It's a very busy time here at the Central Region complex in Indianapolis, IN. There are only two games scheduled for today but there was still a lot of other activities to keep the teams busy. Each morning at 9:00 AM the coaching staff of each team must attend a meeting with the Regional volunteer tournament coordinators. The meeting is used to go over the days practice and batting cage schedules, go over any issues that might have come up the previous day and to do the coin-flip to decided the day's Home/Away dugout assignments for the teams playing later in the day. After the meeting each of the teams are pretty much on their own to play tennis, ping pong, video games, basketball or maybe take a dip in the pool. This may be one of the most important tournaments for these boys but when you see all the players having fun and playing together during these times, you do realize that they are still "just kids" enjoying their little summer get-away.

When the teams arrived yesterday, each player had their individual picture taken in the hopes that it would be used during the Championship games that are televised on ESPN. Today each team had their "team" picture taken in front of the Stokely Field scoreboard holding the prized State Championship flags and then went into the stands to take a group picture with all the teams together. I had planned on starting my video recording and interviews but ran into some technical difficulties. I'm hoping to have that resolved tomorrow.

I should mention that my role here has changed a bit too. When I arrived last night and checked in with the Regional staff, I let them know that if they needed any extra help with anything to just let me know. As it would happen, they need my help right away. It seems that a couple of the "Team Hosts" were not able to make it at the last minute I was asked if I'd be willing to help with that. A Team Host is someone who becomes the "go-to" person for their assigned team. This includes answering questions, escorting the team to practice, helping with email or computer access, etc. Basically anything the Team Host can do to make things go easier for the team and their coaches. But the real fun part comes during the time the team is playing their game. The Team Host goes to the game with the team and gets to be in the dugout area with them. Again, just to help where needed. I of course quickly volunteered.

I was given the choice between the Nebraska and Illinois teams. It was a pretty easy decision for me. The team from Illinois is the Jackie Robinson West Little League and I had met their eteamz webmaster back in January during the League Officials Training Clinic at headquarters and helped him with his website. I had even joined their mailing list and was able to keep up with the league this year. I again quickly volunteered to be the Team Host for Illinois. So, rather than now rooting for two teams, I'm rooting for three. Unfortunately both Michigan and Illinois are in the Great Lakes pool and only one can move on to the World Series. They don't actually play during this portion of pool play but could play each other in the semi-finals next week. But for me, I'm just having fun!

Another piece of good news for me was that the room I use in the team dormitory during our umpire schools wasn't being used. This meant that I could check out of the hotel and stay in the dorm. Yes I know, give up a nice comfortable bed, refrigerator, private bath and shower, HBO, king size bed, coffee pot, etc., etc. etc.? And for what, a single bunk bed with a hard mattress, a shower room with 12 outlets, no private bathroom, no refrigerator and over 150 KIDS running around? You bet... in a heart beat. This is as close to being in the game without playing in it. You get to meet some great kids, coaches and work with all the other volunteers that make this tournament a success. Ok, saving $60 a night at a hotel isn't all that bad either.

The second game of the day just finished with Indiana beating Ohio 2-0 in 6 innings. Ohio had a couple of chances to tie the game but came up short. In the earlier game between Iowa (rooting for Urbandale remember) and Missouri, Iowa won, 12-2 in a shorten 4 inning mercy game. Both teams had a nervous start with neither team scoring in the first inning but that didn't last long. In the second inning, Iowa (home team) scored three runs including a home run from Trae Cropp and a double from Trey Nesbit. Iowa went on to score three more runs in the third inning and six more in the bottom of the fourth. Missouri was only able to score two runs in their top of the sixth inning with the help of a two run home run from Zach Watson. Unfortunately for Missouri, with the six runs Iowa scored in the bottom of the inning, it sealed their fate.

So that's it for today. Tomorrow both Michigan and Illinois play and I'm just excited to be here and be a part of it all!

