Captains Log, June 13, 2021

We have a crazy amount of things to talk about in this week’s newsletter. First thing is some of our contact information has changed. We moved and we are no longer using Cox Communications for our email addresses. Even the email address where you mail your score sheets or send certain types of payments from Zelle or Paypal has changed. Please see the end of this newsletter for the new personal email addresses and the new address to send completed score sheets. While we are still currently receiving emails at the old address, at some point that will stop soon so please start using the new email addresses now if you aren’t already.

We are also using a new payment system for submitting team fees for league matches. The same place you go to on league.poolplayers.com (aka member services) to print score sheets is now the same place you go to submit payment for team fees. It works quite a bit like the payment site we’d been using, but the APA National Office set this one up so we no longer have to direct you to a separate web site for electronic payments. Also, because almost all of you are now paying and submitting score sheets electronically we are going ask that everyone submit them this way and submit them a bit sooner than we previously required. If we receive all the score sheets and payments in the league office by 10am two days following your league match we may be able to post results sooner for some divisions. If you’re not already submitting your score sheets and payments electronically within two days and believe it will be difficult for you to do so, please contact the league office so we can assist you. Although it might take some time to get everyone on the same page, our goal is to eventually be able to post results sooner for you. 

Many of you have heard about and are excited to know that plans are in the works to introduce electronic scorekeeping to the SDAPA in the near future! We will NOT be implementing this change in the current session. We are hoping to have a few test divisions going starting next session. If those test divisions work out, we hope to be able to introduce it league-wide soon after.

When it comes to allowing play with or without masks, we are following each host location’s current policies when matches take place in their venues. We believe that SDAPA should be part of the solution rather than the problem, so by that we mean that you should still consider wearing masks where it might be safer to do so and ask that you wash your hands regularly. The shaft of your pool cue will appreciate you for washing your hands regularly! Instead of shaking hands, we’d rather see you fist bump or do some other form of low or no contact respect. Instead of lagging, we are asking that you flip a coin to determine who breaks so that players can maintain a safe distance from each other. We expect that each of our league members will respect if someone prefers to wear their mask during a match or while sitting with their team even if it’s not required at that venue. We will not allow bullying or chastising of any of our league members for any reason. We thank you all in advance for being respectful of each other as we all learn to navigate the changing circumstances. 

Until the updated schedules are posted for your division this week, please hold off on printing score sheets and informing your teammates of where you’re scheduled to play. Many schedules will absolutely be changing. We’ve had some teams drop and each drop requires a schedule change. Teams will also be changing host locations, so double check the bar they are playing out of if you are scheduled to play at their place to make sure they didn’t move. Rosters will also be changing a lot. Normally a team makes a change every single session. Well, we’ve missed 4 sessions now, so there is a possibility of a lot of changes. You may check the schedules and print score sheets after 5pm on the day your stats are normally available-
 

Sun and Mon teams: Thurs
Tue teams: Fri
Wed and Thurs teams: Mon
Friday and Saturday teams: Wed

Because there were teams that had to drop, there will be players still looking to join teams. Be sure to join our Facebook group San Diego APA Team Building Group to help solidify your rosters. That’s where we try to send people looking for teams. 

Qualified teams are allowed to make roster changes at this time, but only because of the shutdown. If your team is qualified to compete in the City Championships and you need to make a roster change, the player you add to your team must have 20 matches in the last 2 years (minus the shutdown period), cannot be a higher skill level than the player they are replacing and must play at least 4 matches with your team for the remainder of this Spring Session. 

We are continuing on with the Spring 2020 session. We are giving each division 6 more weeks of play to get all of your players qualified for upcoming tournaments. Some teams may end up with a bye in one of those 6 weeks, so be sure that if you had to make a lot of roster changes, that you can get everyone their necessary 4 matches to be eligible for playoffs and higher level tournament play. Players still need at least 10 matches to play in higher level tournaments, so double check your team to make sure any of your new members from the start of this session can still get their 10 matches lifetime in the 6 weeks remaining, plus playoff matches and Blast. 

We have a major announcement about memberships. Please read this entire paragraph carefully, as it impacts a lot of people. Finishing out this current Spring 2020 session does not require renewing your membership fees unless you are a newly added league member or returning member that wasn't on a team when we got shut down. Those members will be required to renew or pay their membership fees in the first 4 weeks of our return. The good news about this is that we restart on August 15th and anyone paying their 2021 membership fees after August 15th will get the prorated fee for 2022. None of this applies to anyone that qualifies to compete in any of the Showdown Series and Poolplayer Championships events in Las Vegas this year. Everyone qualifying to compete in Las Vegas this year will have to be paid up before we submit your entry. To those of you that have already paid your 2021 membership fees, unfortunately you will not be eligible for the prorated renewal and there isn't anything we can do for you about that other than to direct you to the membership benefits page at poolplayers.com.

