Discover how the Latin American Men’s Softball League (LAMSL), established in 1976, evolved from a small neighborhood game into a renowned community institution with a unique competitive edge.
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Welcome to Episode #10 of the Sold Out podcast where we interview league organizers across the country for tips and tricks on how to sell out leagues.
In this episode, we sit down with Art from the Latin American Men’s Softball League (LAMSL), a community sports organization with a rich history dating back to 1976. Art shares the fascinating story of how the league was founded by his father and has grown from a small neighborhood gathering to a well-organized league with multiple divisions and a competitive spirit. The LAMSL now boasts 25-30 teams that participate in a regular season from February to October and a winter ball season from October to February. The league plays on Sundays across four fields in LA County and features four divisions, with the A division being the most competitive.
Art discusses the league's evolution, including its unique modified windmill pitching style, the inclusive yet competitive nature of its divisions, and the sense of community and tradition that binds its players. Additionally, the conversation covers topics such as bringing in new leadership, the challenges of starting a non-profit, the importance of community and social events, the role of technology in the league, and the goal of expanding and promoting the league. Whether you’re a sports enthusiast or interested in community building, this episode offers valuable insights into maintaining and growing a recreational league over decades.
Below is the full transcript from this episode. The Sold Out Podcast is available on Spotify and Apple, or you can watch the entire interview on our YouTube Channel!
Tune in every other week to hear AREENA interview the country's best league organizers about their success in selling out leagues consistently.
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Lance (00:00.828)
Alright, today we have Art from LAMSL. Thanks for being here Art. So yeah, let's start with the basics of where you're located, what leagues you're running, how many teams you have participating in any given season.
Art Padilla (00:14.467)
Oh, thanks for having me, Lance. Yeah, we're established in 1976 by the founder and my father, our topunia senior. Started off with two teams from the local neighborhood, bunch of friends just getting together initially on a Saturday. That eventually grew to nine teams eventually, of course, throughout the years. At one point in 2000, we got all the way up to 50 teams. Now we average about
25 to 30 teams for our regular season, runs roughly from February to about October, or by March to about October. And then we have a winter ball, is typically half of the teams, about 10 to 15, lot of teams take the winter off for football or other things. And so we get a lot of teams that end up combining to make one, and that winter season is shorter and usually runs from.
about October till about you know February so it's basically non -stop throughout the year.
Lance (01:17.702)
Yep. Got it. You have one major season that's most of the year. How many games are you running during that time? Is that every week or?
Art Padilla (01:26.177)
Yeah, we now play on Sundays. We utilize four different fields and four different, well actually four fields, two in the city of Carson, which is a suburb of LA and LA County. And then two fields in Santa Fe Springs, also in LA County. We typically have three games per field except for one of the fields will only have two games. And then we have a couple of teams that of course will have a buy based on.
depending on the division that they're in. So we do have four different divisions. We have an A division, which is typically our, you know, more better, better teams. And then we have a D division, which again, is kind of like a lot of our.
family teams or guys that just out there to just have a good time. The A division does get a bit competitive, so A and B actually, and even the C. But yeah, that's pretty much how we run it on Sunday's first game starting at 8 o 'clock. And last game is at noon, and wrapping things up at 2 o 'clock.
Lance (02:32.68)
Nice, okay. So yeah, that all makes sense. So maybe we could talk just about the history of it. you said your dad started it in 1976. And was this just like a normal softball league? did it, how did it, I guess I'm assuming there weren't internet ads, obviously at the time. was this just, but it was pure organic growth like the whole time. And then how, what kind of format are you running and why, I guess.
Art Padilla (02:43.619)
Yeah.
Art Padilla (02:51.127)
Thank you.
Art Padilla (02:59.459)
Yeah, initially, so my dad moved out here in, I believe in 1971 or 70, moved to LA, kind of south central LA area from Chihuahua, Mexico. Moved to that area where he moved to happen to be the, as most people when they migrate tend to live in the same area with all his friends and family.