With a crowd estimated to be over 2,000 people, Bay City SW defeated Midland NE by a score of 3-2 in an extra inning battle between the two remaining teams of the Michigan State Little League State tournament. With Midland only about 20 miles from Bay City and a 6:00 PM game start, we all expected the crowd to be big, but not this big. To give you an idea of what this means in Little League terms, at each game there is a 50/50 drawing with the winner splitting with the league. For most games the winner got about $80 (of $160 collected). In the Semi-Final game between Bay City SW and Georgetown the winner took home about $750 which at the time, we thought was huge. But with this size crowd, the winner took home over $1500! We even had three television stations filming the action along with two newspapers and photographers. There were painted faces and bodies with the words "Southwest" with each letter spelled out in white paint on a nine blue painted bodies. Simply an amazing night.

!http://community.active.com/servlet/JiveServlet/download/38-18546/BayCityHands-sm.jpg?blogID=8913&blogPostID=9297|height=163|style=padding:8px;|align=left|width=247|src=http://community.active.com/servlet/JiveServlet/download/38-18546/BayCityHands-sm.jpg?blogID=8913&blogPostID=9297!While this may have been the Championship game, it went as so many have for Bay City SW. They an early lead in the top of the first inning 1-0 with Midland NE pitcher Damon Walters striking out lead off hitter Seth Freed but then gave up a walk to Brendan Taberski, a single to Scott Badour, another walk to Jacob Alarie and the one run RBI single to Hayden Clements.

In the bottom half of the first, Walters hit a lead off single, advanced to second on a steal and moved to third on another single by Jonathon Hentschel. Hentschel tried to steal second but was thrown out by Bay City's catcher Seth Freed. Walters was stranded on third when Bay City's pitcher Scott Badour retired the next two batters. The key to the inning? Walters threw 30 pitches and Badour only 15. As I've seen in other games, it's the team that makes the best use of the 85 pitch count rule that usually has the advantage. More on that later.

Midland NE tied the game in the bottom of the fourth inning when Elliot Digison got on first due to a throwing error, advanced to second on a steal and moved to third on a fielder's choice and scored on a single by Jonathon Hentschel.

The score remained tied 1-1 until the fifth inning when both Bay City SW and Midland NE each scored another run and the score went to 2-2. This was truly a Championship game.

Then the Pitch Count rule came into play. Going into the top of the sixth with Bay City SW coming to bat, Midland NE pitcher Walters had to leave the game at 86 pitches (a pitcher can finish throwing to a batter and exceed the 85 count). With a new pitcher on the mound, Scott Badour lead off with a double and moved to third on a single by Jacob Alarie. He then scored on another single by Hayden Clements and Bay City SW took the lead 3-2.

Justin Gorr took over for Scott Badour in the bottom of the seventh with Badour leaving the game with 88 pitches. Gorr struck out the lead off batter and then hit a Ryan Mangapora and Midland NE had a man on first and had a chance to tie the game. But Mangapora was forced out at second on a fielder's choice for out number two. Then on a 2-2 count, Gorr struck out the last batter and the game was over!

I spoke about using the pitch count to an advantage. From what I've seen thus far, the team that much change pitchers first, definately is at a disadvantage. This is especially true if your number two pitcher pitched in a previous game and is ineligible to come in relief and you must now use your number three or four. I'm not saying this is what happend in this game but when you have the losing pitcher leave in the fifth and the winning pitcher able to stay until the seventh, well, what do you think?

This is the first time in the 56 year history of Bay City SW Little League to advance to the Central Regional tournament in Indianapolis, IN and a chance to advance to the Little League World Series. I'll be traveling down to the Central Region next week to pick up the coverage the Michigan Champion. The will be playing in the Great Lakes pool against the champions from Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana and Wisconsin. We'll keep our fingers crossed that their 11-0 record (district and state games) continues but win or lose, they have had a great ride.

Due to some server issues, I have not been able to post to the blog until today. Adding to that we had such severe weather yesterday that the semi-final games were postponed until today.

I'm glad that I wasn't a betting man as I mentioned in my previous post because while the host team, Bay City SW is one of the final four teams, St. Clair is not. St. Clair was defeated in the first round of the single elimination bracket in a nail biter against Midland NW by a score of 5 to 4. St. Clair's "big" gun, Tyler Lozen had another great outing through the first 5 innings, allowing two runs on three hits and also managed to strike out 10 Midland NW batters.

