Baseball: Another embarrassing seeding meeting

The City Section’s philosophy of letting coaches directly involved in the playoffs put together the playoff seedings produced a major embarrassment Saturday for the junior varsity baseball tournament.

The representative for the West Valley League, Jon Beckerman of Woodland Hills El Camino Real, didn’t show up for the meeting, so the remaining coaches left Chatsworth, the second-place finisher in the league, out of the 16-team tournament, and seeded league champion El Camino Real No. 9.

Chatsworth has played in the JV final the last two years. In fact, the JV final has matched West Valley teams each year. Did the coaches really think two West Valley teams didn’t deserve selection? It showed that the coaches didn’t care about a true seeding.

Now it's up to City Section Commissioner Barbara Fiege on Monday to decide what to do about leaving Chatsworth out of the JV tournament.

It wasn’t much better at the varsity seeding meeting, where the coaches seemed more concerned about who they didn’t want in their bracket and protecting schools in their own league than ranking the top teams.

The boys’ basketball coaches removed coaches last year from participating in their seeding meeting, and the other sports should do the same.

-- Eric Sondheimer

Comments

[Parent]

Jon Beckerman didn't just "not show up" for the meeting.

Without going into details, He was told to show up at a particular time and did.

[ridiculous]

the whole thing is a joke. look at the varsity seeds. marshall gets a number 5 seed... really? the sunset 6 gets 3 teams in the city bracket... again, really? hey sondheimer, maybe you can give us what your bracket would look like. why don't you seed 1-16 the way you think it should have gone. it would probably be much better than coaches trying to setup their own brackets to go farther in the playoffs. at some point barbara fiege is going to have do to something. let's be real. coaches from different leagues talk prior to going to that meeting to see how to vote. it's total collusion.

on a side note, it sounds like chatsworth's jv's got screwed.

[Quit It]

Here is an idea! Get rid of JV playoffs , WOW.

[Dan Peeples]

Eric,

Get it right. Fact is this, Mr. Aguirre sent a confirming email to Richard Yi, AD of ECR that the JV seeding would take place around 12:00 pm. Coach Beckerman arrived around noon and found the meeting to be over and the seedings finished. in fact, I have a copy of the email stating that 9:00 am was varstiy and 12:00 pm was JV. Coach Beckerman followed instructions and showed at 12:00 pm, per the email from Mr. Aguirre.

Now, Chatsworth has every right to be upset, but not at ECR or Coach Beckerman. They should be upset with the seeding committee, Mr. Aguirre and the rest of the coaches in the city. We should be upset with those coaches as well as it seems the West Valley is so strong that the rest of the city does not want to face us!

Shame on the city, Mr. Aguirre, and frankly you Mr. Sondheimer for printing this artice, get the facts straight, honor the email sent to Mr. Yi and re seed the JV tournament.

[Martin Henderson]

"Pursuing victory with honor."

It's incumbent upon Fiege to get it right administratively, which is to say that she has to protect her constituency's interest.

If there's an obvious omission -- we're not talking about a No. 14 seed here -- the problem is who does she consult to get the pairings correct without appearing to play favorites? To that end, she almost has to poll everyone who voted and find out specifically if Chatsworth really doesn't belong. That would at least produce a modicum of accountability on the part of the offending parties.

If she adds Chatsworth, she must omit someone else, and that's not a great answer, either, unless you get a specific OK from the involved school (who wants to end their season getting beaten, 10-1?).

Worse for her, the only way she can make this right is to publicly admonish those who made a mockery of the process.

More likely, Chatsworth will remain left out and it will be a lesson of how not to act. Still, a public admonition would be in order because a private one bears no weight.

However, as the highest-ranking administrator of the City, I'd want a darn good explanation.

My answer: A special play-in game with with the No. 16 seed (or the 15 seed to put Chatsworth in the bracket opposite ECR). The winner advances to play in the first round against the No. 1 (or 2) team.

And then I'd admonish the coaches for creating this situation.

[valleybaseball]

it's JV baseball come on...... really does this matter....

[curtis johnson]

how can the jv selection be a bigger issue tha the unfair treatment at the varsity level. at fremont we finshed 13-2 in league, with wins over #9 franklin (3-2), #11reseeda (10-0). yet these teams still get higher seeds than we do. i think that this is a horible way to treat inner city kids that work as hard as everyone else. all that we ask is that we get fair treatment, this time we did it right. i know noone cares thats the reason it is how it is. coach johnson fremont high

[unbelievable]

The whole sytem is screwed up. Without knocking the effort of the kids, we are worried that a Valley team didn't get in to the "JV" playoffs while we have Gardena 6-17 getting in over Garfield 13-15 with wins over Roosevelt (3), Palisades(8) and a bottom of the 7th loss to Verdugo Hills (7) all championship division teams and losses to Los Alamitos (10 in the NATION), Camarillo also bottom of the 7th loss and Torrance. It's un real. The Valley cries and they have great facilities while us in East Los Angeles don't have one grass infield in our area (Little League included). Please!
The city needs division like in CIF, probably I, II, and III so that the championships can be validated. I'm sure the valley schools, with their facities would like to be the one and only champions and this division thing does not matter to them because they don't have facilities problems and are in the championship hunt every year with kids that only live in their area. Thier kids most likely work just as hard as our kids but we are just missing the Dodger Stadium seats!

