I would like to welcome you to another season of Softball at Perry Hall Rec. Council. This is my fifth year as the Softball Chairman/Commissioner and I believe that this year will be even better than the 2003 Season. The rain in 2003 was unbelievable and the field conditions were just terrible from all of that rain.  Hopefully this year will be different with the weather.  This could not be possible without the many volunteers that help the Softball Program, the Umpires, Age Group Chairpersons, Coaches and Parents that fill in on an as need bias.

This season will be filled with many new and exciting changes. Every team in all of the age groups will be playing under a Fastpitch format.  The First change you will se is that all of the girls will be getting complete uniforms which include a visor, shirt, shorts and socks that are theirs to keep.  Another change is that new equipment has been purchased for this season as it has been for the past two seasons and we will continue to upgrade the equipment.   This year we will be combining our schedule with White Marsh Softball, this means that some of our games will be played on Perry Hall fields as well as White Marsh fields. We are also making the 4 fields at Perry Hall High our Softball Complex for this year and for the future.  These are some of the noticeable changes that you’ll see right away. One other change will be that everyone can look up information about the softball program under the Perry Hall Softball Website at www.angelfire.com/games5/phsoftball/ for Girls Fastpitch Softball.

There will be a scheduled Opening Day this year at Perry Hall High School using all four of the Softball fields. We are currently thinking about an Opening Day Tournament which will count towards the regular season schedule instead of playing under the lights.  The games will be played, photographs will be taken and refreshments and hot dogs will be sold to benefit the End of Season Awards/Pizza Night at the end of June. Also some sales of our shirts and other items will be sold at the same time. All proceeds will go towards the cost of pizza, sodas and additional awards for all of the girls. If you wish to volunteer to help that day, drop off some baked goods or turn in a contribution please contact me before Opening Day.

There will be some fundraisers going on this year as well. One of the fundraisers will be to help offset the costs of awards for the in house program this season and will be sold at registration and on Opening Day. Some of the other fundraisers will go to the benefit the Travel Softball Program. This year I would like to send all of our travel teams to the ASA Region 3 “B” Qualifier Tournament and possibly to the Nationals as well. Some other things are in the planning stages for fundraisers for the Travel Program.  There is one other fundraiser that I’m working on as well, a scholarship fund for any girl that is currently playing for Perry Hall in either the in-house or travel programs will be eligible for this scholarship.  The details have not been worked out and more information will be coming.

The end of season Awards Night was not that successful last season mainly to the fact that the trophies that were ordered were not delivered on time, however, everyone seemed to enjoy the pizza and cold sodas.  This year I’m looking into selling T-shirts, Flags, water bottles, coffee mugs and pins to help support this effort and to help support the overall encouragement of our young athletes.

Last, I would like to say that all of us that are here to help the Softball Program encourage the girls in fair play, sportsmanship and to build teamwork. I look forward to another great season for 2004.