Pitching sessions

[cobbler]

Tina,

It's nice to know there's something beyond a sign up sheet happening with the scorekeeping... I hope it works out... My main point with this is that you shouldn't have to ask anyone in the crowd to keep score... it should all be taken care of prior to day one of the tournament... that should be the goal here.    I know it's probably a dream, but a little effort every year there can go a long way.  It takes time to develop, but eventually, I am sure it can get to where you have it completely covered.

[gapitcher]

I don't think anyone particularly likes the 7 am starting time.   However, it is much better in my opinion than playing at 8 p.m!    Remember, Cedar Rapids is on Central time, so if Cobbler is from the eastern time zone he is playing at 8 am his local time.    I think the officials do a great job, without pay, in running the W.T.   I have played in the last five, and they seem to run better each year.   Springfield was run like clockwork.   I appreciate the hard work the NHPA leaders put into these tournaments.   And, I have to believe they are open to ideas for improvement.    We should always voice our opinions constructively.     

[groberts]

I also want to express my gratitude to our officers who spend countless hours organizing the World Tournament. I also have been in the position of receiving severe criticism after working hard to organize an event. Constructive criticism offered in a diplomatic manner is always welcome. Recognition that the schedule will never satisfy all needs in even more welcome. Discussion of ways to improve our tournament can be healthy and beneficial. Those who have constructive ideas should submit them to the Executive Council for consideration. See you in Iowa.

[flipthrower]

Thank you for all the hard work you all put in for setting up this tournament.  Its only my second one, and i have zero complaints.  Nice job to everyone involved and sign me up for score keeping, and consider it a donation to the NHPA!!!
There are several ideas that could be implemented, but it can be done in a different manner!  Midnight, noon, or 4 in the morning, i would be throwing!!!!

[donnabastel]

My hat is off to Dick Hansen.  He has an awesome responsibility organizing the schedule for an event like this.  And he is always a gentlemen about it.  I know for a fact, because I've done it myself, that he gets calls after the schedule is out requesting changes to a different week so that husbands and wives can pitch the same week.  I know how hard that can be with only 100 or so entries in a tournament.  The WT is 10 times as bad.
I don't particularly like the 7AM start time because as an RD I have to be there at 5:30am, but we do what we have to do to try to make this an enjoyable event for all.
Please don't get me started on the the scorekeeping issue.  More than once I have shamed people into taking the job by telling them "You want a scorekeeper when you are pitching, it's time you returned the favor.  There are many prima donnas out there that have NEVER picked up a pencil to keep score, but are the first to complain if there are not enough.  I have also heard many complaints about young people keeping score that really don't know the game and they think errors are being made.  Although, I must say that some of our junior pitchers are much better at it, but they at least know the game.
Once again, THANK YOU DICK, for a job well done.

[ninjj]

I too, applaud everyone who contributes there time to the World Tournament.  I had the pleasure a few years ago, of being involved from set-up to end.  The work during and behind the scenes gave me a whole new outlook.  Congratulations NHPA, keep up the good work...

[Ronnie Miller]

Put me down as the only one that likes to pitch at 7:00 a.m. I get up early and just like to go ahead and get started instead of having to wait. It really doesn't matter when as long as I'm pitching. I would like to commend Dick on how well these World Tournaments are scheduled I can only imagine the effort it takes to get all of us ungrateful pitchers scheduled never mind the ones that just don't show up and don't even call or E-Mail to let him know you won't be there. My wife and I use this as our vacation but first and foremost we go to pitch. We plan our sight seeing around our pitching times not the other way around. As far as scorekeeping goes if everyone that piches "and I mean everyone" kept score for just one shift scorekeepers would not be a problem in fact we would have too many scorekeepers. Don't just pitch and leave, someone kept score for you return the favor.

[cobbler]

I wouldn't mind having a 7 AM pitching time either... it frees you up for the whole rest of the day and that could be very cool!  It seems I always get stuck with a midday pitching time or prime time and it makes it hard to do much else those days... I know that's what we're there for, but it would be nice to enjoy more of the town we're in while we're there and it seems I always get shorted on that on my pitching days.  But no matter to me... I'll pitch when I am scheduled, period, no matter what the time.  I am not complaining about my own pitching time here... I just like to think of new ways to do things and I like to get input from others... sometimes you have to stir the pot a bit to get thoughts going on things... I do a lot of that, especially here.  Some of you seem to take me too seriously... sorry for that.

So, when I say I would run the tournament differently if I were doing it, I mean it would be completely different.  I would consider every option... One option I would strongly consider is pitching all 30 ft. divisions including championships prior to the start of 40 ft. pitching.  If you did that, you could set up actual 30 ft. long courts rather than full-length 40 ft. courts for the time they pitch and in most of the venues, using 30 ft. courts would allow you to set up an entire extra section of courts... that many more courts available to pitch on would either eliminate a shift per day or shorten the days needed to pitch all the 30 ft. players.  I would also consider splitting this into two tournaments... a 30 ft. world championship and a 40 ft. world championship... There are many pros and cons to this, so it may or may not work, but it's worth thinking about...  They could be two totally different events... even two different locations, perhaps even at two different times of the year.  I know those are radical ideas but, like I said, I would consider all options... and, like I said, many people would probably hate me.

On scorekeeping...

