Captain’s Log, September 4th, 2012 

Welcome back to the Fall Session. Congratulations to the teams that won their division standings or session ending playoffs. The Blast is scheduled for October 13-14. We would have loved to have done it sooner, but the APA calendar is actually pretty full every week before that. Events coming up are the US Amateur Regionals on September 22-23, APA League Operator Meetings on September 28-30, Fall Session Singles Regional on October 6-7, Blast on October 13-14, APA 9 Ball Southwest Challenge on October 25-28, APA 9 Ball Single’s Tournament November 3^rd, and we will also have our annual APA Single’s 8 Ball Turkey Shoot the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Plenty of action on the felt as we wind down from another exciting year of APA league activity. 

Congratulations to all of our teams that represented San Diego in the APA National Team Championships this year. 9 Ball and Ladies kicked off this year’s event, and after the first few days, I was starting to wonder if any of our teams would ever lose a match. The Ladies team Study Buddies (The Library) did the best with a 5^th place finish. They were actually up 2-0 in the match they lost, which means they were only 1 individual match away from going upstairs to the penthouse at the Riviera to play in the semifinals. 9 Ball Pounders (Pounders) fared the best in the 9 Ball event with a 33^rd place finish. You Member Us (Stoney’s) finished in 65^th and Es Todo, Batos Locos (Play Ball) and The Under Zealous (The Alibi) finished in 129^th. The 8 Ball teams didn’t fare as well, but 3 of the teams did increase from the last place prize money by winning their first two matches. Cuemul8ive Effect (Chico Club), Cavanaugh’s Lucky 8 (North Bar), 8 Ball Fools (Five Points) and Pool My Finger (Chico Club) each reached 129^th place in an event that featured nearly 800 teams. Balls Of Fury (Pal Joey’s),  and Big Ones & Little Ones (Pacific Q) finished in 257^th place. We are very proud of our teams!

As we submit our trophy order, I’d like to remind teams that if you won the division standings in a division that had 6 or more teams or you won the playoffs in a division with 5 teams or less, you are eligible to receive a sponsor plaque for your host location. We stopped automatically ordering them for every team because many locations just aren’t hanging them up. If you want one, please contact the league office as soon as possible. 

All Summer Session MVP trophies, Perfect Session trophies, 8 and 9 Ball patches, individual team trophies and such will all be available at the Blast.  

Schedules are subject to change during these first few weeks as we add and drop teams. If your team was moved to a different division, it is not because we do not like you. Divisions are generally created with geographic location in mind. Sometimes divisions are combined because there aren’t enough teams to support a full division anymore. Please understand that every effort is made to satisfy each special request, but that they cannot always be honored. If you are unhappy about a change from one division to another, be sure to submit a request to be moved for the next session. Also, please be aware that the division you may be asking to move to may have a completely different look from session to session. We do like to shake things up to keep people from getting bored.

We have supplied new player applications for any new players you have added to your team. Please have them fill them out and submit them back as soon as possible. APA is doing an amazing job of turning around membership cards and it is important that these players have all their personal info filled out as they submit their membership fees. Anyone adding this session still pays the normal $25 membership fee. However, if or when they renew in 2013, they will receive a prorated membership discount that will be good for the entire year. Players have until the 4^th week to submit their membership fees. Anyone not paid after week 4 will be dropped from the roster.

Accurate scorekeeping is an absolute must for the accuracy of skill levels. If teams are not keeping score properly or accurately, please help them out. It’s especially important to make sure our new teams joining the league get help from the experienced teams so that their playing experience will be much more enjoyable. When mailing back envelopes to the league office (for divisions who receive their score sheets through the mail), the entire 5 digit team number must be included in the return address section of the envelope. #03 tells us absolutely nothing. Dozens of teams have that number. Bonus points can be lost by not including this number on your envelope, and we pay a ton of money for specialty envelopes that include a place for your team number, so please put the entire 5 digit team number from now on.

We also require a sportsmanship grade on the score sheet and teams have been getting a bit lazy in filling out this section. Good sportsmanship is very important. The only way to know which teams are providing excellent sportsmanship or extremely poor sportsmanship is if you are all filling in this information. Thanks for your understanding and we wish you all the best of luck in the Fall Session! 

Have a great week and Shoot Pool Good!!