News & Events

District Tournaments a Great Success for 2008

The District 19 2008 Tournaments proved to be even more exciting than previous years.  Take the time to review the tournament schedules that are still posted under the "Tournaments" link to see the District Champs of each divsion.

With the staggered starts of the 9-10 and 10-11 divisions we were able to utilize one tournament site in some cases for more than one division of tournament.

In 2008 we utilized some of our Tournament Directors as Site Directors.  The site director handled paperwork and collections as well assigned game umpires from the assigned umpire pools.

We were excited to see that the umpire pools and having several Site Directors assign and rotate the umpires as well as handle game assignments worked well.  One benefit was when we had to reschedule games at different sites due to weather or other reasons, it was much easier for several different persons to handle those situations and make the reassignments.

Thanks to the host leagues for allowing all of us to use your fine facilities and for providing all of support needed to put on these tournaments.  That includes providing personnel to keep score for games, prepare and maintain fields especially when we had two games or more on some fields at times and for being gracious hosts and making all of us feel welcome.

Also, thanks to all the volunteers who serve us by being our tournament directors, site directors, umpire supervisors and umpires.  Thanks to the District Staff for your work all year around.

District Staff Meeting

The District 19 Staff Members met on Saturday, November 17th at Baseball Express to review the new format for the 2008 City and District Tournaments.  Using tournament schedules from the 2007 season,  the effect of the staggered start dates for the District Tournaments were reviewed.  These changes should prove to reduce the demand on the staffing of the tournaments and improve the flow of games for the host leagues. 

District Staff members have pledged to assist in making these changes a positive experience for all of our Little Leagues and all of the tournament teams.

These changes, along with a review of all of the rules changes, will be reviewed with League Presidents and District Staff members at our January Presidents Meeting on January 9th (Wednesday) evening at the Windcrest Civic Center.

Tournament News          

It was announced at the Presidents Meeting on October 11th, 2007 that the All-Star Tournaments for 2008 will have staggered start dates.  The 9-10 Baseball and Softball and the 10-11 Baseball and Softball divisions will start their tournaments on June 21st.  All other divisions will start on June 28th.

The staggered start dates will allow us to maximize the use of the host facilities, our umpires and tournament staff.  In addition, it will assure that host leagues have more games each day and less days of single games.

Looking for ...

All League Presidents were asked to assist the District and our new Umpire Consultant, Tommy McDonald in finding and training additional volunteer Little league Umpires.

In addition, the District Administrator made it known that we are looking for 2 additional Baseball ADA's and 2 additional Softball ADA's from among the leagues in 2008 to assist us during Tournaments as Tournament or Game Directors.

Regional Seminar

The Southwestern Regional District Administrator's Seminar was held Friday, November 30th through Sunday, December 2nd, 2007.

Richard Buckelew, Tommy McDonald, Virginia Buckelew and Tina McDonald attended this year's Regional Seminar.  The Texas West State DA's Conference and our Section 3 Meetings were also held during this period in Waco.

All the current Regular Season and Tournament Rules changes were reviewed and explained at this seminar.  We will be able to pass on the latest information to our League Personnel at the January Meeting, so League Presidents and District Staff, please plan to attend so you can keep up to date on these changes.

Special Thanks

 A Special Thank You to Bruce Marburger for the many years of dedicated service to Little League Baseball and Softball in Texas District 19, the State of Texas and the Southwestern Region of Little League Baseball

After over 26 years of dedicated service to the Little League Program, Bruce Marburger has retired as the District 19 Umpire Consultant. Richard Buckelew, District 19 Administrator, presents Bruce Marburger with a token of our appreciation for Bruce's dedicated service to Little League Baseball and Softball.

We wish Bruce Marburger the best in his retirement and hope he gets to take a summer vacation after all of these many years. Bruce did state that he will continue to work with our District in umpire training and will remain active as a umpire.

Thank You Bruce from everyone in San Antonio Little League !

Appointments

Dave Mather has been appointed as the 2008 Tournament Coordinator. His duties will include reviewing tournament proposals, reviewing tournament host sites, meeting with tournament hosts and working with the District Umpire Consultant to assure that umpires are assigned to cover all of the 2008 City and District Tournaments.

Another of Dave's duties will be to assist the District Administrator in schedule preparation and securing additional Tournament Directors from the District 19 Leagues. Congratulations to Dave Mather on his appointment to this most important position.

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Tommy McDonald has been appointed as the District 19 Umpire Consultant to replace Bruce Marburger effective immediately. Tommy will assume the duties of umpire training and development and will begin contacting each of the Little Leagues in District 19 immediately in an effort to promote and secure additional volunteer umpires who will be available for the upcoming City and District Tournaments.

Congratulations to Tommy McDonald on this very important position.  We will all be assisting Tommy whenever possible and ask that you do the same.

Section Tournaments

The Section 3 District Administrators met on Sunday, October 14th to review past Section Tournaments and make decisions on where the 2008 Texas West Section 3 Tournament would be hosted.  Pictures from left to right are Richard Buckelew, DA 19 from San Antonio, Barbara LeStougeon, DA 21 from Bandera and Duane Durst, DA 26 from Fredericksburg.  Not picture but in attendance was Gerald McCrary DA 35 from Del Rio.

District 19 will now host the Junior and Senior Baseball and Softball Section 3 Tournaments for 2008. We were asked to take the tournaments which were to scheduled to be in District 21 and were more than happy to take them so that our District Winners will not have to travel for the Section Tournaments.

We are also excited to announce that District 19 and Alamo Heights were awarded the Little League Softball and Senior League Softball Southwestern Regional Tournaments again for 2008.  Please plan to offer your assistance in scorekeeping, announcing and Field Director Duties. We need help from all of our District 19 Little Leagues.

Come out and help, it is a ton of fun and you get to meet the teams from the other 7 states in the Southwestern Region. Remember the winners of these tournament go directly to their World Series from here.

District Staff Meeting

On January 9th, 2008 the District held its annual Presidents and Staff meeting to review the 2008 Rules Changes and review the new staggered tournament start dates for 2008. It was announced at the  Meeting that the annual District 19 Little League night at the Rampage Games at the ATT&T Center would be held on Friday, January 11th, 2008.

Everyone had a great time with a Spurs locker room tour and a great hockey game to boot.  We had a great crowd and everyone enjoyed themselves even our Regional Director, Mr. Mike Witherwax.  If you missed it this year, be sure and plan on going next year.