2024 is Nearly Here!

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and is ready to welcome in 2024! Hard to believe baseball is only a few months away. My three boys haven’t touched a baseball since early November and it shows. We rented a tunnel and soft grounders & easy throws were rough at best. Training in the off-season will make a world of difference and the process we are about to embark on will pay dividends in growth and development for 2024!

We have a few items for your review during this end of month update.

1. Offseason Training

2. Live Virtual Q&A Session Recap

3. Competition & Scheduling

4. Team Store

Offseason Training

The offseason training schedule is set!

• Saturday, January 6th at Bison Baseball

  • 3:00pm-3:30pm 10u open house

  • 3:30pm-4:00pm 10u uniform fitting

  • 3:30pm-4:00pm 11u open house

  • 4:00pm-4:30pm 11u uniform fitting

  • 4:00pm-4:30pm 12u open house

  • 4:30pm-5:00pm 12u uniform fitting

  • 4:30pm-5:00pm 13u open house

  • 5:00pm-5:30pm 13u uniform fitting

    If you cannot make your time slot, please let me know so we can make alternate arrangements

• Saturday, January 13th - 12u & 13u at Bison Baseball

  • 3:00pm - 5:00pm

• Sunday, January 14th - 10u & 11u at Bison Baseball

  • 4:00pm - 6:00pm

Going forward, the timeslots will be the same as January 13th/14th for the rest of the offseason through early April. Any adjustments, additions or alterations will be sent out via team GameChanger.

Live Virtual Q&A Session Recap

Thanks to all that joined the Virtual Q&A Session! Here is a list of the main points discussed.

Shoes/Cleats?
In a perfect world everyone would have matching RED cleats, however, cleats are difficult to find and comfort is priority #1. Find a shoe that is comfortable and fits well!

Off-Season Practice
The off-season schedule was not set when we had the Virtual Q&A Session.

Bats
Our teams will play predominantly in games with USA bat rules, so we recommend against spending $400 on a USSSA bat. Depending on fund-raising efforts, our goal is to have team USSSA bats for the tournaments and games that allow them.

Games
Games will start in early April for all levels.

Fund Raising
In order to keep pricing low for parents, we need to fund-raise. What we don’t want this to turn into is a mandatory minimum situation. We will try to keep the fund-raising to a handful of events per year, however, we need to make these work when we have them. The next fundraising effort will be Super Bowl squares.

Competition & Scheduling

Scheduling for the season is starting to ramp up and it is our intention to find appropriate competition for all of our teams. Our schedule will consist of the following:

• Little League sanctioned games against other “Travel Division” Teams

• Games against NIASL\N60 teams

• Games against other nearby Travel Organizations

• Local Tournaments

• Little League World Series Tournament

Competitive (Travel) Baseball is grouped into various competition levels.

Illinois Baseball Tournaments

USSSA Baseball

Our teams are essentially Local All-Star teams that have restricted rosters due to boundaries of Huntley Little League. In USSSA play, we would be considered “AA” and in Illinois Baseball Tournaments we would be either level “B” or “C”.

Our teams will not be playing or competing with the elite travel teams in the area, however, we will find great competition in the middle of the pack. If we can keep these teams together for multiple years, I fully expect being able to challenge higher rated competition.

With all the hopping around between different leagues and sanctioning bodies, the rules will be slightly different between all. One of the projects on my agenda is to create a binder for each team that has the rules and regulations for every situation we will find ourselves in.

In summary, all involved with the 47’s are committed to finding appropriate, yet challenging competition. Competition too easy? No benefit. Competition too difficult? No benefit. Iron Sharpens Iron.

Team Store

There are advantages and disadvantages to a startup organization like the 47’s. One of the advantages is our ability to experiment and try new things. As far as fund-raising goes, there is no better way to raise funds than to offer valuable products, which in turn, creates revenue. The parent volunteers involved in the 47’s have special skillsets, so we want to make sure we utilize the talent inherent in the organization to the fullest extent.

Please be on the lookout for the Team Store launch in Late January/Early February!

Happy New Year! See you on January 6th!