San Francisco Angels

 Wood Bat Baseball Team

Recap of 2003 season

Best in West Invitational Tournament August 1-3, 2003

1st Annual Best in the West Tournament

August 1-3, 2003

Sponsored by The Maxim Yankees

1st Place $7,000, 2nd Place $2,000, Third Place $1,000, Fourth Place $500

Tournament Fee of $500 and a dozen D-1 balls.

Pool A (at San Jose State): San Francisco Angels, Maxim Yankees, Oakland Expos, Saratoga Sox

Maps of Blethen Field, San Jose State w/ directions

Pool B (at Salinas Municipal Stadium): Salinas Packers, Long Beach Strikers, Salinas Heat, Richmond Nacs

Each team competes in three pool games to determine first and second place in each pool. Within each pool, the top two teams play each other again late Saturday for the pool championship. This unusual arrangement is the result of the distance between the two fields used in the tournament; crossing of pools is logistically impractical.

The two pool champions then play each other for the tournament championship Sunday in San Jose. The two runners-up play each other in Salinas on Sunday for third and fourth place money. 

                              *     *     *

         
Best in the West Invitational Tournament Aug. 1-3
SJSU/Salinas Municipal Stadium
Hosted by Maxim Yankees and Salinas Packers

Tournament Rules:

1) 30 man roster

2) 9 inning games (pool play has 2 hour 45 minute time limit) All playoff and championship games have no time limit!

3) Before each game in pool play the home team and dugout will be determined by a coin toss.

4) American League rules – no running for the catcher.

5) All wood bats are legal – wood or composite is fine – no aluminum bats are allowed!

6) Pool play has a 2 hour and 45 minute time limit on games. If the time runs out the teams must finish the inning and then the game is over. If tied then the result is a tie. This is for pool play only!

7) Teams play everyone in your pool (3 games minimum) and then the top 2 teams in each pool advance to the pool championship to determine the pool winner and who plays in the Tournament Championships on Sun. Aug. 3rd at 3PM at SJSU Blethen Field.

8) Top 4 teams win cash prize money! 1st place = $7,000.00, 2nd place = $2,000.00, 3rd place = $1,000.00 and 4th place = $500.00. The 3rd and 4th place game will take place at 3PM on Sunday Aug. 3rd at Salinas Municipal Stadium.

9) Rosters are due prior to your first game along with one dozen NCAA or D1 approved baseballs. Bring to your site with you and give to Dave Holt (Salinas) or Jeff Thomas (SJSU – Maxim) 30 minutes prior to your first game.

10) Top 2 teams in the pool advance to the pool championship. If and only if the first place team in either pool goes 3-0, then the 2nd place team will have to beat the 1st place team twice to advance to the Tournament Championships! This is only because the 3-0 team has already defeated the 2nd place team and would then need to beat them 2 times to advance (of 2 of 3 games). This game (only if needed) would be at 10AM on Sun. Aug. 1st.

11) Pool play ties are broken in the following order:

a) Head to Head
b) Run Differential
c) Total Hits in Head to Head play
d) Total ERA in Head to Head play
e) Total Hits in Pool play
f) Total ERA in Pool play

12) Player Ethics and Code of Conduct – All players must be on their best behavior. Umpires and tournament directors will not tolerate any misbehavior. Fighting will be an automatic ejection from the tournament. The tournament director(s) has the right to kick a team out of the tournament for such behavior. Please limit the bad language and trash talking. This a 1st class tournament and we will not tolerate teams that are out of line. Umpires will have the authority to warn a team if they feel any team is out of line! A 2nd warning may result in a possible forfeit of a team’s game. So in other words your team’s behavior is in the hands of the team managers and they will be held accountable for their team’s behavior!
 

13) Players must be 18 years or older to participate.

14) The championship game is one 9-inning game only!

15) All playoff and Championship games are played until conclusion with no time restrictions.

16) Awards will be presented after the final games!

17) Teams will need to submit players they want in consideration for all tournament teams before Sun. to your tournament site director (Dave Holt Salinas or Jeff Thomas at SJSU).

18) No BP or Infield before games!

19) All protests must be filed immediately following the game and must be done so with a $25 forfeit fee. For a protest to be legal, the protest must be filed with the umpires before the next pitch or the protest will not be valid! The final decision on all protests will be made by the tournament directors, Jeff Thomas and Dave Holt! If a protest is upheld then the $25 will be refunded. If the protest is lost, then the $25 fee is non refundable.
 

20) Good luck and see you at the tournament!

Thanks for joining the 1st annual Best in the West Invitational!

Jeff Thomas
Maxim Yankees

Small Consolation!

Angels Come Close Again

Team pulls out of hole, then falls right back in

Salinas, August 3:  The Salinas Packers defeated the San Francisco Angels 4-2 Sunday at Salinas Municipal Stadium for $1,000 3rd place money in the Best in the West Invitational Tournament. The Maxim Yankees won the $7,000 1st place prize that the Yankees had put up as sponsors of the event. The Yankees defeated the Long Beach Strikers Sunday 4-1 in the tournament championship at San Jose State University's Blethen Field.

