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Organization to debut youth baseball league: Wapsi Valley Town Ball will be open to all students
February 5, 2013 by 1 Comment
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I have been part of the process of revamping the NSLL and it saddens me that the town rep for that league has stabbed us in the back. From the beginning we tried to accommodate the outlying towns(Donahue, McCausland, and Princeton) within the NSLL boundaries with how kids will be placed on teams, so as not to place an undue burden on them. We came up with a plan that kids from Donahue would not be place on teams with kids from McCausland or Princeton for logistic purposes. McCausland and Princeton were in but Donahue resisted and again the NSLL tried to reassure and adapt to help them stay part of the North Scott Organization. It seems all the information parents in Donahue were receiving was being filtered through the town rep Mark Kruse and The Sportsman Club. I need to refute a few points in this article that are not factual or ethical.
#1 The NSLL IS NOT and WILL NOT be holding tryouts! NSLL will have a skills assessment for every age group 9-12 years of age so they can even out the talent in each level of play for the minors and majors Everyone that signs up plays, no one will be turned away. Instructional and coach pitch will stay the same as before, town based.
#2 All kids from Donahue are still in the NSLL boundaries and are encouraged and welcome to participate in NSLL
#3 NSLL has not become to competitive, to the contrary we are evening the playing field by trying to accommodate all skill levels.
#4 The final format was not a done deal at the meeting where parents were encouraged to attend and it kept evolving through the next few months of meetings, but no one showed up for those to help us out.
#5 If Mr Kruse was so transparent with the start up of this new league as stated in the article, I ask why did he attend the first day of NSLL sign ups and intercept parents acting as the town rep for Donahue for NSLL???? This very much looks like a league in direct competition with NSLL, unlike stated in the interview.
There are successful sports and leagues within the North Scott system that are not town based and no one has a problem with their kids taking part in them i.e. NSSC and Lancer Youth Football ages 10-12 same as NSLL. That reminds me Travis Ralfs said in in the follow up article in the NS Press “I have always been a strong supporter of what the Donahue Sportsmen do for their community and the kids within it, but this goes beyond baseball at this point”. I believe there lies some truth in that comment. Last fall Mr. Kruse took liberty with the cc emails from the NSFF mailing list and politicized it, encouraging recipients to vote a certain way to benefit Donahue and not the North Scott system. I took offense that my email address given out for coaches and youth leagues was treated in this manner.
Shame on you Mr. Kruse for all your actions!