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Roseville PONY Baseball January 21, 2004 Rocklin Residents Sign-ed up for Roseville Pony Baseball As you may know there has been much discussion about the Boundaries for Rocklin, Roseville and Golden Eagle Pony Baseball and where children within these boundaries especially Roseville and Rocklin can legally play. A legal player is one that can play during the regular season for their league and be an eligible player for POST season All-Star play. What appears to have clouded the boundary issue is, Rocklin Pony does not offer Pony Baseball divisional play for children ages 5-12. Roseville Pony Baseball, and more recently, Golden Eagle Pony Baseball does. Our organizations, Roseville and Golden Eagle, offer Shetland (ages 5-6), Pinto (ages 7-8), Mustang (ages 9-10), Bronco (ages 11-12), and Pony (ages 13-14). Rocklin Pony offers only one division of Pony baseball, Pony players (ages 13-14). Therefore, Roseville players from the Rocklin area reaching the age of 13 are required by boundary to go to Rocklin to play in their Pony 13-14 division no matter where they have played previously. Roseville Pony Baseball has for many years welcomed players from Rocklin in the Pony age group (13-14) that for reasons beyond the child’s control (limited Rocklin Pony team sizes, lack of field availability at Rocklin, and/or lack of coaches and managers etc.) could not be accommodated by Rocklin Pony. We have, on many occasions, in mid-season, placed Rocklin players on our existing rosters just to give kids a place to play that no longer had a place to play in Rocklin. The National organization has, on a case by case basis, granted these players in the Pony division the opportunity to play in Roseville so these kids could remain Pony Baseball players and not be forced to go to another baseball organization. Pony National made these concessions because these players had signed up to play Pony Baseball within their boundary but for whatever reason could be accommodated. The National organization also recognizes the family atmosphere that is created when kids play in the same league year after year. They acknowledge that stability of an organization for a child year after year is important. That is why they encourage the growth of not only our league but also all other Pony Baseball leagues. They have therefore made the following decisions regarding the boundary separating Roseville and Rocklin as it pertains to all divisions and have done so in my opinion putting the interest of the kids first: · Roseville Pony Baseball has been granted the opportunity to continue to accept the applications of all children ages 5-12 (Shetland-Bronco) from Rocklin that want to play Pony Baseball in Roseville. · If a child begins his/her baseball career in Roseville Pony in the Shetland, Pinto, Mustang or Bronco divisions, he/she will not be required to go to Rocklin Pony when they turn 13-14 simply because Rocklin has a Pony division. He/she may begin and finish their baseball career ages 5-14 with Roseville Pony Baseball. · If you are a new 2004 Roseville Pony Baseball sign-up living in the Rocklin boundary in the Pony division (ages 13-14), or returning to Roseville Pony (13-14) division from last year and last year was your first year with Roseville Pony, then we cannot accept your application. You must sign-up with Rocklin Pony (see attached Rocklin Flyer). Roseville Pony will refund all your sign-up fees. If you are a Roseville Pony Bronco player moving up to Pony this year, you may remain in Roseville as a legal player. · Rocklin Pony has their sign-ups now through January 23, 2004. Any registration, or letter dated by that date, is good to go for Rocklin. At that time, Rocklin Pony will determine how many teams they will have and notify those that have signed-up whether they are on a team. This will give players that have signed-up with Rocklin Pony who do not have a team the opportunity to return to Roseville Pony Baseball if Rocklin does not have enough room. First priority to return “extra” players to Roseville will be given to those kids that played in Roseville Pony last year. Roseville Pony draft will take place sometime in the last week of January. · As one of the players affected by this boundary issue, you must take steps to register your child to Rocklin Pony. Then when/if there is an overage of players in Rocklin that cannot be accommodated, Roseville Pony can accept your application. · If after signing up with Rocklin Pony, your child is not accepted, cut, or placed on a waiting list, contact me as soon as possible and I can accept you back into the Roseville Pony Baseball program. If at that time, Roseville Pony Baseball does not have space, both my Board of Directors and I will do whatever we can to ensure your child can play Pony Baseball somewhere. This may seem like allot of political mumbo jumbo and you may be thinking I just want my kid to play ball. Well so do we. However, this boundary issue is has been thrust upon us and therefore must be addressed. I am proud of the fact the Roseville is projecting 28 baseball teams across five divisions encompassing approximately 350-400 children ages 5-14 in 2004. We appreciate your interest in playing for our organization. I am very happy that now a child that begins his/her career in Roseville Pony Baseball can be assured that he/she has a home throughout all our divisions and will not be forced to play somewhere new at 13-14 years old where they don’t know the players and coaches. For those of you Pony age kids that are new to us that must go sign-up in Rocklin, I want to encourage you to remain a part of Pony Baseball, sign-up, and we will see you on the baseball field. I recognize this was a lengthy response but there were many questions and concerns. Please feel free to e-mail me at president@rosevilleponybaseball.com, or any of our Board members at our web site RoesevillePonyBaseball.com should you have any further questions.
Mark A. Blaser,
President Cc: Steve Geramoni,
Pony West Zone Northern California Regional Director Roseville Pony Baseball Protect Our Nations Youth www.rosevilleponybaseball.com
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