Job Qualifications

What is it about the job of softball coordinator/league commissioner/rec director that makes someone lose whatever brain power they had?

As near as I can tell these are the job qualifications:

1) Lack of common sense
2) Inability to communicate effectively
3) Stubbornness unto the edge of insanity (the definition of insanity is...you know that one, five points to anyone who posts it)

In one league I play in, the commissioner refuses to publish the scores online. Now most players don't really care about mundane things such as tie-breakers and standings and playoff positions. They just want to know when and where to show up next.

But many of us keep up on where we are, what we need to do to get that number two seed, and who we will be playing in the playoffs. It's called interest and need for information. And of course it often comes down to head to head records, and run differential.

I asked this particular league commish once why he won't publish the scores. His answer: "We have never done it that way." He publishes the standings, the schedule, the rules. but not the scores. So it's not like he doesn't have the technical wherewithal to do it or the data. In fact they are compiled every night. HELLO - IT'S THE TWENTY FIRST CENTURY, where information is king!


I should ask him, "Why shouldn't we recycle beer bottles?"

"We have never done it that way."
"Why is a car faster than a horse?"

"We have never done it that way."

"Why are there four balls in a walk?"

"We have never done it that way."

...wait a sec...

But it's ok, he is saving at least ten minutes every night in not updating that one extra web page. Think of what you can do with all that spare time. For example, he could concoct strange end of season tournament schedules where the 4th place team has an advantage over the 3rd place team, which he has done...But I digress.

Another league head I know does not know how to use a period after a sentence. His emails read like a James Joyce novel, only with accidental spelling mistakes instead of deliberate ones, and just about as obtuse in language and meaning.

Something like we have a preseason meeting to give out schedules and the Thursday league will have every third week off the byes will be byes we are trying 70foot bases this season umprises will be two eahc game except coed and senior leaues just have won everyone enjoy.

Thank you very much.
The topper came this week. I got the preseason notice for a league in which my team is in the Senior Division, which in this case has been over 35 years old. He gave a list of new news items matter of factly, and somewhere in the middle, between announcing the new fields will have turf and lights, and telling you to put down the A league if you want to be in the top division, B for the middle division and C for the lowest division (DOH - really?) was this charm:

"I have also changed the senior league age from 35 to 50."

You could have just gone right by it. Suddenly half our roster is ineligible to play this year. And I am sure we are the only team that would be comprised of mostly guys in their 40s - not. Well guess what, I have to give him credit, after about ten emails from teams wanting to leave things the way they were, he made the brilliant decision to leave things the way they were.

I applied for two of these jobs when they came open. The return message was "Too Smart(ass)."

Go figure.