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Thank you for your interest in the Congressional Softball League, celebrating its 39th year organizing casual softball teams this season. Registration will begin on March 12, 2010.

NOTE general information and options on this page for the 2010 season!

The registration process is divided into five options:

1. Register your team in the Congressional Softball League

Fee: $24 per full-time player (10-player roster required minimum per team) provides $5 million liability insurance and individual player accident, personal injury insurance. Insurance covers sponsors, players, coaches and spectators. Players receive an ASA ID card for insurance identification.

CSL TEAMS NEED NOTHING MORE TO QUALIFY FOR FIELD PERMITS...IGNORE OPTIONS BELOW.

2. Register as an individual player into the Congressional Softball League

Fee: $24 per full-time player (may be listed in a player pool or placed on a team) receives $5 million liability insurance and individual player accident, personal injury insurance. Insurance has $500 deductible but can be portable onto any ASA or USA team for an entire calendar year anywhere in the United States. Players receive an ASA ID card for insurance identification.

3. Buy softball liability insurance for your softball team to qualify for a field permit

THIS OPTION IS FOR TEAMS NOT IN THE CONGRESSIONAL SOFTBALL LEAGUE.

Fee: $180 per team if all other teams from the league in which the team plays also purchases the team insurance. If all teams from the league do not purchase insurance, the fee is $180 plus $15 to cover each opponent the team plays throughout the season ($15 fee assessed per date of field permit). The insurance provides $5 million liability insurance ONLY and DOES NOT COVER individual players for accident or personal injury insurance. Liability DOES cover sponsors, players, coaches and spectators.

4. Buy team kickball liability and player accident insurance to qualify for a field permit

Fee: $180 per team if all other teams from the league in which the team plays also purchases the team insurance. If all teams from the league do not purchase insurance, the fee is $180 plus $15 to cover each opponent the team plays throughout the season ($15 fee assessed per date of field permit). Due to the less violent risks of kickball, the insurance provides $5 million liability insurance and DOES COVER individual players for accident or personal injury insurance along with sponsors, players, coaches and spectators. Players may receive an ASA ID card with the kickball league logo for insurance identification, depending on arrangements made between the kickball commissioner and the CSL commissioner.

5. Register as an individual kickball player for insurance coverage

Fee: $24 per player (will be listed in a kickball players pool) receives $5 million liability insurance and individual player accident, personal injury insurance. Insurance has $500 deductible but can be portable onto any kickball team for an entire calendar year anywhere in the United States. Players receive an ID card for insurance identification.

Registration for 2010 begins on March 12th and concludes in early April with games beginning in late April or early May. Games usually begin between 6:30 PM and 7 PM, according to when the captains schedule their games and when field permits begin.

Players who do not have a team to register but wish to join a league team should e-mail me for more detailed information and assistance (Commissioner's link below). Anyone with a team may also register in the league. We have Capitol Hill teams, agency teams, nonprofit organizations and alumni clubs, to mention some of those teams among our league. We hold a year-end tournament that has had as many as 70 teams who play on the Saturdays in late August and throughout September and determine our league championship. Our teams enter the tournament playing in groups for the first rounds, and conclude with the last dozen teams playing in a double-elimination round. Every team is guaranteed to play two games.

As was past practice, rosters will be initially limited to 30 players during the registration process, but that was only a limitation due to our registration software. Teams may add as many full-time and part-time players once the team pages open. Captains have a separate area in their team pages to add players.

Teams will once more determine when and where they play as they make their own schedules with teams from the league or outside the league. Some teams acquire field permits near the monuments or at schools and universities in January. The list of teams will indicate which teams have, and the day of the week for, those permits. We suggest that new captains let their opponents find the field for the first few games until they understand the process of staking out a field along the Mall. The commissioner will provide detailed information to further explain league procedures to captains in mass e-mails throughout the season.

During the start of scheduling, captains can receive as many as 100 e-mails from other captains asking to fill open dates...NOTE THAT YOUR E-MAIL OF RECORD WILL INITIALLY RECEIVE MANY E-MAILS, BUT ONLY FROM OTHER CAPTAINS AND ONLY ABOUT SOFTBALL. PLAN ACCORDINGLY FOR THE FIRST TWO WEEKS OF SCHEDULING. The Commissioner has hosted a happy hour for captains and free agents in April at which each captains will receive rules books, scorebooks and the ID cards for players.

We continue to add several new features on the web site and are revising others. The team rankings and schedules are visible to the public from the home page, but teams still have a separate team page in a private, password protected area where managers will once again make schedules and update rosters. We are working on greater security to protect our data and a new photo section. A blog area where teams can "talk smack" amongst themselves will be located in the private team area so that it will be limited to league members.

