{"id":1500,"date":"2016-02-21T21:57:19","date_gmt":"2016-02-22T02:57:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sweatsoxbaseball.com\/blog\/?p=1500"},"modified":"2016-02-21T22:19:08","modified_gmt":"2016-02-22T03:19:08","slug":"a-secondhand-account-of-the-2016-ncbl-winter-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sweatsoxbaseball.com\/blog\/2016\/02\/21\/a-secondhand-account-of-the-2016-ncbl-winter-meeting\/","title":{"rendered":"A Secondhand Account of the 2016 NCBL Winter Meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Exactly one week ago, the NCBL&#8217;s Annual Winter Meeting took place at the Nepean Sportsplex; and I\u2019ve finally gathered enough information from my top-secret sources from all 4 tiers to provide the most accurate recap possible.\u00a0 I\u2019ve received so many details from my loyal readers this past week, it kind of feels like I was personally at the meeting, sitting at the executive table, staring into the souls of all the Managers \u2013 but of course I wasn\u2019t since I\u2019ve never been, nor will I ever go to, a league meeting.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m told the pre-meeting kicked off with Bill Beelen apologizing profusely for taking the managers away from their special someone.\u00a0 Apparently it isn\u2019t enough that the Commissioner constantly schedules opening day on the second Sunday of May aka Mothers Day, he had to go and get a second group of women mad at our managers by booking the winter meeting on Valentines Day.\u00a0 There\u2019s always a method to his madness though, because in the back of his truck were 3 dozen bouquets of flowers, and 3 dozen boxes of chocolates; one for each team manager to take home and present to their mate.\u00a0 In unrelated news, league\u00a0fees are going up about $100 per team this year.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/sweatsoxbaseball.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/HomeplateHeart.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1502\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1502\" src=\"http:\/\/sweatsoxbaseball.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/HomeplateHeart.jpg\" alt=\"HomeplateHeart\" width=\"500\" height=\"349\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sweatsoxbaseball.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/HomeplateHeart.jpg 500w, https:\/\/sweatsoxbaseball.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/HomeplateHeart-300x209.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Once officially called to order, the record 21-minute meeting was basically split up into 3 parts: the Commissioner\u2019s Report, Team Intentions, and the Election of Officers.<\/p>\n<p>The Commissioner\u2019s Report was an extensive recap of the 2015 season, which Bill Beelen declared a \u201csuccess\u201d.\u00a0 It makes perfect sense for him to proclaim this; after all the Brewers won the Tier 1 Championship.\u00a0 FYI- most years have been described in past reports as a success, minus the following seasons: 2002, 2003, 2011, and 2014.<\/p>\n<p>Bill also had high praise for the 2015 roster of umpires, except for Fred Malo, who did such a poor job assigning that the Operations Committee unanimously fired him.\u00a0 I\u2019m hearing there are 4 candidates to take over as umpire assignor, but their names have been classified top secret.\u00a0 In unrelated news, I miss the brilliant news casting of CJOH\u2019s \u2018Max\u2019 \u2018Keeping\u2019.\u00a0 In even more unrelated news, if my last name was the same as my first and it was spelled differently, it would be \u2018Sean\u2019 \u2018Sean\u2019.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 4px;\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>Final Commissioner\u2019s Report Notes\/Thoughts:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Operational Committee did a great job<\/li>\n<li>The Umpires did a great job<\/li>\n<li>The Treasurer did a great job<\/li>\n<li>The Tier Presidents did a great job<\/li>\n<li>The Executive did a great job<\/li>\n<li>Joe Beelen did a great job<\/li>\n<li>The Braumeisters did not do a great job<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It\u2019s not until the spring meeting that pennant winning, last place, or otherwise unhappy teams officially declare which tier they\u2019d like to play in.\u00a0 For financial and logistical planning purposes though, teams announce at the winter meeting what their current state of mind is, which usually carries over until the next meeting.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 4px;\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>The Unofficial Team Intentions Notes\/Thoughts:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Outlaws want to stay in Tier 1<\/li>\n<li>The SweatSox are going to Tier 1<\/li>\n<li>The Orioles are going back to Tier 3<\/li>\n<li>The Sharks want to stay in Tier 3<\/li>\n<li>The Beau&#8217;s Misfits want to go to Tier 2<\/li>\n<li>The Bytown Bombers want to stay in Tier 3<\/li>\n<li>The Big Rig Capitals are going to Tier 3<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 4px;\">The NCBL Election of Officers is usually a case of \u201cI\u2019ll (<em>do\/keep doing<\/em>) it if nobody else wants to\u201d, and this year was no different.\u00a0 The 6 positions that were up for re-election (the 4 Tier Presidents, Treasurer, and Operations Committee) were all acclaimed, while our very own Cory Bond was unanimously voted in as the new league Secretary, a position that\u2019s literally been up for grabs for years.\u00a0 I\u2019m told GLE was personally recruited by the Commissioner, who ultimately gave in to all of Cory\u2019s demands:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A prime seat at the Commissioner\u2019s table<\/li>\n<li>A salary thrice\u00a0that of the Commissioner<\/li>\n<li>The password to the NCBL Twitter account<\/li>\n<li>A future NCBL award named in his honour<\/li>\n<li>A 14% discount on SweatSox league fees for as long as he holds the position<\/li>\n<li>A free entry into the 2016 Brewers Tournament<\/li>\n<li>0 SweatSox trips to Kingston this season<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Finally, congratulations to Cory Bond, who in a series of shady backroom deals, swindled enough votes to become the newest NCBL Secretary.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; SweatSox (@SweatSox) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SweatSox\/status\/698923953394331648?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 14, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>A usual staple of the annual Winter Meeting is the NCBL Treasurer\u2019s recap of the previous year, and forecast for the coming season.