In the second inning, St. Clair took a 3-0 lead with a two-run single by Johnny Joachim but then Midland NW started to battle back. In the third inning, Midland NW had a single home run which gave the team new life and you could see the difference in their playing. They were excited and back in it.

The big break for Midland NW came in the sixth inning when they got two infield singles, a walk and a double. The double is what sent in the winning run and earning them a birth into the semi-final round today.

In the Bay City SW versus Birmingham quarter final game, Bay City SW won the game by a score of 13 to 3. But don't be deceived by the score. In Little League play, anything can happen and it almost did to Bay City SW. Birmingham got on the scoreboard first in the bottom of the second inning with an RBI double from Freddy Jehle followed up by a two-run single by Randy Rihter giving Birmingham a 3-0 lead. This was the first game in which Bay City SW started with a deficit.

With a captaincy hometown crowd chanting "we want a rally, we want a rally", Bay City SW did just that. In the top of the third inning, Bay City SW got back in the game with a doubles from Seth Freed and pitcher, Scott Badour to cut the Birmingham's lead to 3-2. After facing just one batter in the top half of the fifth inning, Birmingham's pitcher Randy Righter had reached his pitch count limit for the day. As anyone in Little League will tell you, when your starting pitcher has to leave the game, your opponent can take an advantage and that's what Bay City SW did.

With a new pitcher in the game for Birmingham, Jacob Alarie had a RBI double to tie the game at 3-3 and then Brian Feinauer also had a double and Bay City SW took the lead 4-3 and never looked back.

Birmingham changed pitchers two more times in the fifth inning but it didn't seem to matter to Bay City SW. Justin Gorr and Brendan both had singles. Freed had another double and an RBI fielders choice by Logan Eby gave Bay City SW added to six-run fifth inning and a 8-3 lead.

In the top of the sixth inning, Bay City SW added to their lead with five more runs with singles by Hayden Clements, Kollin Slachta, Taylor Schepper and Brendan Taberski. There were two bases loaded walks and then a two-run double by Scott Badour sealed the fate of Birmingham and the final was 13-3 and put Bay City SW into the semi-final.

I have the plate for the semi-final game between Bay City SW and Georgetown tonight at 6 PM and I'll have first base for the Championship game tomorrow. I'll try to write a post after tonight's game which should be another great one.

!http://community.active.com/servlet/JiveServlet/download/38-17980/tom_majorstate.jpg?blogID=8913&blogPostID=9203|height=288|style=padding:10px|align=right|width=432|src=http://community.active.com/servlet/JiveServlet/download/38-17980/tom_majorstate.jpg?blogID=8913&blogPostID=9203|border=0|vspace=0!I guess should start of by apologizing for not writing more stories but  to be honest, I have been so tired by the end of the day that all I  want to do is take a hot show and get some sleep. I did three games on  Friday and two games Saturday and only have one game today and that  isn't until 6 PM tonight. I guess my age is finally starting to show  and while my mind wants to keep going, the body is saying something  different. But I won't bore you with all of those details and will save  them for another day.



This story is about my last game of the day on Friday and I had the Plate. The host team, District 14, Bay City SW beat District 7, St. Clair Shores by the score of 6 to 1. But as Paul Harvey would say, "and now, for the rest of the story..."



This was probably the best game of the day and thus far, the best game of the tournament. As the headline reads, it went eight innings with all of the runs being scored in this last inning. It was a pitching duel between Bay City's Scott Badour and St. Clair's Tyler Lozen. Both boys pitched like this was a Regional final game where the winner was moving on to the World Series. Badour didn't allow any runs to score on four hits and had ten strikeouts. Lozen for his part, didn't allow any runs either and only allowed two hits while striking out ten. Both boys also had great defensive backup plays from the rest of their team members.



St. Clair did have a chance to win the game at the bottom of the seventh inning when Jonny Joachim hit a double and went to third on a passed ball. He then tried to stretch that overthrow into a run by heading for home. But a nice throw to the Bay City catcher, Seth Freed led Joachim sliding right into Freed's glove as he tried to end the game. Close play at home, but I called him out and we were on to the eight inning.