The San Francisco Angels had been shut out by the sponsoring Maxim team 4-0 in Saturday's 4pm Pool A  playoff at San Jose State University's Blethen Field. The debt-ridden anarchist collective had worked its way back toward successful transformation into decent and respectable corporate citizenship, but then was knocked down by the big money power of the Yankees and their hand-selected pitching staff.

If the Angels had won this game, they would have moved on to the 3pm Tournament Championship at Blethen Field on Sunday, with either a $7,000 first prize or a $2,000 second prize. The Angels instead traveled to Salinas on Sunday afternoon to play the consolation game. Pitching to his first batter in relief of starter Ben Smith in the 6th inning, Tom McGee allowed a cheap bloop double down the line which scored three runs. McGee shut down the Packers the remainder of the game but the damage had been done.

The Angels' $500 tournament fee has been returned to them for finishing 4th in the 8-team tournament. If they had won Sunday's game, another $500 would have gone to the Angels to be applied to reimburse Mike Mukuno for helmets, and to pay down the bill on uniforms.

Nevertheless, it was the least expensive weekend of the whole summer: five games at the cost of a dozen baseballs. "If we had that all year," stated the Angels travel director, tossing rusted scrap into his rusted pick-up on the side of 101 in Brisbane, "I wouldn't have to be doing this." 

Although the Yankees really didn't need that money, they still ran a great tournament, with two excellent fields, announcers for the game, hard-working umpires who only blinked occasionally, clearly-defined rules, a well-organized tournament director present at the San Jose site with a counterpart in Salinas. It was clearly a non-Fontanetti event, a miracle for San Jose, the exact opposite of last year's AABC playoff disaster (see letters of complaint about the wretched 2002 Fontanetti tournament). A breath of fresh air!

In Saturday's crucial game that would have led to the big bucks, the Yankees took a 1-0 lead in the first inning with a solo homerun. The Angels' Mickey Coughlin threw five innings for the Angels, almost getting a 1-2-3 fifth inning over with a called third strike. But the umpire blinked. The Yankees then loaded the bases and cleared them with a three-run triple.  Josh Gray threw three scoreless innings for the Angels, but the San Francisco offense was shut down by the Yankees pitching.

The Angels had lost the first game of pool play Friday in a similar manner, a shutout at the hands of the moneyed team, 2-0. John W. Herbert, "Worm",  pitched all nine innings for the Angels. The hard-battling Angels put itself back together Friday evening with a reshuffled lineup in a 10-2 win over the Saratoga Sox. Matt Flaherty worked his way through to a complete game victory for the Angels. First baseman Mike Mukuno had three well-timed hits, driving in four runs. Catcher Brad Shannon, who has caught in 58 games and hit over a dozen homeruns this summer, hit a bomb that bounced back off the top of the 30-ft centerfield fence for a ground-rule double.

The team then edged the Oakland Expos (for the 9th straight time) in a 3-2 nail-biter on Saturday morning. Lance Stevens won his eighth game of the season, upping his 2-year record with the Angels to 18-1. Relief ace Evan Rogers pitched an inning for the save.

The Angels then sat and watched the Yankees lose a game 6-4 to the Saratoga Sox. This set up the rematch between the Yankees and Angels, a one-game playoff between the top two teams of the 4-team San Jose Pool A.

Pool A played at Bethen Field. Pool B was played in Salinas. In Pool B, the Salinas Packers took a 3-0 record to the Pool playoff against the Long Beach Strikers, the successor to last year's independent Western League professional team. But the Strikers shut out the Packers 3-0 late Saturday, forcing a second playoff game Sunday morning at 10am in Salinas. The Strikers struck again, beating the Packers 4-0, then drove to the San Jose championship, where they struck out 4-1 but struck it somewhat richer with 2nd place money.

click here for the box scores & play-by-plays

Friday's Noon Game Might Start at 11:45am

#1 Fat Cat Wants to Start Early!

----- Original Message -----
From: <#2Cat@sjtourney.churchofbaseball.god>
To: <traveldirector@sfangels.churchofbaseball.god>

Sent: Thursday, July 31, 2003 1:41 PM
Subject: [#1 Fat Cat's New Schedule]

#1 Fat Cat [the Maxim sponsor] called me this morning and wanted  to start the games early. 1st game at 8:30AM and then our game at 11:30-11:45PM depending on when the other game ends.  He wants a 3 hour time limit on the pool play and he wants to get the last game going before 6PM in order to get in the game in the day light.

 Please confirm that you will be able to play at 11:30AM - 11:45AM depending on the ending of the first game?

Thanks a lot and hope all is well!

Thanks,

#2Cat

----- Guarded Response -----
To: <#2Cat@sjosetournament.churchofbaseball.god>
From: <traveldirector@sfangels.churchofbaseball.god>

They'll just be getting in. The coach himself is running tight on Friday morning. I'll forward this.