Coaches,
Good morning. Thank you for your patience. It is in moments like these where we are thrown a curveball with the weather, that I truly strive to demonstrate the PGBA centex Difference. I have been in your exact shoes and situation many times. You want what is best for your players and parents (as you should). Clear and timely communication is always appreciated; level-headed & sensible decisions are always appreciated. I strive and commit to always doing both. Please know I value and share that same perspective.
I realize some of you who had/have 10am games this morning were already on the road and inconvenienced. I truly apologize. As you might imagine, our admin team was doing our best job to gather intel in a timely manner; make decisions; and then communicate efficiently. I accept responsibility if there was something we could have done better this morning.
Rather than have teams arrive to potentially play one game; then sit around and dodge rain delays and schedule changes, I made the decision to postpone the start of the tournament until tomorrow. This will allow us to implement the revised Saturday & Sunday schedule we have already been working on and provide a first-class game day experience. The new schedule will follow the original Saturday schedule as much as possible when/wherever possible in order to minimize disruptions and change(s) of plans. All teams will play two games tomorrow; one Sunday morning. Top-seeded teams in each pool will advance to one of two championship games for each age division (four total championship games). All games tomorrow will start at 10:00am.
We will continue to monitor the weather and post updates on the tournament home page and @PGBAcentex. Please stay tuned to these outlets as it is the most efficient way for me to communicate to all of the coaches and families at once. I am already anticipating some tension and nerves in the morning as the sun comes up and teams are curious if there are any issues with starting the 10:00am games (or playing games at all). If you play a 10am game tomorrow please know I will be doing everything I can to provide you intel and feedback before you head to the ballpark. Please use the tournament home page as your primary source.
In the event we need to push back a start time tomorrow (or Sunday) at the last minute, please be prepared that we may need to adjust the game time-limit slightly to help get all the necessary games in and provide each team/organization a chance to play (ex: adjust from 1hr 50min to 1hr 30min).
I appreciate and value all of you. I clearly and deeply understand you have many (many) tournament choices to choose from and many of you continually choose PGBA centex. I am deeply greatful.
Let's stay positive and have a GREAT weekend of baseball! Consider plugging into one of the next two tournaments posted below!
Go Take on the Game,
Andrew Prater
