All, My name is JP I am the DA for District 5 and I and my team welcome you to the 8-10 State Little League Tournament. It’s our honor and privilege to serve you and your teams during this tournament. For many of you this is your first time to a state Little League Tournament, and we want to make it a great experience. Othello is really rolling out the red carpet for Little League and it should be something exciting for all the players and families. There are lots of rule differences, policy, practice, and procedure that is different between state and “league play”. We will go over those differences, how we will execute the tournament, and specific rules for tournament play, and then answer questions for you – all during our Managers’ Meeting. We have handouts for you and will spend all the time you need answering questions. In the schedule below you will see a welcome BBQ, a block party, and some times for the games. There is already a schedule change for one of the games we will discuss during the manager’s meeting. We will be running the tournament under strict tournament rules and official Little League guidelines. We will also be instructing managers on how to “beat the heat” because playing in Othello is very different than where some teams normally play. It gets hot in Othello. 😊 The manager’s meeting is 8PM Friday Night at 81 E. Pine in Othello at the Parks and Rec offices. ALL teams need to have a manager or coach there, or a League Officer. You will miss important details if you don’t have a representative there. We will need to review your team binders before the tournament starts. Please bring your books to the manager’s meeting. We will start on them then. With some of your games starting early on Saturday, we will be crunched for time, but we will get it done. If your books are not approved by game time, then you will not be able to play. We will make ourselves available to review books starting at 6:00 PM on Friday the 21st . Here are the things we will confirm: 1. Birth Certificates and Player Ages 2. Maps of player locations and any waivers for same 3. Coaches / Managers Diamond leader training certificates 4. Any pitch count information provided by the district tournament 5. Medical releases for each player 6. Any suspensions or ejections 7. All player verification forms 8. Manager/Coach Affidavits So please make the books complete if they are not already prepared and signed off. We do look at signatures and dates. In a recent tournament (this week) we found an entire team whose affidavits and player verification forms had not been signed by their DA and thus the team was nearly disqualified for tournament play just hours before they were scheduled for their first pitch. We will also be doing formal plate meetings so make sure you have multi-part lineup cards to exchange with umpires, the official book, and the opposing team. We will not be providing those during the tournament so bring some with you. A 4 part form is acceptable. We will be providing score books. Please let us know if we can do anything for you, Valerie and Brennan have done a fabulous job of getting the fields ready and assembling a good tournament for you all! Please see the attached schedule below. Regards JP DA WA5/13