REGISTRATION, INSURANCE and FEES

During the past few years, our league joined the Amateur Softball Association (ASA) so that we would cover teams with liability and/or health and accident insurance through ASA for our players. Surprisingly, our insurance policy has paid out claims amounting to thousands of dollars to cap several teeth caused by a collision between players, for a Mercedes dented by a foul ball, for players' facial plastic surgery and reconstructive knee and hand surgery as well as for serious injuries to passersby hit by an errant ball on the Mall. The fact remains that regardless of how casual our league, a hard hit softball becomes a potentially lethal missile when games are played on the Mall.

(In the past, another league comprised of teams originally from our league thought insurance was not necessary for softball but JOINED ASA at year's end so that they could use ASA umpires in their tournament...if they hadn't, the umpires would not call their games because THE UMPIRES' INSURANCE would not be valid.)

Fortunately, our league dodged a multi-million dollar suit, not once, but TWICE when tourists were hit by balls on the Mall. One of those incidents was rather severe. Therefore, as part of our league fee, our league provides teams, SPONSORS and their core full-time players with insurance through ASA. This insurance covers sponsors with $5 million of liability coverage, teams and players with both health/accident and liability insurance...all for just $24 per player (teams must have a minimum of 10 full-time players). Part-time player slots on a roster will cost $6 each, and bundled in lots of 4 in what we call a "flex slot." They can be upgraded to full-time status during the season. Please see below for the details of insurance coverage.

As a result, the league registration fee will vary per team and depend on the number of players (and others) registered and placed on a team roster. However, since fees are on a per-player basis, managers should plan THEIR ROSTER MAKEUP BEFORE REGISTERING.

CSL TEAM REGISTRATION OPTIONS

Managers should plan BEFORE REGISTERING for who will be on their rosters and on how to register their teams (either initially register the entire roster or only register the 10 minimum full-time players and then register other players — both full-time and part-time at a later date). MANAGERS WILL BE REQUIRED TO ENTER AT LEAST 10 FULL-TIME NAMES ON THEIR ROSTER DURING THEIR INITIAL REGISTRATION.

Once a team is registered with the initial 10 core players, managers can simply instruct other full-time players to register on their own and pay separately afterward. The league will provide a SEPARATE REGISTRATION LINK FOR PLAYERS TO INDIVIDUALLY REGISTER throughout the season which will also automatically add the players to the league team roster of their choice.

Each player, coach, scorekeeper and anyone registered full-time on a team will be covered with health/accident insurance (on either a primary or secondary basis depending on the player's current insurance coverage) along with liability insurance. The liability insurance will also cover the team as an entity, team sponsors and the league.

Each full-time player will receive an ASA softball ID card as proof of the coverage. This season, ASA will mail the cards directly to the team captain. The ASA insurance will cover each player for ANY team (or multiple teams) throughout the nation that the player is on or league under ASA and USA sanctions in which that player participates in practices, clinics, games or tournaments for the entire calendar year. The insurance is also automatically renewable next season. Remember, this coverage stays with a registered player regardless of the number of teams or where that player participates throughout the nation.

To track players covered, our league's new web format will require that all registered players be listed on at least one league roster or on the "Player Pool" roster category for those registered with the league but not on an individual league team. Managers will be able to move a player to the free agent roster called the "Player Pool." However, roster additions can only be changed by the commissioner. Only the players' names will be visible on each team's "team web page" to other teams in the private, password protected league area. Managers will be able to keep confidential e-mail addresses and phone numbers – visible only on the area of the team page open to fellow team members.

Due to the multi-million dollar risks the league faced in the past, the league will vigorously enforce the rosters of all teams. The good news is that the league has made it easy to float part-time players through "flex slots" that allow 4 players per flex slot to be added to the rosters for a fee of $6 per player. This allows reasonable coverage of summer interns and part-time fill-in players throughout the season.

Teams can take comfort in knowing that the registration fee is quite reasonable (compared to Arlington County, for example, that does not provide team insurance coverage but last year charged $655 per team with an additional fee of $30 per each non-county player on the roster). Be assured that if an insurance-related incident occurs with any of our teams, the ASA insurance will cover that team, its players and its sponsors for liability regardless of the opponent.

For players who have no other health/accident insurance, $24 is a small price to cover serious injury. It is unfortunate that the severity of liability suits has dictated that the league protect those who play and are affiliated with our casual league...but at least nobody will lose a home or future wages for an errantly hit ball.

Please feel free to contact me for further information.

Gary Caruso
Commissioner

Contact the Commissioner.

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