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ecbstars
62 Posts |
 Posted - 04/13/2010 : 10:43:15
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I wanted to take a moment to pass along our experience this past weekend. I have made many friends in the travel baseball circuit and met a lot of great people. To all of you please keep this experience in mind when selecting your future events.
We signed up for and paid for a USSSA / Global Sports event this past weekend in Auburn, Alabama. 11 families planned around this event booked, rooms and in several cases cut other family vacations short to make this happen for the kids. I was notified by one of my coaches that the brackets were changed on Thursday night around 10:00 p.m. est. My immediate question was is anything different for us? To my surprise it was very different - we had been removed from the tourney. The tournament director, Dee Black, posted on their website just below the new update in bold "East Cobb is (not are)removed for complaining" I was completely shocked! What had we done? The even bigger question is what had the director done except take baseball away from my kids and ruin what was otherwise a nice spring break?
As of today 4/13/10 I have not, nor has anyone involved with my team EVER spoken with Mr. Black at ANY time before or since this event. An absolute class act. The only contact number for him, I am assuming cell phone has a full mailbox so I was unable to even leave a message. We have gotten no response from any e-mails since.
We were scheduled to play at 8:00 and 9:45 cst. (9:00 & 10:45 our time). Our team tourney dad did ask since we were going to be a little short handed on Friday what would happen in the event someone got hurt or otherwise what would the result be? We got no response. NEVER did we ask to get out or complain. They have at least taken that part off their website.
The state director did return my call and said it was the local director's decision and that he supported him. We were not able to get into another tourney with such short notice. Thanks to all who tried for our kids.
Has anyone else had a bad experienced or anything like this with Alabama USSSA or Global Sports? I have hosted several USSSA events including Major State and have never heard of anything like this. Can't wait to hear your comments.
Thanks,
Brian Gilley
EC Stars 11-U
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Storm Baseball
212 Posts |
Posted - 04/13/2010 : 11:32:12
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Brian,
We just had 43 teams play this past weekend at Hobgood Park and Big Shanty and had 26 special requests as when to play and when not to play. Granted I was not perfect on my 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc versions of the scheduling, I was able to grant 99% of the requests. Not sure what happened to you guys but that concerns me since we are looking at their event in Auburn in late June. The no response since the situation is disappointing as well. |
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tae281
447 Posts |
Posted - 04/13/2010 : 11:48:09
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IIRC, last year there was a travel team from GA that was disqualified due to them changing some pitching rules right before the start of a Global Sports tournament in Gulf Shores.
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ecbstars
62 Posts |
Posted - 04/13/2010 : 11:57:19
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| Thanks Storm for the reply. The odd thing is we made no special requests. If we cannot make the times posted for an event we do not sign up. By the way...if anyone has any questions about the situation please feel free to contact me directly. I do not want anybody else's children to go through what we did this weekend. |
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DecaturDad
619 Posts |
Posted - 04/13/2010 : 13:08:05
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Brian,
Had you paid for the tournement? Not that is should matter. If you had paid, havn't they made a commitment by accepting payment? |
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ecbstars
62 Posts |
Posted - 04/13/2010 : 14:28:39
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Decatur Dad,
Paid well in advance. One would have thought so. They did give our money back the next day. |
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Bully
49 Posts |
Posted - 04/13/2010 : 15:21:36
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We played at Auburn last weekend and had a great time. We have been every year for 3 years and have never had a problem. I have nothing to complain about. I have worked with Dee every year.
Sorry,
10U Elite Attack |
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baseballbrad
71 Posts |
Posted - 04/13/2010 : 21:58:29
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I'm with Coach Gilley on this one. That's a pretty classless way to inform a team they will not be in a tournament(via the internet on the day before the tournament begins). Unfortunately Georgia teams don't get much love from USSSA whether it be Super NIT Berths or Global World Series Berths. Alabama outsmarted our directors on the Global Sports World Series holding one day shootouts that ended the day before our bracket play started. At least Bubba was able to expand the tournament in Gulf Shores so the teams that qualified were at least able to go. There is a reason triple crown has 32 teams entered in this weekends tournament!
quote:
Originally posted by ecbstars
I wanted to take a moment to pass along our experience this past weekend. I have made many friends in the travel baseball circuit and met a lot of great people. To all of you please keep this experience in mind when selecting your future events.
We signed up for and paid for a USSSA / Global Sports event this past weekend in Auburn, Alabama. 11 families planned around this event booked, rooms and in several cases cut other family vacations short to make this happen for the kids. I was notified by one of my coaches that the brackets were changed on Thursday night around 10:00 p.m. est. My immediate question was is anything different for us? To my surprise it was very different - we had been removed from the tourney. The tournament director, Dee Black, posted on their website just below the new update in bold "East Cobb is (not are)removed for complaining" I was completely shocked! What had we done? The even bigger question is what had the director done except take baseball away from my kids and ruin what was otherwise a nice spring break?
