City Section invokes immediate cuts in baseball, softball games

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With state transportation funding to schools reduced again this month, the City Section has decided to implement immediate cuts in baseball and softball games effective with the upcoming season.

Schools will see their schedules reduced from 18 to 13 games, meaning league members will play each other only twice in the regular season, rather than three times. The reduction was supposed to take place for the 2010-11 sports season but was moved up because of the additional budget cuts.

‘I don’t like it,’ Chatsworth baseball Coach Tom Meusborn said. ‘I’d like to play three rounds. Now you have leagues that could end in ties, plus it’s less games.’

The cuts will reduce the number of buses needed to transport athletes to games. Since the City Section doesn’t pay for buses to transport teams to tournaments, Meusborn is hoping the City will allow teams to add a tournament to help replace the loss of league games.

‘If it’s a cost issue, there is no funding for tournaments,’ Meusborn said.

Other immediate cuts include elimination of 75 buses provided for wrestling tournaments, elimination of the playoff structure in several sports that allows all teams to continue playing after losing in the first round of a 32-team draw and increased efforts to combine different teams from a single school going to the same destination to use fewer buses.

-- Eric Sondheimer