Almost all teams had horrific experiences from the unprofessional
neglect of basic standards of administration and the ill-mannered behavior of Fontanetti and his helpers throughout the tournament.Sunday evening,
July 28, 2002
Jim Lacefield,
AABC Western Regional Director
2030 Rosemary Street
Denver, CO 80207-3426
FAX 303-458-0106
The 2002 AABC Stan Musial Division NorCal Sectional Tournament just completed in San Jose, California was an abomination. The outcomes of the championship round should be placed in default, with all four teams advancing to the Regional Tournament.
Administration of the tournament was a complete failure.
Total lack of clarity about basic tournament rules completely upset the outcomes
of the games. This tournament was thoroughly botched by its sponsor Jerry Fontanetti.
Almost all teams had horrific experiences from the unprofessional
neglect of basic standards of administration and the ill-mannered behavior of Fontanetti and his helpers throughout the tournament.
The experiences of two teams who advanced on Sunday to the championship round provide numerous examples of the mismanagement of this tournament and the indecent behavior of its sponsor. Phil Tracy of the Redding Dodgers had already experienced this spring the abysmal behavior of Fontanetti in his “cooperation” with Mr. Tracy’s efforts to form a well-sponsored AABC Stan Musial league of 10-12 teams in northern California. Delays in providing paperwork, as well as direct mendacity, delayed the league-formation effort, resulting in only a four-team league, which by the 1-in-4 rule earns it one sectional tournament team. The Dodgers finished first in this league, and awaited details, more recently, about the sectional tournament. Shortly before the tournament, Mr. Tracy was informed that his Jefferson State league no longer earned a sectional tournament berth free and clear, but would have to contest it with another four-team league!
The ensuing outcry led to a retreat by the tournament
sponsor, two teams dropped out for unknown reasons, and the 8-team round-robin
tournament was ready to take place, except it lacked a schedule and rules. Mr.
Tracy lacked both too, despite his attempts to obtain them with a reasonable
lead time of at least a week, so that his players could arrange their work
schedules and their lives accordingly. Last week, before the tournament, Mr.
Tracy was hospitalized for a couple of days with a brief ailment, still without
news about the impending tournament. In the meantime, Fontanetti attempted to
get the Dodgers removed from the tournament for lack of payment. Jerry had,
following habit perhaps, failed to notify the Dodgers and Mr. Tracy directly of
this money demand. Perhaps Jerry was simply providing a rationale for
eliminating the Dodgers as one of the competitors to his Fontanetti team in the
tournament. Norm Thompson, a volunteer AABC supervisor who is also a local Stan
Musial league President, intervened to prevent the removal of the Dodgers from
the tournament.
Mr. Tracy finally received the tournament schedule two days before the 10am start of his first game, Friday July 26. The Redding team had the longest distance to the tournament site but was scheduled to play the first morning game. Perhaps this is an example of a typical scheduling maneuver by Fontanetti. The Dodgers had requested but had not received tournament rules or field directions as they made their way to Canada College on Friday morning. Unfortunately, many of the players spent as many as two extra hours driving around looking for their destination. Consequently, only eight players were available at the start of their first game. When the remaining players got to the field, they were declared ineligible to play. The Dodgers lost that first game.
At no moment during this tournament did Jerry Fontanetti
make an appearance. It is said that he stays alone in his store all the time.
Perhaps he does not exist here on earth. His mouthpiece at the tournament, the
scorekeeper Charlie Sherrill, was frequently on the cellphone. In any case, Mr.
Sherrill halted the Dodgers’ first game more than eight times for various petty
reasons, such as his confusion over who the current batter was at the plate.
None of Mr. Sherrill’s concerns should have required a halt in the flow of play.
But he did it anyway. This behavior was not limited to just this one game, but
continued throughout the tournament. On more than one occasion Mr. Sherrill
lectured a player or a fan regarding their verbal deportment and threatened them
with expulsion. On Sunday, he threatened one of the San Francisco Angel players
with bodily violence. Mr. Sherrill’s official roles- responsibilities and
authority- have not yet been properly disclosed to the tournament teams. They
just figured it out.
By Day 2, Mr. Tracy still lacked possession of the tournament rules. Also, scores were not posted anywhere. Mr. Thompson told Mr. Tracy that the Sunday championship games would be 9 innings.
On Day 3, Sunday, Mr. Tracy still lacked possession of the tournament rules. Today, at this very moment, despite his numerous attempts to obtain the rules, Mr. Tracy, back in Redding and angry from being Jerry-jerked about, does not have them.
It was on Sunday too, just before 2pm game time, that Mr. Tracy was informed that the game was scheduled for 7 innings, not the 9 as represented by the AABC’s Mr. Thompson. The San Francisco Angels had already experienced the switching around of scheduled innings. The Angels also had advanced to the single elimination championship round on Sunday. Their game began at 10am. The umpires announced that the game would be 9 innings. Sherrill changed it to 7, then the ensuing discussion resulted again in 9 innings, but finally the printed tournament rules appeared. It turns out that Mr. Thompson had stipulated verbally to Fontanetti that the rules would show that the championship games would be 9 innings, but Mr. Thompson did not review the printed rules, which were not widely circulated.
The Angels vehemently protested the imposition of a short
championship game, especially since Mr. Thompson had clearly stated the
following in his email to the Angels: “All games are 7 innings. Championship
round is 9 innings. Tie breaker is run differential.”
So Mr. Thompson arriving
at the field on Sunday afternoon decided to overrule his own representations to
the teams, his own directions to Fontanetti, and to perhaps accept Fontanetti’s
calculated refusal to incur two more innings of costs per game. He decided to
abide by Fontanetti’s insistence, through his mouthpiece, on 7 innings. This
despite the argument that 9 inning games in the championship round were intended
and to this moment make common sense. In this AABC tournament, however, common
sense lost.