They used to play a lot of sports back in his hometown. He used to actually be a treasure for a soccer league. So that kind of was his specialty, soccer. But as you know, in the 70s, or may not know, in the 70s, soccer didn't get popular in the United States until, I want to say maybe like late 80s, 90s or so. So in the 70s, soccer really wasn't a thing. So a lot of people were into baseball or softball. Because most of his friends did play baseball,
They initially started basically just getting together, getting a group of 18 guys, nine to nine, and they would have a baseball game. But of course, was a lot of other buddies of theirs that wanted to participate, but they didn't have that baseball skill. Of course, nobody wanted to get out there and get hurt,
What my dad did is he decided to convert it into softball now. My dad wasn't familiar with which is in California, especially out in the western states like especially California, you have slow pitch format. My dad only knew windmill or fast pitch.
That's what typically, know, back in his hometown, the women would play. So he figured, well, you know what, I'll just so that everybody could have fun and participate, let's switch it from baseball to softball, but let's not do a full windmill. Let's do kind of like a modified windmill where basically controlled, you couldn't do a full circular motion of your arm. Basically, it's just, it's kind of like a half windmill. So basically bring your arm as far back as you can.
Art Padilla (05:01.663)
But he still utilized a lot of the baseball rules. we still played with three outfielders, played nine innings. basically, actually there was no time limit back then. So it was either nine innings or whoever won. But that's typically what he started it with. As the league grew, eventually you started having a lot of
windmill pitchers that wanted to participate, we did struggle with, kind of like in the late 80s when we had a couple of windmill pitchers that came in that their technique probably wasn't what a lot of teams were used to. But a lot of teams liked the competitiveness and actually, you know, the different style of pitch. So what we ended up doing is our A division teams that were a little bit more
competitive and wanted to face that type of pitching, we ended up opening up the pitching rule for those pitchers in the A division. So now if we have a pitcher that joins the league and maybe his style of pitching isn't exactly what the strict modified rule is, we'll then pretty much let him know that he's more than welcome to pitch in the A division. But if he's gonna pitch in any other division, he's gotta follow that strict rule.
Lance (06:21.466)
Interesting, yeah. how, I mean, I'm not super familiar with how that might, I guess, play out. How fast are these things going? I mean, it curve balls and the whole thing in the A division? Or what does that look
Art Padilla (06:31.327)
yeah, yeah definitely. You a lot of curve balls. know again typically in a strict modified pitch.
I mean, some pitchers obviously still in even in lower divisions get away with maybe turning their hand or flipping the ball a little bit. Again, if the umpire doesn't see it, he's not gonna call it an illegal pitch. Our rule is if you get caught on the third illegal pitch, you have to basically vacate that position or you're not kicked out of the game, you just can't pitch. In the A division, you do have pitchers where we do allow them to kind of bend the elbow a little bit more of a slingshot.
So you have lot of pitchers that are still kind of utilizing a lot of their fast pitch pitches, like change -ups, screw balls. And then of course, some of them are really bringing it at maybe, at the distance is your average, I think it's 46 feet for windmill.
So they're being at about 60. We probably have some pictures that are being about 60, 65, which for that distance probably has increased as far as what it looks like for the batter.
But yeah, and then again, have pitchers even in the lower divisions that are utilizing the strict modified pitch and also kind of, you know, bringing it pretty at a pretty decent speed. So it's competitive, you know, again, depending on what type of team you have, a lot of teams start off at the bottom. And if they see that they're, you know, beating everybody or it's not competitive enough, they end up, you know, moving up to whatever division they tell us they want to play in.
Lance (08:07.88)
Got it, yeah. So then what kind of people does this attract, I guess? Are there a lot of former baseball players? Is this co -ed? What's the sort of demographic, I guess, become?
Art Padilla (08:15.619)
So it's all men, it's an all -men's softball league. the beginning, so, Allie and Michelle stands for Latin American men's softball league. So back then when my dad first started the league, of course, there was a lot of guys from his neighborhood, most of the guys playing were Latino.