[truth]

It has nothing to do with "nice facilities". The valley just plays better baseball and quite honestly the city baseball is pretty bad this year. Not one of the teams in the city section could compete in division 3 of the southern section this year (including Chatsworth). You dont really want to throw out the southern section division argument here. Do you know what kind of competition goes on there? I think this argument is about the Invitational bracket anyways. That too should be eliminated. This all goes back to making everyone feel good. That is not the way athletics should be. You win, you lose, the scoreboard counts. No team that is 6-17 or 13-15 deserves to have a post season. That is sending the wrong message. JV playoffs, Invitation playoffs, bad seeding by the coaches, parents and coaches complaining on message boards....it makes the City section (smallest in CA) look ridiculous and the diminishing test scores of LAUSD understandable.

[yes it is unbelievable]

Hey unbelievable,

So essentially you are saying that because Chatsworth and ECR are from the Valley, they should get treated with no respect? The valley teams work as hard as everyone else, put their time and efforts in just like everyone else and has been arguebly the best division in the CITY several years running now.

What your comment states is they should step aside for an inner city team, but why? Why should they and why should they apologize for having "facilities", training regemines, etc. The bottom line is, the city screwed up, the seeding meeting is a joke and it should be left up to the administrators only to decide playoff seedings, not coaches.

The city should dived up, The Valley City, ON ITS OWN, the way it should be. However, you all voted to keep us as part of the city for the money, oh that benefits your schools!!!!!

[To Mr. Hernerson]

Mr. Hernerson,
Since you are in charge you can understand that your employees should be and are responsible for there jobs and actions. To that end Mr. Aguirre the CIF-LA admistrator who was in of the charge of the Baseball Section meeting demonstrated his total incompotence and failure to understand not only the core values of the CIF-LA as stated on the website but the Rules He, himself published regarding the meeting. It is he who should be held accoutable for this total disregard for all job duties and responsilities to the student athletes. I am sure you have already seen the email trail showing the ECR coach being told by Mr. Aguiree that the meeting would start at 12.
Here is a quote from his own rules posted regarding seeding. ECR finished first in the West Valley League. Yet seeded 9th.

"Junior Varsity Seeding Committee will consist of the JV coaches from the first place JV team from each
league, two members from IAC and a representative from the Athletics Office. First place teams will be seeded
1 – 8 using varsity criteria and majority vote. Leagues representatives will be able to nominate their next place
team once the previous place team is seeded. League representatives will be responsible for current league
standings, overall win/loss records and win/loss league records to present at the seeding meeting. Results of
tournament games may also be needed as resource information. Only sixteen (16) teams will be seeded."
From doucment:http://www.cif-la.org/documents/2008_bulletin_baseball.pdf , published by John Aguirre 4/30/2008. on the CIF-LA baseball site.

It is time for you to have him take full resposnibiliy for these actions and his total ldisrgard of his own procdures and those of the mission statement as posted under the "About Section" CIF-LA posted on the link : http://www.cif-la.org/about.asp
He needs to be terminaded at once.This incident is of no accontability and let pass the buck does not cut it. Lets just blame the Coaches or the process. Wrong the buck stops with those in charge! Mr. Agurrie the buck stops with you!

As for the lack of Inner City Facilities well with a 200 million dollar payroll system and a near 1 to 1 adiministrator to teacher ratio at LAUSD how do you expect the Students or Student Athletes to actullay matter. And for the matter you must not need to be able to read and follow directions to be a CIF-LA Adminstrator!

It is time for the CIF-LA and LAUSD do be broken up.

[unbelievable]

Truth and Yes its.....
I completely agree that no team that is 6-17 or 13-15 should get in a playoff but there are several pieces to this argument. First, not everyones strength of schedule is the same outside of league. Second, your baseball in the valley is not necessarily better, but it does help to be able to stay after practice to take some extra ground balls when you desire as opposed to having to go back to school because the bus that picks you up at the park that is your "home" field has arived. Its nice also to have the facilities to have your "trainning regimens". I'm in no way knocking the efforts, hard work and sweat your student atheletes are putting into their craft I'm certin they deserve everything they have but you cannot say we are on the same playing field. I was also not suggesting the city join CIF division but create its own division that would be predetermined so that they can try to eliminate some of this mess that is invitational, small schools etc. I would make the student-athletes' achivements a bit more valid. Oh and we want no part of your Charity, we have nothing to do with that decision. to keep the Valley schools in LAUSD. You can keep your Money. Thats why the Valley gets the wrap it gets because of a few people that think as you do.
Unfortunate

[prep baseball watcher]

So,

Here we are and low and behold, the city coaches all have what they want...... Chatsworth vs. ECR in the JV second round playoffs. Hmm, figured since you left em out, gave em a #9 seed, now you give an inner city school at a chance at the title? The only thing this does is make it so after this game, the winner cruises to a championship. 17 beats 16 to face number 1 and guess what, beats number 1 pretty handidly. 9 beats 8 and now they play each other. Roosevelt was no number 1, sorry, but they weren't. They don't play under fire week in and week out and with the pressure of winning in the valley. The West Valley League is the toughest league to play in, whihch is why varsity seeded 4 teams.

To all of you on the blog above that state the valley has an advantage, the valley is where players are made and starts from the time they enter TBall with their over zealous mommies and daddys. The Valley is stronger, just look back at the last 6 years and you will see that. Don;t hate the valley because they dont have to take a bus to practice, don't hate the valley because the kids put more time into their "craft", but please respect the valley because the winner of the game Friday at ECR, will be your JV Champion.

Coaches, tip for next year, get out of the process, let the seedings happen without your input and then we will really see what happens, oh West Valley teams will still be at the top!