The Angels had already been jerked around by Fontanetti
numerous times prior to this particular Jerry-jerking. Last week, Fontanetti
attempted to remove the Angels from the tournament arbitrarily without specific
cause. Mr. Thompson reinstated the Angels. Fontanetti then declared that the
Angels had not paid their fee, and so were being removed from the tournament.
The fee had been paid. Fontanetti then declared that the Angels had not
submitted their insurance certificate. The certificate had been submitted. In
these cases, Mr. Thompson intervened to reinstate the Angels. Fontanetti
declared that the Angels had not submitted their roster and player contracts.
Mr. Thompson provided Jerry with the Angels’ roster, which had been submitted to
him. The Angels faxed all player contract forms, as authorized by the players,
to Fontanetti. It should be noted that not all teams faced this requirement. The
Dodgers, for example, were never requested to submit, and never submitted,
player contracts. This particular Jerry-jerking was a focused effort.
Jerry was not done with the Angels, who also, like the Dodgers, lacked tournament rules despite having requested them. The Angels defeated the Fontanetti team on Friday. The game was halted by the mouthpiece Sherrill after six innings due to a time limit of 2 ½ hours. The Angels commenced their second game, and lost. Sherrill then announced that, upon consultation with Jerry, he had been mistaken in halting the first game, there was no time limit according to the rules which he apparently didn’t have, and that the Fontanetti team would be given an additional inning to defeat the Angels. The Hand of Fontanetti had intervened. Despite this, the inning was played the next day and the Angels won again.
Jerry was not done with the Angels. The Sunday 10am game in the little high school field commenced with all the above-described difficulties in defining the number of innings of the game.
Lack of clarity about the rules and contradictory information impacted all the teams, but especially impacted the four teams on Sunday. For example, convinced that the game would eventually be stretched to nine innings, Angel coach Roland Nazar held out the team’s best pitcher for use later in the game. There was no later. The Angels lost 7-5 in 7 innings in accordance with Jerry’s best efforts.
Other subjects relating to tournament play were not clearly answered and broadcast to all the teams. For example, the Dodgers wrongly thought that a –3 bat rule was in place.
Some of the umpires imitated Fontanetti, in the manner of Communist apparatchik bullies, conducting themselves in a rude and provocative manner. Jerry Fontanetti: AABC role model.
The AABC may be losing member teams sickened by this horrendous tournament. At the very least, the AABC comes across as an incompetent organization, as represented by Jerry Fontanetti who has been engaged in abusive behavior and purposeful mismanagement of AABC leagues and tournaments for over thirty years. Some of this obnoxious behavior has come to the attention of the AABC, and some measures have been taken to rein in such Fontanetti machinations as sending his own teams to sectional and regional tournaments when other teams had earned those berths. Mr. Thompson’s sustained involvement in this tournament is part of the effort to keep Fontanetti from screwing up an AABC Sectional Tournament. But Fontanetti wore Mr. Thompson down.
Now is the time for Fontanetti to be banned from the AABC as a lesson that a history of bad baseball citizenship and outright cheating does not guarantee good standing with the AABC just because Jerry provides a source of income to it.
Sincerely,
James L. Brown,
General Manager
San Francisco Angels Wood Bat Baseball Team
Phil Tracy,
General Manager, Redding Dodgers
President, Jefferson State League (AABC Stan Musial)
Monday evening,
July 29, 2002
Jim Lacefield,
AABC Western Regional Director
2030 Rosemary Street
Denver, CO 80207-3426
FAX 303-458-0106
Ray Johnson of the Elk Grove Oaks has told us he experienced similar outrage regarding the NorCal Sectional Tournament in San Jose. Fontanetti attempted to force his team into an illegal pre-tournament playoff with the Redding Dodgers, on two days notice. That problem was resolved in favor of legality, and the Elks resumed their wait for instructions, rules, and schedule relating to the Sectional Tournament.
Mr. Johnson mailed his tournament fee via overnight express in accordance with the instructions finally faxed to him last Monday. Fontanetti then decided that he required a cashier’s check in place of the personal check sent, so Mr. Johnson brought a cashier’s check to his first game on Friday. He was given no directions to the field, received the tournament schedule upon arrival to his first game, and received the tournament rules after his last game. He was not aware of the differential rule as a tie-breaker. Consequently, when leading a game 13-1 in the third inning, he pulled his starting players out of the game and put in his subs, in conformity with baseball courtesy, not knowing that he was foregoing a run-up as a cushion for a tie-breaker.
There were numerous aggravating and time-consuming disputes regarding rules which had not been distributed and were not on display. A rule regarding listing all players on the lineup card was imposed prior to one of the games but then not properly enforced after an unlisted player had entered the game.
There are enough irritations with running a summer baseball team and coping with the AABC’s 21-man tournament roster squeeze. Participating teams were then subjected to the horrendous management of the Sectional Tournament, which should have been run proudly, competently, openly, honestly, and in person. Instead, the 2002 AABC Stan Musial Division NorCal Sectional Tournament just completed in San Jose, California was an abomination. At the very least, all tournament fees should be refunded. The championship games should be expunged, with all four teams advancing to the Regional Tournament. Jerry Fontanetti should be banned from the AABC.
Sincerely,
James L. Brown,
General Manager
San Francisco Angels Wood Bat Baseball Team
Phil Tracy,
General Manager, Redding Dodgers
President, Jefferson State League (AABC Stan Musial)
Mr. Lacefield responded!
Yo!
But he retired at the end of last year.