As of today 4/13/10 I have not, nor has anyone involved with my team EVER spoken with Mr. Black at ANY time before or since this event. An absolute class act. The only contact number for him, I am assuming cell phone has a full mailbox so I was unable to even leave a message. We have gotten no response from any e-mails since.
We were scheduled to play at 8:00 and 9:45 cst. (9:00 & 10:45 our time). Our team tourney dad did ask since we were going to be a little short handed on Friday what would happen in the event someone got hurt or otherwise what would the result be? We got no response. NEVER did we ask to get out or complain. They have at least taken that part off their website.
The state director did return my call and said it was the local director's decision and that he supported him. We were not able to get into another tourney with such short notice. Thanks to all who tried for our kids.
Has anyone else had a bad experienced or anything like this with Alabama USSSA or Global Sports? I have hosted several USSSA events including Major State and have never heard of anything like this. Can't wait to hear your comments.
Thanks,
Brian Gilley
EC Stars 11-U
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BROOKSTEAM
145 Posts |
Posted - 04/13/2010 : 23:57:40
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I am the "tournament Dad" for the ECB Stars. And I would encourage you or anyone else who is planning on playing any Dee Black tournament to contact me directly first.
Please know that as mentioned above this was not about who has and who does not have positive experiences. We requested to play one game on Friday so we did not have to play all on Sat. Then we were scheduled for 2 games on Friday, the day we had to travel, with the second starting probably close to 11pm east coast time. As soon as we saw the schedule come up I tried several times to call Dee Black, and never once received a call back. When I thought that it might be possible that we would not have enough boys for the second game I simply asked, never complained or anything else, what the ruling would be if we had to take a forfeit. Late on Thursday Dee Black sent an email saying he had refunded our money and we were out.
The reaction of my son and from what I heard from other parents was broken hearted dissapointment, crying etc. For whatever the concern was on the part of Dee Black, his actions caused the most hurt on 11 year old children. Why do we do this? Spend the time, money etc? For our boys. And then to have this happen is almost not believable.
quote:
Originally posted by Storm Baseball
Brian,
We just had 43 teams play this past weekend at Hobgood Park and Big Shanty and had 26 special requests as when to play and when not to play. Granted I was not perfect on my 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc versions of the scheduling, I was able to grant 99% of the requests. Not sure what happened to you guys but that concerns me since we are looking at their event in Auburn in late June. The no response since the situation is disappointing as well.
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TAZ980002
831 Posts |
Posted - 04/14/2010 : 09:36:03
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I can't speak for this tournament in particular but our experience with the Super NIT last weekend was a little strange.
First, why can't the Alabama USSSA folks update the website like every other tournament director?
Secondly, the pool play schedule came out Mon or Tues and the website said check back Thur at 9pm for possible changes. Changes were made - FRIDAY morning at 10:30 !!
Lastly, we get to the ball park Sat morning for our first game and find out our opponent has changed yet again.
Just didn't give a real sense of competence. We didn't really care who we played, but it does matter for positioning of pitching rotations.
Maybe it's just an "Alabama" thing ?? |
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ecbstars
62 Posts |
Posted - 04/14/2010 : 13:43:33
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| Dee Black was the td, Scottie Mobley was the state director that I spoke with. |
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mrbama31
252 Posts |
Posted - 04/14/2010 : 14:17:31
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| Sounds like somebody rubbed somebody the wrong way...then overreacted!! |
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jaguars18
245 Posts |
Posted - 04/14/2010 : 14:31:00
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| so i would stay away from his tourneys too then |
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ecbstars
62 Posts |
Posted - 04/14/2010 : 15:48:01
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| Correction. They said they had already processed the refund to our debit card Thursday night, as of today it has not showed up. We do not even have our money back yet! Somehow I am suprised!!!! |
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BBall123
395 Posts |
Posted - 04/14/2010 : 16:05:15
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I will " ALLWAYS " vote to not play in Al. USSSA tourneys, in particular this guys, and if i'm over ruled, we wont be attending that weekend. What he did was classless period.
He had absolutly "NO" concern for the boys or familys on this team.