\u00a0 There was no such presentation last week, because a well dressed Craig Cornell was at Disney hooking up with Belle\u2026<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/sweatsoxbaseball.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/cornellbelle.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1501\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-1501\" src=\"http:\/\/sweatsoxbaseball.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/cornellbelle-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"cornellbelle\" width=\"700\" height=\"467\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sweatsoxbaseball.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/cornellbelle-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/sweatsoxbaseball.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/cornellbelle-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/sweatsoxbaseball.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/cornellbelle-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/sweatsoxbaseball.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/cornellbelle.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 4px;\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>Final NCBL Annual Winter Meeting Notes\/Thoughts<\/strong><\/span>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Misfits were the only team to \u201creply-all\u201d to the invitation to this meeting<\/li>\n<li>The Cardinals, Expos, and Mudd were 3 of the 4 teams that didn\u2019t have representation at the meeting.\u00a0 Tier 2 is falling apart already without the SweatSox.<\/li>\n<li>Chief Umpire Jean Lazure was too stuffed from a Valentines-Eve dinner at the Share Freehouse, and wasn\u2019t able to make the meeting<\/li>\n<li>There was an unusually large number\u00a0of Hot Broments sitting together in the third row<\/li>\n<li>Fall Ball Co-Commissioner Joe Beelen announced Fall Ball is returning this year, in what was originally scheduled to be an \u201coff-year\u201d<\/li>\n<li>The NCBL banquet will no longer be at the Hellenic Center<\/li>\n<li>At most, we\u2019ll have 1 new team in the league next year<\/li>\n<li>The daily NCBL website and Twitter duties are being taken over by some random kid who asked<\/li>\n<li>The NCBL answering machine has been cut, permanently<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I&#39;m got multiple sources from today&#39;s <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ncbl?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@ncbl<\/a> Winter Meeting telling me that the league has killed off the legendary answering machine! <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/RIP?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#RIP<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; SweatSox (@SweatSox) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SweatSox\/status\/698921363378012160?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 14, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><strong>SWEATSITE EXCLUSIVE<\/strong>: I\u2019ve recently gotten my hands on a draft copy of the new secretary\u2019s Winter Meeting Minutes.\u00a0 This version was illegally obtained by me and my team of investigators, and until they\u2019re presented to the league at the next meeting should be considered unofficial, unapproved, unauthorized, unsanctioned, and to be quite honest, completely inaccurate.\u00a0 If there are any discrepancies between what he and I wrote, believe my version of events.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sweatsoxbaseball.com\/2016WinterMeetingMinutes.pdf\">NCBL Annual Winter Meeting Minutes (.pdf)<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Shaun Keay, I\u2019m the SweatSox SweatSite Webmaster, my passport was issued in Gatineau, and I\u2019ll be here all year.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/sweatsoxbaseball.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/2014game10keay.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-628\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-628\" src=\"http:\/\/sweatsoxbaseball.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/2014game10keay-682x1024.jpg\" alt=\"2014game10keay\" width=\"682\" height=\"1024\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sweatsoxbaseball.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/2014game10keay-682x1024.jpg 682w, https:\/\/sweatsoxbaseball.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/2014game10keay-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/sweatsoxbaseball.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/2014game10keay.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 682px) 100vw, 682px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Exactly one week ago, the NCBL&#8217;s Annual Winter Meeting took place at the Nepean Sportsplex; and I\u2019ve finally gathered enough information from my top-secret sources from all 4 tiers to provide the most accurate recap possible.\u00a0 I\u2019ve received so many details from my loyal readers this past week, it kind of feels like I was&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1507,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[12,9],"tags":[121,120],"class_list":["post-1500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ncbl","category-recap","tag-meeting-minutes","tag-winter-meeting"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sweatsoxbaseball.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/2016WinterMeeting.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p41pWP-oc","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sweatsoxbaseball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sweatsoxbaseball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sweatsoxbaseball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sweatsoxbaseball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sweatsoxbaseball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1500"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/sweatsoxbaseball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1510,"href":"https:\/\/sweatsoxbaseball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1500\/revisions\/1510"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sweatsoxbaseball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sweatsoxbaseball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sweatsoxbaseball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sweatsoxbaseball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}