And that term Latin American is used a lot. Back then there was Latin American soccer league, Latin American this. So he just kind of, back then we actually had a newspaper reporter from our local Spanish newspaper, kind of like the equivalent of the LA Times, but for LA, which was La Pignon. And he actually got an interest in the league when it first started, actually when they pretty much...
started with when he started kind of bringing in about seven, eight teams. And he actually asked my dad if it would be okay if he reported, they had a section in that newspaper where it was called local sports or local sports league something, something to that effect. So he actually asked my dad if it was okay if he reported the results and maybe added little story to it.
Lance (09:27.379)
yeah.
Art Padilla (09:29.679)
And so when he did that, my dad's like, of course, but he asked him, what's the name of your league? And my dad was like, well, we don't really have a name, it's just a bunch of us getting together on Sundays. So that reporter actually named it. He told me, we'll just call it the Latin American Softball League. So as years have gone on, we've had teams that were all police officers.
know, police officers, half firemen. We've had, you know, different races play in our team. You know, a lot of times, you know, a lot of
players from other races would actually ask us, you hey, why is it called Latin America? I mean, in a joking fashion, you know, it's like, hey, I'm not, I'm not Latin American. Why is it called Latin American? So we ended up adding the little ant. So now it's kind of like Latin and American men's softball league. But it's been a lot of fun, you know, throughout the years watching different teams. As a matter of fact, just this past Sunday, one of our,
players who at one point played and managed one of our better teams. And it was an all African American team and they were great to watch. Some of the best games that I remember is having them play against a team that used to be sponsored by Salem House, was I guess, don't even know if Salem's are still around, but it was a cigarette company. And a lot of the guys that worked for that company were playing in the league and really as a
growing up watching these games really competitive, lot of talent out there. We have had a lot of players that played minor league ball who made the transition into modified. They seem to like the modified pitch when they leave either college ball or baseball or the minor leagues versus them going to our local baseball leagues that we have all over LA.
Art Padilla (11:29.591)
They like, or playing slow pitchers of course, it's not what they're used to. They like the way the leagues compares to baseball, using the three outfielders, the nine innings. And we're also one of the few leagues that requires a full uniform. That's one thing I forgot to mention. So all of our teams are in full uniform, no shorts are allowed. So you'll see teams in matching hat, matching shirt.
Lance (11:46.984)
Yeah.
Art Padilla (11:58.335)
The pants don't have to match, although we strongly suggest it. But for the most part, most teams kinda try to look sharp because I do tell them that hey, we have a lot of city officials, we have a lot of different people that come watch us play and teams definitely wanna look at their best when they're out there.
Lance (12:17.554)
Yeah, cool. That makes sense. So let's talk about the, I guess, the format a little bit more. You said it's nine innings and then it used to just be you'd play until somebody won, but that sounded like that changed. is there, do you allow ties or do you do some tiebreaker thing?
Art Padilla (12:35.043)
Yes, so because we scheduled three games and of course we have to for the fields that we rent, we have to give them a timeline. Although they're pretty flexible with us if we go a little bit over. But we also don't want the team that scheduled at 10 to be waiting until 1030 11 o 'clock which used to happen. So now our rule is no new inning after 150. So an hour and 50 so basically the umpire will at the 150 mark the umpire will say okay, we're not starting new inning. And we do have ties.
Lance (12:49.037)
yeah.
Art Padilla (13:04.803)
The only time that we won't have ties is during a playoff game.
Lance (13:08.104)
So how do you account for that in standings then when there's a tie?
Art Padilla (13:12.843)
So typically, in the standings towards the end, and it's actually, think it's only happened once where we actually had to have the teams play each other for like kind of like a tiebreaker. But for the most part, we'll go for, if there's an identical record for ties or it's affecting the standing, we'll go off of runs scored. And then after runs scored, we'll go for runs allowed. So we keep track of all that.
