange County.

Is anyone aware of the event listed below. I got the article from SPYSOFTBALL.COM. SPY received this flyer from Gary Haning, a principal organizer/sponsor of a new softball tournament for summer 2010. Many details have yet to be announced, but, SPY has been informed by coaches of many Gold-level teams that they plan to attend this event, as an alternative to next year’s ASA Gold Nationals. To date, the indication has been that the two events will occur within the same time frame, but today’s announcement does not contain a date. A web site is being developed. Permits for the fields have been secured (principally, the Mile Square complex in Orange County. A key issue raised by many Gold coaches at Boulder and again at Champions Cup concerns ASA rules of eligibility for players to compete on ASA national teams, eg, the 2011 Junior World. Tryouts for Junior World will be held next summer by ASA. SPY has been told by some senior ASA commissioners that a team which competes in ASA qualifying tournaments but does not qualify for Nationals is eligible, and, that a team which does qualify for Nationals but does not accept the berth is still eligible for purposes of national teams. However, those same commissioners say that a team which accepts a Gold berth is bound to play ASA Nationals or its players will not be considered for National teams. SPY has asked ASA national headquarters for a definitive ruling and anticipates this ruling will be made public at the Gold managers meeting August 2. Apparently the tournament will be an invitation only tournament. If it makes with success it would tend to water down ASA Gold Nationals with most of the top tier CA teams staying to play at home as well as national perennial powerhouses following suit. Will be interesting to see how they come up with their invite list from year to year.

Congratulations ladies and to all involved! Didn't get a chance to see many of your games this week, but did enjoy the 2 games we played against you earlier this year.

Won't have a chance to watch and root for the Intensity today until 5:00PM today (or whatever time God intends the game time to be). But, AT THAT POINT, I'll have to be rooting against you in the RED bracket. Best of luck!

Also, here is a link to the ifa website where the scores are posted [Hidden Content]

Out of Control White Out of Control Blue Out of Control May

Here is a list of the 74 teams entered. I assume they are all 18U and that there is no 16U division: CA – Rage Gold (Guido) CA – RR Gold (Bob) CA – RR Gold (Mike) CA – Salinas Wildcats CA – Salinas Wildcats (Watts) CA – San Diego Powersurge CA – Strike Force IL – Stone City Sharks LA – Acadia Fastpitch LA – Cajun Express LA - Eliminators LA – Louisiana Blast Gold LA – LoUiSiAna Blazers LA – Louisiana Express (Terracina) LA – Louisiana Force LA – Team Holiday LA – VooDoo Gold LA –LA United Gold OK – Edmond Heat OK – Oklahoma Khaos TN – Germantown Red Devils TX – Alvin No Fear (Dominguez) TX – Athletics (Peltier) TX – Attack (Potts) TX – Beaumont Blast TX – CF Starz Black (Peters) TX – Clear Lake Blitz (Cueto) TX – Connection (O’Bryan) TX – Cy Fair Battz TX – Cy Fair Shock (Moreno) TX – GT Shockers (Soignet) TX – GT Shockers Gold (Trout) TX – High Voltage (Bouvier) TX – Hit Away Gold (Lindley) TX – Houston Power (Krysiak) TX – Houston Power Gold (Glowacz) TX – Houston RBI (Sosa) TX – Humble Cobras Gray TX – Intensity (Steamer) TX – Jets (Jaetzold) TX – Katy Cruisers (Melby) TX – Lethal Weapon TX - Matrix TX – MC Elite TX – Nederland Intensity TX – Orange Crush (Cole) TX – Orange Crush (Jaynes) Gold TX – Out of Control (May) TX - Out of Control Blue TX - Out of Control White TX – Phaze 2 (Robinson) TX - Prospects TX – RGV Thunder TX – SA Hawks Elite (Gutierrez) TX – SA HiTT (Barrientes) TX – SA Nightmare Red TX – SA Roughriders TX – Shockwave Gold TX – SK Sliders Gold (Gokey) TX – Southern Star TX – Texas Blitz (Staton) TX – Texas Coast Hitters TX – Texas Eclipse Red TX – Texas Fusion TX – Texas Ice TX – Texas Kaos Gold (Lamb) TX – Texas Sliders Gold (Gray) TX – Turn 2 (Rutherford) TX – TX Storm Gold (Hendrickson) TX – Crosby East Side Elite TX - Orange Crush (Birdwell) TX - Texas Sting Gold TX – TX Peppers (Sicotte) TX – Orange Crush Gold(Harrell)

The IFA Nationals Pool Schedule has been posted at [Hidden Content]

It's strange how items that go on separately come off as 1 piece. If I want to find my DD's dirty socks, I always find them rolled up inside the bottom of her dirty pants leg (and crusty!). My cap stank ain't got nothing on softball socks and cleats!

I think it's more of a chrome dome issue. Might grow my hair out and make a part 1/4" above my left ear and do a comb over and see if that helps. My wife gave me her solution. Next time you see me and I have antiperspirant/deodorant caked on the hair stubble on my head, you'll know that I tried her solution, unless CC tries it first!

On a similar topic: Who, what or where (other than Wal Marts PLEASE) can you get the stank out of a baseball cap? Tried Fabreeze, dishwasher, tomato sauce, etc. Gotten to the point where I can't stand my own brand!