Tournament Organizer Roundtable #3: Rules!

From the second annual Robert Henry Memorial Tournament, held in 2014. Standing facing the camera (L-R) are the late Hall of Famer Veryl Lincoln and Hall of Famer Skeet Carr presenting an APBA Game Company Special Achievement Award to Brian Cavanaugh of the Philadelphia Boys and Girls Club Bridesburg Unit, in recognition of all he has done to bring the hobby of APBA to the campers in his charge. Seated are Tournament Logistics Czarina Dr. Rebecca Peterson and Tournament Director John Cochrane. In the left foreground with his back to the camera is Tournament Recruiting Czar and Hall of Famer Pete Simonelli.

We’ve heard from our lineup of tournament organizers twice now.  The first time, they spoke on the origins of their respective tournaments and the second time, they talked on some of the creative methods they’ve implemented for their tournaments.  Now, we’ll get down to the nitty-gritty… rules for the tournaments.

This is a topic near and dear to my heart as I am in the process of preparing for the first ever Prairieland APBA Baseball Tournament in April. I mean how hard could it be?  Get some guys together and play APBA, right?  But wait, can a starting pitcher relieve too?  Can a J-4 who by the way hit .360, start every game?  You can see where I’m going with this.

To that end, here is the question to all nine gentlemen:

“Let’s talk tournament rules. Do you find less regulation is good? Or is it better to cover all the bases when making up the rules for your tournament?”

…here are their thoughts.

Skeet Carr – APBA Game Company National Tournament

“The problem with having less regulations is that there will always be people trying to take advantage of something that isn’t covered in the rules.

Therefore, it is best to cover all the bases if you can.”

John Cochrane – Robert Henry Memorial Tournament

“I started with the APBA convention rules, which are neither too detailed nor too sparse as far as I am concerned, changed some things for clarity or for the special circumstances of this event, and added rules as situations came up.

My personal preference is to cover all the bases, but life has taught me that it is a waste of time, as no one reads the rules anyway. I primarily write them down so that when someone asks me a rules question, I have a decision already made that I can show him.”

Ron Emch – Glass City APBA Baseball Tournament

“That is a tough question. I looked through all the rules from the other tourneys and kind of did a mashup of them all.

Personally, I would prefer that this group of folks would come up with a standard set of rules, so that no matter which tourney you play in, you wouldn’t have to worry about what the rules are. That’s the 40 years of corporate worker coming out in me and work around standard processes. :-) I’m also a person who likes realistic usage of players, so at a minimum, there needs to be some rules around that area.

So, to answer that question, I would prefer to try and cover all the bases as much as possible, and hopefully with agreement from the community.”

Jim Fraasch – Twin Cities APBA Baseball Tournament

A full crowd at TCABT-IV!

“The rules doc I have published for TCABT might be a bit on the longer side, but it covers 99% of situations, and we added a few slight modifications to the rules as we have completed each tournament.

For the most part, the rules are very self-explanatory, but not everyone normally plays the Basic Game (with Advanced Rules), so questions always come up.”

Geoff Giordano – APBA Football Club Tournament

“I admire the codification of the APBA tournament and Cochrane’s Robert Henry event, but I admit to being a bit more free-form — at least at present. I enjoyed the make-it-up-as-we-go-along aspect of our Canton event. At one point, Greg Wells asked if we were carrying injuries over game to game. I said sure, let injuries obtain for the entirety of the tournament — which didn’t help Greg Barath much when he lost his kicker for a game because of a uniform violation, as I recall. One thing I am adamant about is not excluding championship teams from future competitions. I wouldn’t mind seeing the ’84 Niners win a handful of championships, regardless of whether they are coached by the same person or different people over time.

We also had to account for teams of different eras — like the 1962 Lions vs 2011 Saints — in terms of where to place missed field goals, where to kick off from, when and if older teams could employ nickel and dime defenses or use two TEs or three WRs. Greg Barath was gracious in attempting to give Detroit a bit of a more even playing field against New Orleans, which I discuss in point No. 5 of our post-event analysis,  “10 (or more) thoughts after the inaugural APBA Football Club tournament at the Hall of Fame.”

Jim Saska – Chicagoland World Series APBA Tournament

“I feel that you should only put in the rules that really make sense, keeping it simple.  It is wise, however, to try to limit player and pitcher usage so that those players who only batted a few times a year or pitched a limited amount of regular season innings, and therefore had skewed averages, would not drastically affect the overall tournament results.”

Ken Schulz – Linda B Schulz Memorial APBA Baseball Tournament

“I feel that as long as you have the basics down then less rules is better.  These tournaments are meant to be fun.  A time for bonding with a group of unique people from all around.

If you win then great but if you don’t win that’s okay too because we all have a blast.”

Doug Schuyler – Chicagoland World Series APBA Tournament

“When it comes to rules, I subscribe to KISS!  Keep it simple stupid!

The stupid would be me.  People actually suggest great rules and modifications but the reality is people have busy lives so you want to keep it basic.  I also don’t want to stress out at a tournament either…it is all for fun.  There is NO million dollar purse or fancy sports car.  Just a cool trophy that I got and people like!”

Rich Zawadzki – Greater Michigan APBA Baseball Tournament

“I try to go as basic as you can. I modified and tweaked the Chicago Rules a bit.

I told the guys as we started last year, “We’re all adults; here are the rules. I’m not the Supreme Court, work it out amongst yourselves.”

Still two more left!

And they are pretty awesome too.  You can find all of the Tournament Organizer Roundtable interviews at this link.