All -

Happy Father's Day to all the Dads in the Millennium Sunday Softball League.

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After today's Millennium Sunday games were postponed from the overnight rain, I felt it was a good time to let the league know how these decisions are made and what goes into the logistics of trying to keep the games scheduled.

On March 30th and April 13th I was able to keep the games in the Millennium E and Rec Divisions scheduled because the rain we received on Saturday gave me time to drive almost 40 miles throughout the county to check on the field conditions.

And with teams in those divisions having bye weeks it became even more important to get those games played.

It also helped that many of the teams in the E and Rec have their own home fields that were made playable with the maintenance needed.

The result was the A/B and C/D Divisions didn't play on those dates but there was little choice when there were too many of their fields were unplayable.

Result: Two partial league rain outs and two full week scheduled games played in the first four weeks of the season - not including not playing on Easter Sunday

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As the league entered the month of May, where there are only two scheduled Sundays because of Mother's Day and Memorial Day Weekend and where we always hope that there are no rain outs - but there was one on May 4th.

Again on the day before, Saturday May 3rd, I drove to almost al the league fields (exception the Furey Road Field and Rita Reeves Park) and once again I drove over two hours and around 40 miles.

The decision was made on Saturday that the league was going to need to reschedule their games because of the unplayable field conditions, that weren't going to improve enough by Sunday morning with more rain coming.

Result: The league played only one week in the month of May.

If your keeping track the league had played only two partial weeks and three full weeks over a nine week period, including holidays ... not good.

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The month of June started off good and it looked like maybe with could really get the schedule moving along, until today.

The most difficult decision on whether or not to postpone games is when it rains overnight.

When that happens moving teams and umpires around to other fields that may be available isn't easy, especially with little time to do so before the 10:00 a.m. start time.

This is when I rely on the team coaches to get to their fields early and give me an assessment of the filed conditions and sometimes email me pictures.

Today, Steve Prescott the coach of Hunt's Wingmen and Millennium A/B Division Captain emailed me photos of the Jansen Avenue Field and both the Manor A and B Fields.

Photos were also sent of Whitmer Fields in Prospect Park.

I will forward these emails with the photos to the league and you will see what we were up against this morning and why the league needed to postpone their games, even though some league fields may have been playable.

Remember if a few doubleheaders were played today those teams would not have played next week.

If I was able to have an entire division play today, I would have but there's very little time to coordinate all of the movement necessary to make that happen - besides being Father's Day.

Result: To date the league has played seven weeks (two partial and five full week schedules) over a twelve week period, which includes three Sunday holidays.

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Thanks to all the coaches and players who help me in various ways during the season ... it's appreciated.

-Joe