He abused his power,acted like an immature brat by posting it on the tourney page in big red letters the night before the tourney instead of calling someone from the team to see what was going on or if it could be worked out, he treated an out of state team with total disregard and his organization should be made to feel the pain from it. |
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patent pending
66 Posts |
Posted - 04/14/2010 : 19:04:55
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| Last year Global WS 12 championship was a disaster. Because of the modified pitching rules. When the WS championship was on the line neither the Alabama or Georgia director was any where to be found. Game was ended in forfeit because the helper of the director didn't know the modified rules. Very sad outcome to a WS.Hopefully this year they will have since enough to at least print modified rules in black and white so theres no cuonfusion. As well as make themselves available if needed. |
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G-Man
326 Posts |
Posted - 04/14/2010 : 19:41:17
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Scott is a pretty good guy so I am surprised about him saying he supports his TD. He is usually pretty fair but I also agree if this is what happen then I would attend a tournament in Alabama either that this Dee was hosting.
quote:
Originally posted by ecbstars
Dee Black was the td, Scottie Mobley was the state director that I spoke with.
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Trainbaseball
7 Posts |
Posted - 04/14/2010 : 21:25:44
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I wont comment about anyone personally here. Given a choice of tournaments though I will pick the one NOT sanctioned by USSSA. Not only Alabama tournaments are affected by this behavior, Georgia can be as well.
I have coached travel ball for about 5 yrs (2 age groups, summer and fall) and have PLENTY of experiences to share. |
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rock44melnix
110 Posts |
Posted - 04/15/2010 : 07:37:01
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| BG - Glad you are out here posting this and informing us. We been eyeballing several tournaments in AL of late but have now crossed that idea off altogether. Absolute classless way to operate, I guess when you are the only game in state you don't think before you act because you have a tendency not to care. Again, thanks for putting this out there. |
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lottapop
257 Posts |
Posted - 04/15/2010 : 09:55:05
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| Normally Dee does an exceptional job with his tournaments. There have been numerous times when there have been no charge to ECB teams to come and play at his tournaments just to get quality teams from other areas. I would rather play with Dee than the other alternative. I hate that you had such a bad experience but there is always 2 sides to a story. |
Edited by - lottapop on 04/15/2010 10:27:49 |
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Shut Out
512 Posts |
Posted - 04/15/2010 : 18:40:44
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Bubba,
as GA director can you step in and get some type of explanation from the AL director why his TD would treat one of your GA teams with such clear disrespect. We realize this is a AL issue but it does refect on the USSSA organization as a whole. Note the earlier post about 32 teams playing this weekend with 3 on the waiting list. Your leadership is key to driving a positive response and experience for our teams, kids and families. |
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BROOKSTEAM
145 Posts |
Posted - 04/15/2010 : 22:10:58
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It is great to see all the input. Please understand that this is not about Dee Black doing an exceptional job or not, not about their being 2 sides or one side. I have all the correspondence that went back and forth between me and Dee Black. I could also show you my phone records where I called many times and never received a call back. We also have a copy of the internet page where a comment was posted that was really embarrassing and worse not true.
This is however not about any of this. It is about an adult who is involved in youth sports who's actions, for whatever reason, affected 11 year old children. If your team had played 100 tournaments with someone and then this happened you and your boys would be devastated.
How many of you out there have ever heard of a tournament game scheduled for a start time of 11pm for a team traveling from out of town?
Again, if anyone reading this is planning to play a Dee Black tournament and would like to have the specifics and details of what happened please contact me.
quote:
Originally posted by lottapop
Normally Dee does an exceptional job with his tournaments. There have been numerous times when there have been no charge to ECB teams to come and play at his tournaments just to get quality teams from other areas. I would rather play with Dee than the other alternative. I hate that you had such a bad experience but there is always 2 sides to a story.
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baseballpapa
1520 Posts |
Posted - 04/16/2010 : 08:06:29
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Papa has never played in a tournament that Dee directed and it sounds like its a good thing I haven't. What I really don't understand is the way USSSA continues to ignore problems. It's sort of like they don't care what we think and I am sure at some point that this line of thinking is going to bite them where it hurts and that it there pocketbook.
You don't treat teams like this Mr. Dee. If you something personal against the team or their Coach you must always remember that bottom line you hurt the kids. You should be ashamed. |
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BBall123
395 Posts |
Posted - 04/16/2010 : 08:32:09
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| We will NOT be giving them the chance to ruin our boys baseball experience !! |
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mrbama31
252 Posts |
Posted - 04/16/2010 : 08:47:58
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ESEC2100,
Did your team refuse to play at 11pm? Did he try to give you an earlier time slot but you couldn't make it due to travel? I guess what I am asking is did he give you 11pm due to problems with field limitations and or your availability limitations. Oh and yes I have seen 11pm start times for Friday Night games for traveling teams in the Border Wars tournament in Chattanooga.
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michaelp
20 Posts |
Posted - 04/16/2010 : 11:13:58
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| Mr. Dee needs to due what Bubba would do and that is let us know what is going on. The silence is a real bad sign. This board is great about getting to the truth. |
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Topic |
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Alabama U-Trip / Global Sports
