Interview with Jeremy Washington

From the RCBL Staff
As the RCBL is set to begin on May 31, we sat down with Commissioner Jeremy Washington to talk about the upcoming season and the 100th Anniversary of the league.

The league had been playing 28 game seasons consistently, then switched to 21 during the Covid years. Now this year the schedule is 24 games. Why the change?  The league strives to play as many games as we can within a very small window.  We voted for the change to help accommodate both demographics of players we have within the league…college and high school.

Are there any major rule changes this year? For years we have used the MLB rule set as when our league was implemented there was only one rule set.  As our league has moved toward a league using more and more college players, we felt using the NCAA rule set would be more suitable to both the umpires and the players.  We look forward to the transition.

Will we see a pitch clock in the RCBL? Yes. The NCAA pitch clock rule will be enforced as it is written in the NCAA rule book.  Teams will NOT be required to display a pitch clock and the timing of two minutes between innings and 20 seconds between pitches will be monitored by the base umpire. I expect this to be somewhat impactful and fans should see an improvement in pace of play.

Teams are now allowed to have eight out of residency players. Why the increase?  As the league rosters have grown and teams use colleges from all over the state to recruit from, we feel this increase will allow teams to fill their 30-man roster with as many competitive players as possible.  We still have a few ‘old guys’ that have continued to play for many years after his college or high school career ended, but what we experience more of now is players play through their 4 (or 5) years of college and then they stop playing.  Reconfiguring the ‘out-of-area’ language within the bylaws should help teams fill some of those roster spots that get vacated when players decide to stop playing.

Game time has been moved up 30 minutes to begin at 7pm. Why?  We moved to 6:30 on the weekends and 7p through the week to help get people (fans, players, and umpires) home sooner.  We expect this, in addition to quicker games [pitch clock], will help prevent the lengthy 3+ hour games that we are used to seeing in the past.  People work and have other obligations, we are trying to look out for everyone while providing good, competitive [free] baseball.

Another change that will be noticed this season is the switch from Pointstreak to GameChanger. What is the reasoning behind the change? Although Pointstreak provides a much better statistical package, the scoring of the game is very difficult for many users to be efficient and accurate while scoring the game.  GameChanger is much easier for the scorer to be successful.  Staffing the scoring system should be easier to accommodate as well as MANY ‘travel ball’ parents are familiar with Gamechanger already. The league will be providing a full access package for ALL fans for all teams.

Will player and team statistics from the Pointstreak era still be available? We will still be able to access the stats from previous seasons, however, we are not able to merge the two databases into one stat package.  

There is a new team in the league this year, the Massanutten Mountaineers. What are the expectations of this new team? The RCBL was founded based on providing competitive baseball for our local communities to enjoy.   The addition of the Massanutten Mountaineers is going to further exemplify that model.  We look forward to supporting them as they develop and grow their new program.  Best of luck to Mountaineers and their staff!!  I expect Massanutten to work toward developing a good relationship with the local community surrounding their home field.  I feel the staff of the new Massanutten organization will be successful as they strive to run a quality program.

How do you see the competition shaping up in the league this season?  My outlook for the season is to expect that “on any given night any team can beat any other team”.  I’ve been a fan of the RCBL since 1978 and that is way it has always been.  The collective AVAILABILITY of a team far outweighs the individual ABILITY of any superstar you may have on your roster.  All teams within the league have excellent baseball talent, however, the teams to beat are the ones that field that talent the most often.

Is there a team to beat?  There have been many roster changes throughout the off season.  It will be difficult to predict who will be the most competitive until each team has played a few games.   Parity within the league makes for great baseball games that our local communities can enjoy.  ANY close baseball game is a great baseball game.  Hopefully, every game we provide for the fans is decided during the last at-bat.
  
The league is 100 years old, an amazing feat. What kind of activities are being planned for celebrating this year? The celebration will be held in Grottoes this year and we expect to showcase ALL former players, coaches, and contributors by asking them to attend the event so we can get them out on the field to recognize their contribution to the milestone. There will be a home run derby, a legends game, as well as our normal all-star game.  We are working on having fun activities for the kids as well as Grottoes fire department fried chicken.  

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