Lance (13:38.384)
Okay, so it's not like soccer where a tie counts for one point and a win counts for three points. A tie effectively is just, not a win so it doesn't count. It almost counts the same as a loss, but then you're starting to count the runs and everything.
Art Padilla (13:50.499)
Exactly, so the count says half a win, half a loss type of thing. That's kind of like the way we look at it, you know. And then of course, again, I think that I could only remember one time where a tie actually affected a team from making it to the playoffs, where we had to kind of have that team play. Our playoff format is actually, so that's another thing that's changed. In the past, so each division averages about maybe
five to seven teams, let's just say. If there's five teams in a division, all five teams are gonna make the playoffs. In the past, we only allowed four teams to make the playoffs. And if you had a division with eight, let's just say eight teams, and you only allowed four teams to make the playoffs, well, what ended up happening, or what we started seeing is that somewhere maybe in the middle,
of the season or a lot of teams are already like, or maybe a little bit past the middle of the season. They're like, we have three or four games left. We're not making the playoffs. A lot of the players would stop showing up. So you have managers that are stuck with paying the Sunday fees by themselves or they're short. Obviously, it affects the teams that they're playing against because we have guys that drive in an hour.
Lance (14:57.746)
Yeah.
Art Padilla (15:10.657)
to play on some days. So they're very dedicated, they love the sport, they love the competitiveness, so they come out here. And then we just felt it really unfair for these guys to be driving all the way down here. And then they show up and the team only has two, three, four players. So in order for us to kind of keep them engaged the whole season, we chose to change that format. And it's been pretty successful. So what we do is,
Even if we have a division with six, seven teams, what we do is we allow the lower teams. We give them kind of the hardest road to the playoff. for example, if we have a division with seven teams, we're gonna let seven, six, and five battle it out for that final fifth spot. And that fifth spot and the five and four basically then the five and four become the wild card.
And whoever wins from there will then play the number one seed. And that's a two out of three elimination. I'm sorry, best two out of three. And then same thing, three and four play for the best two out of three.
Lance (16:15.272)
When you say best 2 or 3, I assume they're not all playing on the same day for that?
Art Padilla (16:21.237)
A lot of times we do. A lot of times if time permits, on how the divisions are going, course, we're having... Typically all the divisions start playoffs on different times, so different days. But if we did have pretty much everybody starting the playoffs at the same time, we'd probably have to get more fields because typically the format that we use is you play a double. The only game that's a one game elimination is the four and five.
So that's a one game elimination. So that would play it one day and that would be it. Everybody else is once we form, once the wild card is determined, everything from that point on is gonna be two games, which is usually a double header. So they will play it. And another thing that we usually typically, the higher seed will have a time preference. So we can play as late as two o 'clock.
Lance (17:04.136)
Got it, okay.
Art Padilla (17:15.107)
So if there's a team that is the number one seed, they'll typically say, hey, I want to play in this field. And of course, they have favorite fields. And they'll say, hey, I'm the number one seed. And we also go off division. So the A division obviously has priority. And if they say, hey, I want to play at 8 o 'clock, 8 and 10 at field so and so, we try to honor that. For the most part, we can. And then, of course, their home team.
throughout the playoffs except for the second game. So in a double header, they'll be home team the first game, visitors second, but if there's a third game, they will be home team again.
Lance (17:54.758)
Got it. Okay. So then how long does playoffs last? So there's the doubleheader maybe on one day. Is this a three or four week thing that...
Art Padilla (18:01.859)
Yeah, it's typically, obviously, in the past, we would have a lot of sweeps. Typically, a team would win the first game and the second game, for whatever reason, the team would be deflated and just kind of give up. And what we have seen in the last, I want to say maybe in the last 10 years or so, that isn't the case anymore. we do, playoffs are extended because of that third game.
Lance (18:09.736)
Thank
Art Padilla (18:31.795)
teams don't give up. They'll lose the first game and they come right back and the losing team will win the second game. And in the past, I always remembered that if you lost that first game, the chances of you winning that second one were very slim because most of your team was already kind of, it was difficult to kind of them motivated to try to win that game, that second game.
