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Well, if our email bag is any indication, there was a lot of interest in the 2008 AAU International Tournament in Orlando, Florida this past weekend. Two common questions among them – when will Maddy’s photos be up, and will the broadcasts be available in archive/CD format.

Maddy’s Photos

Maddy’s computer crashed and is in the shop at the moment, so it might be next week before she can get them up. If you notice a little more “lag time” in getting the photos up these days, it’s a result of the fact that she is shooting more photos (a couple thousand on a weekend like the AAU), so it takes a good amount of time to go through them to pick the best shots to post, and to crop, clean up and prepare them for display. This year’s AAU Int’l tournament saw 79 games played, and that’s not even counting the women’s tournament that she was asked to shoot this year. There are about 500 players at the tournament amongst the 32 teams, so it’s hard to say whether she got any good pics of you or your team until she goes through them. Another reason is that she is shooting in “RAW” nowadays, an extremely large format file, which requires a trip through “Lightrooom” and “Photoshop” to make them suitable for web display. The point of all of this is to simply say that they’ll be posted as soon as she can get them up. Don’t feel bad about asking though– she enjoys your interest and comments on her photos….and I’m right there with you – I’m anxious to see them myself. This year, one of my favorite moments of the tournament was seeing a large crowd of CPI players and fans crowded around Maddy and her camera as she replayed a sequence of shots of a pivotal collision play at the plate in their Saturday night game on the little viewing screen.

Ballparkradio Broadcasts

Kyle Smith is lending a hand to prep the archive broadcasts, so if you’re interested, drop us a line to live (at) ballparkradio and we’ll let you know when they are ready. He is also working on the ISC II broadcasts, so if you inquired about those, we haven’t forgotten you. I want to take a moment and thanks Kyle Smith, Blair Setford, Joe Todd and Bill Hillhouse for working on the broadcasts this year, helping Ballparkradio produce 10 games, the most ever for an AAU tournament. And in turn, we want to thank the many listeners who took the time to email us before, during and after the games to let us know you were listening, or with questions or comments. It makes it worthwhile to know that you’re enjoying the broadcasts.

Kudos

A big tip of the cap to tournament organizers Ken Hackmeister and Alex Linares for putting on their eighth consecutive AAU International tournament, to the folks at Disney for hosting, the outstanding umpiring crew, and to Al Doran, who was on hand in Orlando to provide timely coverage to all of you fastball fans out there. Ken and Alex are the first ones there in the morning and the last ones to leave, and put in a tremendous amount of work to make the tournament a success each year. They have it down to a science and make it look easy, but it is anything but. It continues to draw teams and fans alike because of their efforts.

Tournament Recaps

You can find all the scores at www.alsfastball.com and here at the Morning Brief at www.fastpitchwest.com. (type AAU in the search box at the upper right of the Morning Brief to filter the stories for the AAU). We’ll be submitting a post-tournament recap to Softball Magazine, and will post it for our readers as well.

Want to know what the tournament was like? Ask any of the 500 or so players who were there. 2009 will be the 9th Annual AAU International. If you’re thinking about bringing a team, or just heading down to Orlando to watch, now is the time to do it.

Corrections Department

During the tournament, we referred to Broken Bow as a New York team. While they were in 2007, for the 2008 season, they are based again in Nebraska.