As it happens all the time in Little League, opportunities happen when you change pitchers and that's what broke this game open. Both pitchers had reached their maximum 85 pitches for the day and had to be replaced. In the top of the eight inning Bay City lead off with a double by Justin Gorr. This was followed by a single by Loban Eby and another double with an RBI by Brendan Taberski and Bay City put the first run on the board. With the bases now loaded, Hayden Clements hit a long fly ball to center and out of the park for a grand slam home run! Bay City went into the bottom of the eight inning leading 6 to 0.



St. Clair wasn't about to be counted out and had opportunities to score in their half of the inning. After three walks and a sacrifice fly, they were finally able to but a run on the board. But Bay City ended the game with a final strike out and the final score was 6 to 1.



For me personally, this was one of the best games I have participated in in a very long time. Both teams were great, the crowds were fantastic and the players had fun. As a volunteer umpire, it doesn't get any better than that.



Today is Sunday and as I mentioned, I only have one game today and I'll be at second base. For the first three days all of the umpire assignments were pre-assigned. Tomorrow we move into the Double Elimination bracket leading to the Championship game. Going forward, each of these games will be assigned on a daily basis so I won't know where I'll be tomorrow, if anywhere.

You can follow the games by checking out the brackets at www.llbmichigan.org and official photographer for the tournament, Adam Webster from  Reminiscent Photography has pictures from the games on his website www.reminiscent-photo.com.  He has also promised me some action shots that I can add here so look  for those later. In the meantime, check out the photos from the Bay  City, St. Clair game by clicking here.

Greetings from Bay City Michigan home of the 2008 Little League Michigan State Tournament. Bay City is located approximately 115 miles north of Detroit and about a three hour drive from my home in Kalamazoo. I arrived this afternoon around 4:00 PM and checked into the hotel along with 16 teams of 11 and 12 year old boys, their coaches, parents, siblings and anyone else that might be part of their entourage. This equals to about 350 people and add this to the local volunteers, umpires, scorekeepers, grounds people, board members, etc. there could be well over 700 people attending this week long tournament.

After checking into my room and meeting up with my fellow umpire from Kalamazoo, Pat Griffin, we changed into our umpire uniforms and headed off to the Opening Ceremonies and Banquet which was held at the Saginaw Valley State University. As each team arrived in uniform they were grouped by their District (1-16) and then led my us umpires, paraded into the banquet hall which was actually the basketball gym. Each team held their District Champion flag as they filed in and were announced and you could tell by the expressions on their faces, they were excited to be here.

After the banquet we all moved back to the hotel for the Manager and Coach meeting. This meeting is used to go over all the Little League rules once again and to go over any special situations that might come up during the tournament. For example, the weather. All of the games are scheduled to run for 2 hours and begin on the hour (12, 2, 4 6) and as any umpire will tell you, this is a very tight schedule. Would we like to have games completed in 2 hours? You bet. Is it realistic? Probably not. Then add in a thunderstorm or two and you have a nightmare in the making. Add another ingredient into the mix that neither of the fields we're playing on have lights... well, you can see what I'm talking about. It's going to be very interesting week.

I have 3 games out of the 4 that are scheduled at the Bay City SW Little League complex. The first is at noon, followed at 4 and the last one at 6. I'll be at 3rd base for the first game, 1st base for the second and have the plate for the third. My plate game will be between the host team, District 14 Bay City SW and District 7, St. Clair. You can keep track of how the games are progressing by visiting the Michigan State site at www.llbmichigan.org and click on the brackets. Now don't expect things to be updated too quickly. I also maintain the State site and the brackets for all the tournaments going on in Michigan. So as you can see, I'm going to be a bit busy this week.

Games begin today with the Opening Ceremonies and then the fun really begins!

I had three baseball games to work this past Saturday but when I woke up around 7 am and looked outside, I didn't think there was any chance we would be playing. It was raining and it appeared that it had been doing so all night. There was standing water in our yard so I could only imagine what it would look like at the different baseball and softball fields around our district. Now, a "little" rain we can typically deal with and since all of the games (22 of them) weren't until 11 am and 2 pm, it would be pretty easy to just delay the start and play later. However, with 22 games, we really needed to try and get these games in. In our area, the teams are used to not playing on Sunday and would rather not but, you do what you have to do.