Teams that qualify for the World Pool Championships would be qualifying after August 15th, so those would be after the prorate as well. But, those players will have to be paid up before we can submit your team for Las Vegas. The World Pool Championship qualifiers (City Championships) are scheduled for August 21-22 and 28-29.  

We are still using the old 2019/2020 APA team manual to finish out this session. The same applies for the Blast and City Championships . There will be a new online manual with some new rules when we start the next session in August. When we do start back up in August, we will be playing the Fall session. The Fall session will take us to the end of the year, and then we will play Spring to get back on track. The good news is that is only two sessions of play to qualify teams for the City Championships, which means that the City Championships will each have less teams, but still possibly the same number of slots for Vegas if we can retain the same number of teams we had before the shutdown. 

Sadly, we’ve lost a lot of league members during the shutdown. We’d like to take this moment to recognize those league members who are no longer with us. Rest in Peace Sean Dowdy, Dove Pena, Peter Kopko, John Parker, Dana Staring, Brian Jones, Mike Adamson, Gus Rosadillo, Jeff Bender, Kendall Brown, Felix Verran and Michael “Cornbred” Yurasek. The league also suffered the loss of Erik Fredriksen in January of 2021. Erik was Jill’s younger brother. He worked for us for several years picking up and dropping off score sheets back before we went to the mail system. Erik also worked as a doorman, bar back and bartender for many years at the Library. If you ever played APA at the Library in the last 20 or so years, you probably knew Erik. Our deepest condolences go out to everyone that lost a loved one during this shutdown. 

Please update your addresses and phone numbers on Member Services . If you have moved since March of 2020, unless you already contacted us or updated your new address in member services, you won’t be able to receive your member benefits mailers. APA does not have their mail forwarded. 

Each of our host locations took a massive hit to their pocketbooks during this shutdown. While they will most likely be smiling and happy to see us return next week, they need our support more now than ever. Just showing up with a pool cue and playing pool on an open pool table isn’t enough. Now is the time to show how much you appreciate that your host location opens the tables for league play and sets aside that space for your teams to play APA each week. Also be sure to show the same appreciation when you’re the visiting team at a different location. There isn’t much that’s free anymore, and these host locations not only open the tables for several hours a night, but they provide seating and service for you as well. Some even spend a substantial amount of money upgrading the pool tables so that they are in great playing shape for league play. Buy some food if they serve it or some sodas or drinks while you’re there. Also consider writing excellent reviews on Yelp for always taking care of us. Or maybe try inviting your friends to come back on a non APA night to have a great time eating and drinking. Another thing you could do to help promote their business is to recruit people to start another team out of the location on the same night or another night. These locations are essential to our existence and we thank you for supporting them as they recuperate.

We have a lot of tournament action coming up. This coming weekend (June 19 and 20) is the 8 Ball and 9 Ball Doubles Championship Qualifiers . 8 Ball is Saturday and 9 Ball is Sunday. Tournaments will be starting at 4pm at Pockets. You had to be participating in our Doubles divisions to be eligible to participate in these events, and it’s also a preregistered tournament. We have 6 teams competing for 3 slots at the 8 Ball Doubles Championships qualifier and 7 teams competing for 2 slots in the 9 Ball Doubles Championships qualifier. 

We will have the APA T-Shirts available at the tournament site for any league member that took advantage of the APA T-Shirt Membership renewal promotion. We should be at Pockets between 4pm and 8pm on both Saturday and Sunday.

Information on more tournaments will be in next week’s newsletter. Now get those cobwebs off your cue stick and…..

Shoot Pool Good! Brian, Jill and Lindsay Office Hours 9am-7:30pm Daily 619-303-0183 

Find us on Facebook as San Diego APA 

bfrankland@apaleagues.com 

jfrankland@apaleagues.com 

lmiller@apaleagues.com 

league.poolplayers.com Find the app on your smart phone/tablet at APA Pool Leagues (member services)

sandiego.apaleagues.com (league web site)

Team fees now get paid using Stripe in member services.

Click here for instructions on submitting fees and downloading and submitting score sheets. 

Email score sheets to sandiego@apaleagues.com.