Ocee Park News page

Ocee Park logo

SPRING 2008 SEASON AROUND THE CORNER
EXPANDED PROGRAM OFFERINGS IN SOME AGE GROUPS
With our first complete season of Cal Ripken/Babe Ruth baseball and softball behind us, we are looking forward to the 2008 season which begins in earnest in January. Our traditional Spring season All Volunteer Manager meeting will be conducted on Saturday, January 12th, from 9am to 12pm at the City of Johns Creek offices located at 12000 Findley Road, Johns Creek, GA 30022 (Suite 400 on the 4th Floor). The meeting is intended for managers, coaches, league commissioners, team moms, and anyone interested in volunteering to help with the Spring 2008 season. We expect to once again have a full Spring program and we have some new offerings for 2008 which we think will be very popular.

Looking back at 2007, the Spring program was 100% full with 62 teams in tee ball and baseball and 20 teams in softball (close to 1,000 players ranging in age from 5- to 16-year olds). Of all of the teams, we are most proud of our Buddy Ball team which almost doubled in size from last season and provided an opportunity for 22 special needs players a chance to play baseball. We offered 8 leagues in baseball and 5 leagues in softball and conducted end of the season tournaments in all of them except for Tee Ball and Farm softball. Our Senior League baseball and softball programs continued their highly successful and popular tradition of Spring interleague play with teams from the surrounding area.

The Fall 2007 program was also full providing a chance for close to 700 players to participate in tee ball, baseball, and softball from Labor Day until the end of October. We were again fortunate to have excellent weather for the Fall season resulting in each team being able to participate in the majority if not all of their scheduled practices and games.

Looking ahead to Spring 2008, we will offer the same league lineups in tee ball and baseball as we did in Spring 2007 with one exception. We are very excited to be able to offer 16-18 year old baseball for the first time this Spring. We expect 3 teams in this age group and they will play an interleague schedule with Wills Park forming a combined 9-10 team league including an end of season double elimination tournament to be held at Wills Park. For the first time, we will introduce interleague play to our Majors National league. Teams in our Majors National 70/50 program will be scheduled to play games with the Hopewell 70/50 program in a home/away format for Saturday games. This will expand the range of competition these players will see during the regular season and give them an opportunity to play games outside of Ocee Park.

The Spring 2008 softball program is also expected to be strong. We will continue the tradition of interleague play in our Senior 13-16 league between Ocee Park, Sandy Springs, and Murphey Candler. We will also be introducing interleague play for our Major 11-12 League through the North Georgia Fast Pitch Association league (NGFA). We will rename the softball Major League to the Major NGFA League and the teams in this league will play a 10-game schedule with other North Atlanta softball programs such as North Park, Roswell, South Cherokee, and others. The season will culminate with a double elimination tournament for all NGFA teams.

We will again offer the Select Program in baseball and softball during the 2008 season. Baseball select teams will be offered for 4 age groups (9 through 12). Softball select teams will be offered in the 8U, 10U, 12U and 14U age groups. The Select program was very successful in 2007 and we learned a great deal from the inaugural experience and changes will be made to enhance the program for this year. For 2008, the Ocee Stars 12-year old travel team will operate under the auspices of OPAA and it will be the last travel team from that organization playing at the park. Starting with the 2009 season, all Select teams will play under the name of Ocee Stars to continue the fine tradition started by the Stars organization in 1999.

One item of note for the 2008 season (and beyond), OPAA will require that all team managers and coaches be certified under the Babe Ruth/Cal Ripken ASEP Coaches Certification Program. This requirement comes from Babe Ruth national and is endorsed by OPAA and fully supported by the City of Johns Creek. Coaches may go online, take the course, and become certified and the cost of the online course will be paid for by OPAA. Manager and coach candidates for 2008 should plan ahead and take the ASEP online course in baseball or softball depending on the sport in which they volunteer. More information is available on our Coaches Corner web page.

We will end our Regular Season play with the traditional end of season tournaments in all leagues except for Tee Ball this Spring. Farm baseball will conduct an end of season tournament for the 2nd year in a row and a tournament will be added for the Farm softball league. The traditional In-Park All Star Day is scheduled for Saturday, May 17th, and we expect to conclude all of the end of the season tournaments by May 23rd (weather permitting). Some of our leagues such as those participating in interleague play will participate in interleague tournaments in addition to or in lieu of in-park end of the season tournaments.

In the May time frame, we will again select our various Cal Ripken and Babe Ruth tournament teams for participation in summer tournament play. Tournament teams are offered in the 8U, 9U, 10U, 11U, 12U, 13-15U, and 16U (or 16-18U) age groups. The exact lineup of teams offered will again be dependent on the level of interested participants. All of the tournaments will begin in the mid-July time frame. In 2007, Ocee Park sent a number of teams to Southeast Regional tournaments in baseball and softball and they represented both Ocee Park and the state of Georgia extremely well. More information on the schedule of state and regional tournaments will be available in the new year. Final decisions on which teams are offered for summer tournament participation will be made in the April/May time frame.

The 2008 season should be another exciting season of youth baseball and softball at Ocee Park. While continuing many of the fine traditions from the past, we continue to expand our offerings through the addition of older age group play in baseball and interleague play for 2 more age groups. We would be remiss if we did not thank our huge volunteer base since without you the program could not be successful. OPAA is an all-volunteer organization including the Board of Directors meaning that every aspect of our organization and execution is done by volunteers. It takes a tremendous amount of effort on everyone's part to organize 1,000 players in the Spring and another 700 players in the Fall and to continue to deliver on a quality baseball and softball experience for all of these players. Thanks to all of our 2007 volunteers and please consider being a volunteer in some capacity for our 2008 program. Thank you.

Wayne Henderson
President, OPAA

2008 SPRING SCHEDULE

REGISTRATION
November 10 - December 2

DEADLINE FOR WITHDRAWAL
January 11 (Friday)

VOLUNTEER MEETING
January 12 (9am-12pm)
Mandatory for Managers & Coaches, Open to all volunteers

PLAYER ASSESSMENT
January 12-27

PLAYER DRAFTS
January 29-February 8

PRACTICES BEGIN
Week of February 11

OPENING DAY
March 1 (Saturday)

PICTURE DAY
March 29 (Saturday)

SPRING BREAK
April 5 - April 13

ALL STAR DAY
May 17 (Saturday)

SEASON ENDS
May 23 (Tentative)

2008 LEAGUES
Tee ball
Ages 5-6*, tee

baseball
Ages 7-8, machine pitch
Age 9, player pitch
Age 10, player pitch
Ages 11-12, player pitch
Ages 13-15, player pitch
Ages 16-18, player pitch

softball
Ages 6-8, machine pitch
Ages 9-10, player/coach pitch
Ages 11-12, player pitch
Ages 13-16, player pitch