Parity On! Buccos-Junkies Junkies one of three League games ending in ties. A trend?

(Photo above shows John Rosenberg at a practice game)

Glass half-full or half-empty? Partly cloudy or partly sunny? Blah? Or merely bland?

Pick your outlook after the Buccos and Junkies played to a kiss-your-sister 11-11 tie on Oct 12, leaving both teams with a middling record of 1-1-1. In fact four teams in the league were sporting that record heading into this week’s games. The three tie games with less than a quarter of the season played equal the three tie games for all of last season in the LA County Senior Softball League. Five others were one-run games.

“There’s more parity in the league this season, I think,” Red Sox manager Ben Franco told me later. “We may see more ties.” (in fact there was yet another tie game just yesterday).

More accurate player ratings ahead of the season has been a big factor in the increasing parity, said John Rosenberg, a former college and professional football coach. (More on that below.)

The Bucco game the week before against the Killebrews was off-trend – an 11-3 blowout loss to the Killebrews. It was a fluke. Both teams struggled with the sun blazing in the batters’ eyes on field 3. In fact, the League has deliberately avoided scheduling 4 p.m. games on that field for that reason. But the game was moved into that time slot because thieves stole the copper wires from a light standard, scrubbing the evening slot on field 3 we were scheduled for, an epidemic of such thievery across Los Angeles since the pandemic.

Killabrew pitcher Anita Haisten’s lower arc pitches consistently disappeared into the blinding sun, making our batters flail around like they were hitting a pinata. She said that wasn’t deliberate.

“I was just trying to do my normal pitching. I can’t guarantee I’ll land the pitch anywhere I want,” she told me later.

Her view of parity is that on any given Thursday…

“Anybody can beat anybody any week. That’s how I wake up (on Thursdays) before the game.”

RATINGS AND PARITY

“There’s probably a correlation between accurate ratings and parity in the league,” John Rosenberg said, adding that inaccurate ratings of even one player could provide a huge advantage for a team that otherwise matches evenly with the other teams in the league.

“Teams are generally going to have five or so players rated 7-9 so a player going from a 6 to an 8 is a big advantage to that team. The quantity and quality of data we get from managers is essential to us as a rating committee to do a good job.”

He credited the league with staging evaluations on multiple days heading into this season so managers could have more options to attend and provide feedback.

“I think we did a better job overall this year. “

“It’s not that the ratings committee has some formula, but the manager data is important. More managers participated in evaluations (for this season).

"In that respect, more accurate ratings led to more parity.”

Rosenberg noted that an unusual number of quality players, including a half dozen 8-rated players, joined the league this season. “I really don’t know what would account for that. If this influx of new players lives up to their ratings…that also contributes to this parity.”

Rosenberg, 78, has his own Bucco connection. He began his coaching career as a graduate assistant at the University of Pittsburgh. He was an assistant coach at Penn State for 11 seasons under legendary head coach Joe Paterno, including the 1982 national championship and 11 bowl games. He was an assistant coach with the Philadelphia Stars in the first years of the United States Football League, under head coach Jim Mora. There he also worked with Dom Capers who would become the defensive coordinator for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Rosenberg is credited with helping design the zone blitz package that Capers introduced in Pittsburgh for its “Blitzburgh” defense.

Rosenberg, who holds an undergraduate degree from Harvard in social psychology, was also head coach at Brown University and for professional football clubs in Germany and Italy.

After retirement and in his early 70s, Rosenberg said he was looking for an activity that didn’t involve a gym treadmill or bike following hip replacement surgery. He showed up for tryouts at the start of the 2017 season. And was (mis)rated a lowly 3, showing just how much better that process has become over the ensuing years.

Like so many of us, Rosenberg said he plays because “it’s fun, healthy, it's competitive. But I think more subtly it brings back memories and experiences back when we were actually competitive athletes in our youth and the memories and feelings of competing in Little League and high school, like when can you get that rush of that 9^th inning walk-off,” said Rosenberg, who plays on a traveling tournament team for 75-80-year-olds in Southern California.

“We watch it on TV but here we can experience again what we did many years ago. It's part of the fun and appeal of doing this, and frosting on the cake, it’s absolutely healthy, too.”