Photo taken at the league meeting. (Wolan)

What was suppose to be a no-trills league meeting quickly become a shouting match between a manager and two league officials. It all started at Sunday’s league meeting to discuss the playoffs. Half-way through the meeting, Jennifer, the somewhat overly passionate team captain of Ryan’s Landscaping, expressed frustrations regarding poor outfield lighting conditions. She claims that in all of her night games, at least one set of outfield lights was not on. Her concern was that her entrance fee of $200 was not being put to good use.

Dan, the league commissioner, stated that the problem could be due to fact that the wiring is aging. He went on to say that both Western Mass Electric and Ron (who works for WME), took a look at the lighting system and found no problems. At this point, Ron exited from the game he was umpping and joined the conversation.

At this point, the discussion became heated. Jennifer reiterated her frustration regarding the lighting conditions and mentioned that she felt her sponsor, R.L., was not reaping the full benefits of sponsorship. Dan then mentioned that if she wants, he could refund her league fee of $200. Then somehow, either directly or indirectly, Ron became part of the argument. Jenn mentioned that Ron was insulting her team’s players during their games, claiming that Ron called one of her female players “fat”. At this point, Jenn became emotional.

(In this sport’s writer’s opinion, there are no overweight or “fat” people on Jenn’s team, period. Refer to the “photos” section of the site to see player photos taken at three games involving Ryan’s Landscaping, along with some possible photos illustrating the lighting issues.)

This was followed by some heated exchanges between Ron and Jenn. These exchanges ended when Dan offered to refund R.L. the $200 entrance fee once more and Jenn accepted.

Jenn might have gotten more than she bargained for because not only is her team out of the 2006 playoffs, the team is not welcomed in the 2007 season.

The writing staff of the Pittsfield Vet’s organization made several unsuccessful attempts to reach Dan and Jennifer for comments. However, A-WOL, who had been in contact with the three individuals involved in the past, has some insight to share regarding this incident.

“Did Jenn have a point to make? Yes. Did she express her concerns in the most appropriate setting or fashion. No. ” said A-WOL.

File photo of Ron.  (Wolan)

“Ron likes to talk to players during the game. Sometimes he says things that could be deemed questionable by some players. Is it possible that Ron called some on Jenn’s players a bad name? Perhaps. He was overheard calling my 2005 team a ‘bunch of assholes’ at one game. Do most people care about what he says? No. Most just ignore it and play on. But in all fairness to Ron, he sometimes gives ‘tough love’ type of advice to players, which tend to be quite helpful. However, the results may not be the same when said to a sensitive individual, which I feel is the case here. A simple but sincere apology by Ron is all that is needed to rectify this matter. As for some of his questionable game calls during the game, I won’t go there because I did not see them first hand.”

“As for Dan, the league commissioner, he has a knack of avoiding concerns people raise about the ball field with ‘if you don’t like it, I’ll gladly refund your entrance fee’ remarks. I experienced this first hand when I tried reporting issues I saw with the field. It seemed like whenever I tried to raise an issue, I was confronted with his ’‘if you don’t like it, I’ll gladly refund your entrance fee’ remark. And it wasn’t as if the issues I was raising were expensive and time consuming. If anything, they were said to avoid injury to people on the field, such as a ditch forming in the left side of home plate or a hole forming under first base which nearly caused me to twist an ankle at a game.“

“To me, I think Dan needs to stop being so sensitive to concerns raised about the ball field. No one is trying to insult him, but for whatever reason, he takes it personally, which is silly.”

“In my past conversations with Jenn, I know for a fact that she meet the same remark barrier that I had faced in 2005 when raising field concerns. My guess is that she tried raising concerns about the lighting and other things only to be giving the ‘if you don’t like it, I’ll gladly refund your entrance fee’ remark. Sunday’s incident was just an explosion of her frustration. What she should have done was speak to Dan‘s supervisor at the Dalton CRA if Dan was being resistive to her concerns. If she didn‘t get any satisfaction there, speak to the Town of Dalton Board of Selectmen. They have a meeting every Monday at 7 or 8 pm. ”

Shot of Jennifer taken at the meeting. (Wolan)

“As for Jenn, it is clear that she is a very passionate co-ed softball manager. But at times it seems as if she takes things a little too seriously. At the meeting, someone was overheard saying ‘you only care about yourself.’ Is this true? Perhaps.“

“I played in a game with R.L earlier in the year. After the team won the game, I tried to take a team portrait. Even though the entire team was out on the field and that the ump was ready to take a snapshot, Jenn wanted to do something first. Problem was, I was running out of battery power and a picture had to be taken quickly. By the time she entered the frame, the batteries had died. I wanted to quickly exchange the batteries with a fresh set and try again, but she refused, calling the whole thing off. To me, it seemed as if she felt threaten as if I was trying to take some control of the team. In actuality, I was just trying to promote some team unity. Perhaps Jenn has a good explanation for this, but the way things turned out just seemed silly to me.”

“Finally, as someone who has played in the outfield in a night game with a set of outfield lights off, I have to say that it’s not that big of a deal, especially now that the league uses yellow softballs. This would not be the case if an infield light was out. If that happen, the reflex time for a fielder would be reduced, possibly causing someone to get hurt on a ground ball or a line drive. That would be unacceptable, if not dangerous. If anything, my only complaint with the lights are that they are too low, making it difficult to follow pop-flies at night.”

“I think Jenn needs to understand what they get for $200 is not as bad as she may claim. The grass is cut, the field is level, the infield is not on top of gravel, and the foul lines are always painted. Yes, not all the lights are on during night games, but it’s not enough to cause a game to be stopped. If it were that bad, she should ask for 6:30pm start times instead of 8pm. (I don’t think she could because of R.L.’s hours of operation, but I could be wrong.) The unfortunately part of Sunday’s incident is that her team is now out of the play-off, which may or may not sit well with her team mates.”

Andy Wolan is a reporter for MLSB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Softball or its clubs.