Lance (18:56.06)
Yeah, got it. then how does, you mentioned like the Sunday fees, how do you do fees then for this? Cause it goes from March to October, it's a long time. I imagine people are not paying one, or maybe they are, one big fee upfront, is it sort of spaced out? Or how do you think about fees and players, team fee versus player fee and all that kind of
Art Padilla (19:18.337)
So because we do target, I'd say working class, middle to lower working class guys, we always go off of, the league isn't my source of income. I have my own job, had, thankfully had good paying jobs. So I didn't have to rely on the league as a business or as a income source.
So we've always, and same thing with my dad, this was kind of like his hobby, his regular job. We've always tried to charge based off our expenses, based off what parks are charging us. Some parks are charged more than others, obviously the insurance, maintenance.
We also provide our own bats. So that's another expense. In the past, we didn't provide bats, but we decided to do so because, unfortunately, in the softball world, as much as you put it out there and we have rules in place where players can actually get banned if they modify or shave a bat, it could cause a lot of damage. In slow pitch, the pitchers have more time to react.
Even though in a lot of slow pitch leagues, the middle is closed. In modified, the middle, we can't close the middle, it's modified pitch. It's just regular strike zone. And the pitcher's momentum is actually taking them towards the batter. And again, you have some pitchers that don't pitch as fast and kind of serve it up. And if you have a pretty good hitter and he has a modified or shaved bat.
that line drives, you he's not going to see it coming and he could seriously get injured. we do require our pitchers to wear face masks. If they refuse, they have to sign a waiver. But again, going back to who we cater to, try, again, we try
Art Padilla (21:20.835)
keep costs low, so we charge a pretty low registration. mean, a lot of teams, after they see this, they might not think it's low, we think it's low. That basically covers the prizes that we give at the end of the season. So we charge a low registration, then every Sunday, we basically charge a game day fee, which is about $8 per player. Exactly.
Lance (21:44.072)
Hmm, so there's one big fee at like the beginning in March and then basically everybody needs to bring eight bucks each Sunday.
Art Padilla (21:51.875)
Exactly and they're playing for two hours. So it's kind of like the example that I give is if you go to our local batting cage You're gonna spend about 15 bucks to just hit a bunch of balls for 30 minutes Versus, know pay eight bucks and you're actually gonna you know, have a good time and because it's softball every position is is You know involved, you know, it's it's not like in baseball where
Lance (22:00.508)
Yeah.
Lance (22:05.862)
Yeah, yeah,
Art Padilla (22:20.223)
If you have a really good pitcher and you're playing right field more than likely, you might not get a ball hit to you all game. But here because of the format we run and the type of softball we play, every player is pretty much engaged in the game.
Lance (22:37.594)
it okay so is it still a per player registration at the beginning or is it per team? team.
Art Padilla (22:42.595)
It's per team. Yeah, so and our limit is 16 players per roster. So again, they could break that up however they like. A lot of managers what we've seen, they will charge, they'll basically kind of average out our seasons about 12 to 13 weeks plus playoffs. You're looking at about maybe 15, 16 weeks. So what a lot of managers have done is they'll tell the player, hey, pay me this fee.
Lance (22:48.092)
Mmm.
Art Padilla (23:12.783)
you know, pay me however you wanna break it up and that covers you for the whole season. So that way they don't have to worry about charging the player every Sunday. So it's just kinda like, you know, they collect it upfront and the player and most a lot of players actually are better, they prefer that method. You know, a lot of times of course, you know, they forget their eight bucks and the good thing now is that you have Zelle and Venmo and all these different cash apps that you can send the money to. now there's no excuse.
