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A new day has dawned! There s new grass on the field. So, Say Hey Willie, Tell Ty Cobb and Joe Dimaggio ----

And every fastpitch person you know.



Hello Everyone – Today marks a new path for The Fastpitch Chronicle and the way we cover fastpitch in Wisconsin. After hashing things out with the Wisconsin Sports Network, I chose to enter into an agreement therein whereby The Fastpitch Chronicle will really "Fuel the Wisconsin Sports Network Softball website or Power the Wisconsin Sports Network Softball website". That means that I will be the content provider for the newsy stuff on the site. I ll be doing the same kind of things I have been doing for eight years with the Fastpitch Chronicle. I ll even be doing more things to generate more interest in the game and the people in it. Look for more feature stories on coaches, fans, players, etc.



The website was launched late this afternoon. You can see the site by going to www.wissports.net and read the press release and then browse around on the site. I ll be adding more and more content daily.



As for game scores once the season starts, things will remain the way they have been. If you want people to read the same kinds of reports that you have provided throughout the years here at the Fastpitch Chronicle, just keep doing what you have been doing. The only change will be that the information will be hosted by The Wisconsin Sports Network. WSN has people who will try to glean scores from statewide sources but you could help them out by simply e-mailing the score of your game to [email=info@wissports.net]info@wissports.net[/email] and they ll do the rest.



If you d like to keep your team stats online, the WSN offers you that free of charge just like they do for football and basketball. They will also be adding baseball and a running website too.



The pages will be organized according to teams and by conferences. The stuff you are accustomed to on The Fastpitch Chronicle site will still be there. Things like the Coaches Honor Roll, Scores by week and then broken down by the day.

I ll be posting links to articles about fastpitch in Wisconsin newspapers so I ll still need the great contributors that have been onboard previously to e-mail me the links to those articles as I will not be posting the article itself.



The Fastpitch Bulletins, originally called Nightly Bulletins will continue as interest in those is amazing. The same types of issues, stories, rules, scoring information and stuff will be included. The only difference is that you ll get a bulletin in your inbox from me with a link to the article on the WSN site. All you ll have to do is click on the link and you ll be taken right to the latest bulletin and like on the Fastpitch Chronicle site, all the previous bulletins will be there in chronological order.



I encourage you to tell your fastpitch friends, the players on your team, the parents of the players on your team and all the fans of your team about the site and how to get there. Or have them e-mail me their e-mail address and I ll add their names to the ever-growing list of people who get the bulletins.



The WSN site has direct links to the Fastpitch Chronicle and we ve added a direct link to the Wisconsin Fastpitch Coaches Association site at http://www.wfsca.org as well. That should get the WFSCA site more traffic than ever.



I m at about 75% of the way of getting every head coach s e-mail (the head coaches that have e-mail that is). I m trying valiantly to get to 100%. Check out the list of schools I still need to hear from at the bottom of the 2008 Preview Page on The Fastpitch Chronicle website.



On to more normal Fastpitch Bulletin information.

Check out this website and the great pictures on it. It s the Pepin Softball team site at www.ladylakerfastpitch.com and thanks to Coach Matt Bellerive for promoting The Fastpitch Chronicle with his team and fans up there.



Here is a player update from Iola-Scandinavia. Ashley Draeger is playing for Concordia University in Wisconsin this season. She was a third-team WFSCA all state pitcher last year.



Rachel Mathias of Ripon is playing at UW-River Falls.



You ve undoubtedly noticed that the first Fastpitch Chronicle rankings are now posted. They were not easy for the rankers. They will change.



Some players worth watching this season include:

Katie Boyle of Thomas More in Milwaukee. She s a junior pitcher who has fanned 285, walked 34 and has an ERA of 1.9 in two years of work in the Woodland Conference. She was a first-team all conference selection last year.



There are teams in Florida this week. It has not been customary for Wisconsin team that travel to warmer climates to play to report their scores but I encourage you to do so. Those games count on your season record.



Here is one game situation for you to sort out tonight. This one can happen at any game. Bases loaded with one out. Batters hits ground ball toward shortstop. The batted ball hits the runner going to third and prevents the shortstop from making a play. What is the call? Can two runners be called out and does the run score?

 

I look forward to serving your fastpitch interest in the future and think that we can move the game even farther into the public limelight. I urge you to forward your game summaries and scores to me and WSN. The Fastpitch Chronicle site will remain up for a while but in time all pages will be linked directly to WSN web pages.



Here is the answer to the situation described above.

The run does not score since each runner has to return to the base they occupied at the time of the interference. The runner who was hit is out and the batter is awarded first base.

Have a great day!

Keep it Rising!

Bob