By 10 am things still didn't look good but the rain wasn't coming down as hard and the weather radar still showed more rain coming. I made a couple of calls to the different leagues and found that some of the fields were in pretty good shape and would try to start on time while others were going to push the 11 am start to 2 pm and then move the 2 pm games out later. The park where I was schedule to be at for two games (11 and 2) thought that they could be ready pretty close the starting time and had been working on the fields since 7 am to get ready. Lucky for me, it's a short drive to Gull Lake Little League and the President told me, "we'll be ready!"

Upon arriving at the park, they were indeed ready and the playing field looked great! You could tell they had spent a lot of time and effort to get things ready and the teams were there and ready to play too. I should mention that this first game was for a first round 9 and 10 year old baseball game. If any of you parents or umpires have  ever watched or umpired a regular season 9-10 game, you know how they can go; lots of hits, errors; strike-outs, etc. It's also a division where as the umpire, you get hit with a lot of foul and passed balls that the catcher misses. Over the years I have done several 9-10 beginning round tournament games and they can be just as frustrating. I also feel that the 9-10 year olds deserve the same umpiring effort you give the 17-18 year olds. With this in mind, I took the field planning on doing my best but not expecting much too from the game. Boy was I wrong!  I should also mention that for this first game, I was scheduled for the Plate and the second game was a Major level (11-12 year olds) I would be doing the bases and it would be a semi-final loser bracket game with the winner moving on to the Championship game on Monday, 7/14.

The teams scheduled to play were West Portage American Little League versus Gull Lake (the host league) and you could tell both teams were ready to get the game underway. After exchanging lineups at the plate meeting, I went over the ground rules with the Managers and Coaches. I always include sportsmanship in my plate meetings and told them that the one of the nice things about being an opening round was that, win or lose, both teams would play another day. But, sportsmanship was also part of the rules; we (the umpires, managers and coaches) were the adults and needed to act that way and set the example for the players and would expect them to act accordingly. After completing the plate meeting, the players were announce, the national anthem was played and we were ready to begin the game.

I'm not going to bore you with all the details of the game but will tell you that for an opening round of 9-10 baseball, the game was exciting and well played by both teams. The game went the full 6 innings with Gull Lake the winner by a score of 6 to 5. West Portage did have an opportunity at the bottom of the 6th inning. They had a runner on 3rd with two outs but the last batter popped up to the 3rd baseman to end the game. For me as an umpire, part of the fun in working a game is interacting with the catchers. Both catchers were great players and let very few passed balls get passed them. During a break between innings I went to the sidelines and asked the parents "who owns this catcher?". When I make a comment like this, I say it in a way that may come across as concern so of course the "owning" parent is a bit reluctent to come forward, but they always do. When the parent (usually the mom) comes to the fence I tell them that they have a great kid and it's been a lot of fun working behind him. Since they thought I was going to say something completly different I usually get a pretty good chuckle and thanks from them. To me, especially at this younger level of play, it's important that while you want the kids to play well, you also want them to have fun and enjoy the whole All Star experience. Being one of the bigger kids on the field myself, I make sure we ALL have fun!

For my second game of the day I was on bases for the Major semi-final loser bracket game between Parchment Little League and South Portage National Little League. Parchment was coming out of the winners bracket having played won 3 games before losing the 4th, putting them in the losers bracket. South Portage had lost their very first game and had battled back in the loser bracket having played 5 games to get to this point. Unfortunately for South Portage, this would be their last game of the 2008 season. Parchment ending up winning the game by a score of 12 to 3 moving them into the Championship game on July 14. If you would like a copy of the bracket, click here.

The Championship game on Monday, July 14 will be West Portage National Little League who remains undefeated and Parchment Little League who has only lost 1 game. However, Parchment has a tough job in front of them. Because West Portage is undefeated and this is a double elimination tournament, they must defeat West Portage twice. The winner of this game will move on to the Major Baseball State Tournament in Bay City, MI. As I mentioned in my first blog, I will be umpiring in the State tournament and will follow the winner to Bay City and cover the games there with the eventual winner representing Michigan in the Central Region Tournament. The ultimate goal - the Little League World Series in Williamsport!