Lance (23:42.578)
Yeah, got it. Okay. So then, yeah, so they're paying up front, then they're paying throughout, and then I guess, I mean, you mentioned that you're, it almost sounds like the way you say it, that you're not operating as a nonprofit, but you're getting close to that. I mean, have you thought about trying to make it more of a business? know, because there are a lot of successful businesses, I don't know about, every business in this space is different with their costs and how much the rental is and the umpires and whatever else,
Have you thought about trying to grow it up and go get more fields somewhere else and making sure that the margins are right, getting sponsors, all that kind of thing? Or is this you think more just going to be a hobby?
Art Padilla (24:20.64)
No, yeah, I mean, definitely, I mean, my job does take a lot, you know, a lot of my time. So I've actually this, so my dad passed away three years ago. And even prior to him passing away, so we have a banquet every year where we present awards and we actually players that have been in our league for over 20 years, even if they took a break in between.
If they give us their name, we present them with the plaque, basically, in appreciation for their 20 years of being in the league, like I said, whether they took a break or not. One of the last banquets that we had that my dad was able to attend, during that banquet, I actually asked for his permission.
Because his health was already kind of taking a toll on him and he used to kind of do a lot still behind the scenes, do the schedules, contact a lot of the managers. So he was still helping me a lot. I mainly just kind of dealt with the parks and permits and dealing with the cities. So he still was pretty engaged with a lot of the managers and again, he would help me a lot with the schedule.
But when his health started deteriorating and I saw that he wasn't able to help as much, I did ask for his permission for me to bring in somebody else at the time. And he was known as the president of the league. I was the vice president. So of course, I wasn't trying to tell him that, I'm gonna take your role.
Art Padilla (26:04.515)
So I did ask him if we could name an associate vice president. And at that time he was all for it. The individual that I had in mind his name is Gilbert or Gil Cuevas. Been in the league as a player for a lot of years. Been involved with a lot of cities, the city where he lives in. He's a planning commissioner there. So him and his family kind of have always pitched in and helped out for different events that we've had.
And I just kind of felt he was the right fit to kind of bring into our organization. again, we kind of felt like, hey, we can't just let anybody come in. Cuz years ago when I was a kid, we have had certain individuals that have tried to pretty much kind of take over or try to buy the league off of my dad, I think at one point. But even in my later years.
Lance (26:45.605)
Yep.
Lance (26:55.666)
Mm -hmm.
Art Padilla (27:02.699)
We've had individuals that have tried to start their own league by mimicking or copying everything that we've established and taking some of our teams. So we actually had that happen at one point, which.
You know, did kind of, we did lose about seven teams, but eventually that team, that league folded and we ended up getting all the teams back. But so again, it's a lot of things that we had to take into account before we actually brought somebody else in. And at that point, my dad was like, hey, yeah, that's fine. Gilbert's a good guy. Bring him on in. So at that bank, but we actually announced him as the associate vice president and
Even after my dad passed away, I kind of didn't want to take the title of president. kind of just felt like that was his title. didn't want to take that from him, even though he was no longer with us. But I did feel that it was kind of like, I'd been three years and then I felt it was about time that when dealing with different organizations or people, if I
Lance (27:53.168)
Hmm. Yeah.
Art Padilla (28:10.837)
announce myself or presented myself as the vice president, their first question is going to be like, well, who's the president? And of course I'd have to say, he's no longer with us. So at our banquet last year, I actually made the tough decision to formally announce myself as the president of the league. And at that point, we also made Gilbert the vice president of the league. So now that's the way it works. And I've also brought in my sister who I have two older sisters.
who never really participated in the league. My mom wasn't a big fan of the league. So that kind of made them not be fans either. But last year, my middle sister, she actually decided.
that she wanted to get to know the business and I brought her in and it's been a big help. We did try, back to getting to your question, sorry about that, we did try to do the non -profit in hopes that we would get discounts on rental fees and preference in renting.
Lance (29:18.298)
interesting. OK.