Seriously think about what I wrote in an earlier post here...  There is over $20,000 being paid out in scorekeeping fees at this event and every WT in the future.  How much would it cost to develop an all electronic wireless scoring system?  My perfect scoring system is where the players carry a little wireless remote input pad (credit card size) that operates the scoreboard on their court... at every end, they stop and input the score and then continue play.  At the end of the game, they walk up to the scoreboard and finalize the game and it prints out a copy of the scoresheet for each player the way a gas pump prints you a receipt... After they agree on the scoresheet, they hit "send" and it gets sent wirelessly to the main computer and directly inputed into the HS Master software.  Basically, if it all works right, you don't need any people to run a tournament (theoretically)... Collectively, we are spending $20,000+ per year on manual scorekeeping at the WT and the lack of scorekeepers causes delays and inconveniences galore, right?  If such a system existed, couldn't those funds, the $20,000+ per year, be used to purchase it?  Wouldn't that be a lot better than what we're doing now? Couldn't the NHPA arrange financing on the original purchase and then use the funds collected in scorekeeping fees at the WT annually to make the payments on the loan?  Is that not worth considering?  There must be a hardware/software company out there that could put together an all electronic scoring system for horseshoes, right?  If I had any experitise in the field, I would research it myself... but I don't.  Is there anyone out there who is in this field or has ties to it that could do some ground work?  I think it's a worthwhile and I think it's possible.  Isn't it time we started down this road? 

I commend Jerry and those involved in testing the current electronic scoring system... what they are doing is visually very nice, but it does not yet replace the scorekeeper and I think that has to be the ultimate goal.  Without that, you still have to pay people to do it and that erases your income source to pay for the system.  I am not knocking their efforts... I just think it eventually has to evolve into something like I described or it will never be able to pay for itself.  Any thoughts?

[flipthrower]

Cobbler, I work in the automotive industry, maintaining injection molding machines/automated robots etc. and we have wireless boards that notify people if machines go down for any reason.  I am familiar with electronics and how they work, PLC's, Wireless communication and so on. 
I think this is a really good idea and could be inexpensive.  We wouldn't have to start out real elaborate, the old saying is K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid!) and that is all we would have to do.  We have one wireless receiving station every 200 feet and it could go a lot further than that, we just choose not to.  The Allen Bradley products we use are capable of reaching a lot further than that.  As far as the communications portion of it, i.e. sending information to a certain PC, i am not sure about.  With today's technology, any thing is possible and this stuff has been around for quite a while now.  Everyone is going paperless, (Paychecks, checking accounts, retirement) why cant we do it too?  I think it is a great idea and i may try contacting a local engineer to see what it would take.  The first step would be to know exactly what we would want to do and get some more ideas together.  Just by reading your post, i have a few ideas different than yours so maybe some of us could get together in August and discuss it.  Just a thought

[2ringer6]

On the scorekeeping subject. It is a sore spot with me being a TD and not having scorekeepers. The electronic system is a good idea. Most of the bowling allies have systems on each lane tied back to a main server.

[cobbler]

Flipthrower... Like I said in the other posting... I absolutely love this offer you've made here to discuss this in Cedar Rapids... if you can arrange anything by then just let me know and I will be glad to meet with you and others on this there.  I would love to stay in the loop on this as it develops. 

I don't mean to complicate this but there is one other thing I'd like to add... When I describe my dream scoring system to other players, they almost always say the same thing:  "It would be great if you could just speak the score into the remote rather than type it."  So, since we're just in dream land on this right now and since it's such a common response, I feel I have to ask, is voice recognition on something like this possible?  Or does that need to stay a dream?  Perhaps it's something that could be a future upgrade to consider?  Any thoughts on this?  Is it practical to even entertain the idea?

Another thing... as this develops, it would have to be kept in mind that for use outside of the world tournament, it would have indoor and outdoor use and exposure to most elements, particularly rain, heat and wind.  Totally wireless is essential, as running wires could be impractical in many cases, especially outdoors.

I was encouraged to hear this could possibly be relatively inexpensive... Hooray for that!  Maybe it's much more possible than even I was thinking... I really never thought I'd see anything like this happen in my lifetime... I would love to be wrong on that! 

The bowling system described by 2ringers6 sounds cool... Now that you mentioned it, I've used them many times and never really thought of them as something that could be useful in horsesoes because of their size... but the basic idea is there and it could be worth copying the general concept described... nice parallel!

[Homer]

How much air conditioning will the storage trailer require and where will you plug it in?

[scpitcher]

Homer,

It could be run on rechargeable batteries. Fewer wires the better.

Sorta like this one...
http://www.swimoutlet.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=16704&Click=585917


If the price is right I imagine that clubs around the country would buy a couple thousand units.


Mike

[cobbler]

Mike,

I have been looking online for a while now (but not recently) and never saw that scoring device till now... neat... it could be the kind of thing we could use in place of our current wooden scoreboards... a nice step in the right direction... very interesting.

[vicki]

I find this entire discussion amazing in the fact it is even taking place and by some of the correspondents who have posted remarks.  It might work in a perfect world, but this isn't a perfect world.  Here we have one person who was very unhappy that someone is padding ringers when there is a person other than the pitchers actually keeping the score on paper.  Now he is advocating wireless devices that has pitchers entering their own stats without the benefit of anyone else supervising.  Some people just don't have the will power to resist temptation.  Get two of them together on the same court and with them keeping their own score, anything could happen.

Throughout my lifetime in this sport, I have met many pitchers who do not want to concern themselves with even keeping track of their own game.  It breaks their concentration.  They don't check the scoreboard and want to concern themselves only with the business of pitching their shoes.  They call the score and don't even watch to see if the scorekeeper marks it up.  Having to break their concentration to punch in the score at each end of the court would probably ruin what otherwise might be some very good horseshoe games.

Those are two reasons I think it would be a bad idea to have pitchers keeping their own score.

Vicki