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Post by crash23 on Jan 6, 2007 18:09:41 GMT -8
My boys have been in TLL for 5 years now and in that time the population of Turlock has grown considerably. You'd think there'd be similar growth in our league. Why hasn't that happened? I think that since both leagues are working together again maybe we could split the cost of an ad in the Modesto Bee. The public service announcements we put it often get overlooked. I think an even better idea would be a mass mailing of fliers or postcard to all Turlock residents. Perhaps a lot of the new folks don't know when sign-ups are? It would be interesting to find out the cost of that? Maybe a restaurant would be willing to pay for the expense of that and there could be a discount or some other type of promotion for them? Little Caesars maybe?
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Post by trevor9 on Jan 6, 2007 18:33:33 GMT -8
I would rather see them look into just having a National and American (no south and east). I know that may mean eliminating some surrounding areas, but some people have already stated that we don't pull kids from those areas anyway. Consolidate the leagues and have 6 teams in each league and 12 minor league teams in each league. I think this would help develope the program overall and the all-star teams would greatly benefit as well. In working together and pulling the resources maybe we could see the possibility of a new complex. As far as mailers go, that would be expensive and you may need more than one establishment to pony up the dough. The school's are also not real supportive of handing out flyers (legal reasons). I think most people that want their kids to play would ask someone or research it on the website as to when the sign-ups are. I think we would be better served cutting back and making it a more quality program than getting massive amounts of kids with too few of fields to accomadate them.
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Post by crash23 on Jan 6, 2007 21:12:53 GMT -8
Hmm... So you're advocating the Turlock Journal approach to this?
Mailers expensive? Perhaps but we don't know until we look into it. We need to run LL more like a business. You wouldn't open one and just wait for the customers to drop on by. We need to advertise. If mailers are too expensive then at least an ad in the Bee. Maybe if we did we'd pull more players and all of our all star teams would be great. More people would also give us more resources so we could make our facilities better.
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Post by Chris on Jan 6, 2007 21:58:31 GMT -8
I don't think its a lack of knowledge I think its a lack of facilities and competition from other sports. The truth is even if we wanted to grow we couldn't until we have more facilities. Soderquist is being used to its maximum with more than 220 games played over a season.
The answer is big and expensive but without a coordinated effort by the city, leagues and a someone with deep pockets to achieve the BHAG it won't happen before our kids hit college age.
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Post by crash23 on Jan 6, 2007 22:50:27 GMT -8
Agreed!
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Post by Mark on Jan 6, 2007 23:03:57 GMT -8
T9,
even if you tried to cut back leagues, Turlock Population is stated at 64,000, that means 3 leagues minimum per LL Int. rules, so actually keeping the current boundries is "better" for turlock NAT/NS/AM/AE because 4 leagues for about 90,000 population.
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Post by Mark on Jan 6, 2007 23:06:52 GMT -8
competition from other sports. Turlock has always ben a football town, right? also there is a big immigrant population that really cares for soccer and nothing else
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Post by Randy Edwards on Jan 7, 2007 9:02:35 GMT -8
I don't think its a lack of knowledge I think its a lack of facilities and competition from other sports. The truth is even if we wanted to grow we couldn't until we have more facilities. Soderquist is being used to its maximum with more than 220 games played over a season. I totally agree with Chris with out more facilities we are limited. On the Am/AE we have to rent out Denair and Pedretti just to meet the needs that we now have, not even counting machine pitch. I'm still waiting for that winning lottery ticket that has Turlock Baseball written all over it
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Post by trevor9 on Jan 7, 2007 9:30:01 GMT -8
Didn't the national side use Wakefield as an alternate field? As it stands now, both leagues cannot afford to have more than a couple of rainouts without jeopardizing the championships, TOC and all-stars. I think we would have to charge double to use Pedretti and that's providing that adult softball doesn't already have it reserved.
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Post by Chris on Jan 7, 2007 9:57:37 GMT -8
We did use Wakefield years ago. Unfortunately, its in serious disrepair and never really was an appealing place to play. It had no snackbar and quite often you'd have guys walking across the field and giving you the bird if you asked them to move. It had no parking and didn't feel safe after dark.
It was not the kind of facility needed to attract more players.
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Post by Mark on Jan 7, 2007 13:55:54 GMT -8
Would the City of Turlock allow for the renovation of Soderquist. what i mean is find a way to move Soderquist Field around and ditch the parking lot to find a way to reconstruct 2 new fields on it?
how much (approximatly) would that cost.
if it could get done there would be no parking lot but there would be 2 nice fields.
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Post by trevor9 on Jan 7, 2007 17:25:05 GMT -8
Considering that these are the same people that charge a kings ransom to use Pedretti, I think it may be cheaper to find someone with land that they may donate if the leagues could develope them. There may be a tax break for a generous land owner. My experience with the city has been that they rather the fields sit empty than lower the fees to accomadate the kids. I thought the Turlock Sports Complex was to have fields available for baseball, it seems that soccer is the only thing happening out there. I know t-ball has thrown some make-shift fields out there but it is a joke as well. I would like to nominate Craig as the person to look into whether or not that was a bond measure to construct that site and if it was originally to be used for baseball as well. If not we need to address to city council and ask them to explain. Soccer has adequate fields so let's get baseball up to speed. The council has no problem building houses at an alarming rate and drainage ditches for every new sub-division but youth community services have been brushed under the rug. Maybe the city could develope a couple of fields in a drainage ditch, during the season it should not be under water.
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Post by Randy Edwards on Jan 7, 2007 17:57:40 GMT -8
FYI... On the corner of Quincy and Marshall there is a piece of land that the owners or going to donate to the city of Turlock for a park it will be a few years before this is done and our kids will never get to play there. However wouldn't be nice if along with this park a few ball fields was included for or kids-kids.
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Post by trevor9 on Jan 7, 2007 18:22:01 GMT -8
I'll enjoy watching the grandkids play there. Is that where the horses are on the back side of the salesyard?
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Post by Byrd on Jan 8, 2007 7:03:23 GMT -8
Building ballfields in drainage areas?? Yes during the season they should be fine but can you imagine what the would look like after the winter? It is crazy that the city will not lower fees for the leagues to use fields, but this is Turlock and they have always been behind the times. You would think the Recreation Department would want to help out as much as they can but this is Little League Baseball and has nothing to do with Parks and Recreation. It is a shame that Little League has been using the same two fields in Turlock for so many years. The only upgrading of these fields comes only from the League. Turlock has produced ALOT of talented baseball players through the years. To bad some of those bonus babies that have signed have not put anything back to where it all began. Maybe we can get Mr. V to donate some land for a complex in Balico. Whatcha think Rodney??
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