Art Padilla (29:25.417)
We kind of just, you know, it's, it's, takes a lot of work. And again, I think back then I was by myself when I was trying to do it. And that's where we kind of dropped the ball because I didn't have a lot of assistance. same thing with, you know, running out as a business. So one of the things that we're really looking at doing now that we're, cause I know we've, we've, we've continued to stay where we're at by word of mouth. but we definitely, this is again, when, when you guys reached out to, to jump on this podcast.
I saw it as an opportunity to kind of bring in more teams. I definitely want to bring in more teams. One thing about our league is that we want to get more exposure because we don't promote, we're not out there, there's not a lot of video of our games. And when we have players that come out and play that have never played this type of softball, the first thing they tell us is, man, how come nobody told me about this league?
It's like they have so much fun and maybe they came from a slow pitch league or they came from a baseball league and then they come and have somebody will say, hey, I need a player for Sunday. I'm gonna add you to the roster because again, they have to go through a process. They can't just pick up ringers and that's another thing so I don't want, make it seem like they could just pick up a player. But again, they'll have a buddy of theirs or a neighbor and say, hey man, you know what, our team could use some players. Can I add you to my roster?
Lance (30:41.371)
Yeah
Art Padilla (30:52.227)
They show up and play and then they're hooked. So again, we've had a lot of players that have been in the league over 20 years. I mean, it's quite a few. We've had one player who actually just retired last year who actually had been in the league since 1977 and had not basically straight. He never took a break. So it's pretty impressive. So definitely to answer your question, we definitely are looking into. Well, now that I have more help, more eyes.
Lance (31:11.974)
Yeah, that's wild.
Art Padilla (31:21.941)
on what we're doing. definitely want to kind of, you know, yeah, I'm not a social media kind of guy, so definitely want to kind of, you know, reach out to some of my, you know, I have kids, I have my oldest son who graduated from Long Beach State with a bachelor's in film.
Lance (31:24.904)
Think about how to grow.
Art Padilla (31:44.065)
So I definitely wanna kind of utilize his skills to help us maybe produce some games and put them out there, put them on social media. His fiance is also pretty good at the whole social media thing. That's kind of what she does for a living. So one definitely wanna take advantage of some of these resources that are out there for us.
Lance (32:03.272)
Yeah, yeah, and I'd be happy to share some some of our thoughts as well when we were running leagues we we ended up going through a phase of just pure growth launching new leagues and we launched it was all basketball but we launched like 12 sold out leagues across Texas and we're doing a lot of that remotely and we had a playbook of all the digital stuff that we would do with Facebook and Instagram and Google search and all that other kind of stuff so yeah we can talk offline I'm happy to share that playbook with you if you're if you're interested in that kind of thing.
Art Padilla (32:29.099)
I am, definitely.
Lance (32:32.038)
Sweet, so yeah, you do want to grow, so you got to find the facilities and then you got, yeah, like a playbook or something to get these things off the ground. The format sounds interesting to me. I would imagine there's probably a lot of people that would like that format. So maybe, yeah, just a couple more questions, I guess, on the operational side. I'm just curious, like the umpire. So how do you work the staffing side of your business? Is that all through an assigner or these are all personal relationships with umpires that you have or how does that
Art Padilla (33:00.739)
It's a little of both. We have one of our own players who's actually 77 years old. you wouldn't, seeing him out there, you wouldn't think that. mean, just physically, mentally, he's out there still calling games. again, we used to schedule four games. Then we lowered it down to three, cuz a of teams didn't wanna play past two o 'clock.
If there ever is that date, that time or day that we have to schedule four games, he's probably the guy that is going to ask to umpire those four games, which is amazing. You'll have guys that are half his age who are like, nah, just give me the two games. And I'll say his name on the, since you know, he'll probably see this Jesse Martinez is basically our longest lasting umpire. And again, he's been here, I don't know, over 40 years.
Lance (33:42.215)
Right.
Art Padilla (33:55.299)
So that's the personal relationship side of it. Gilbert, Gil actually, even though a lot of the other umpires we know either from the league or from other leagues or just friendships that we've had throughout the years. But Gil is continuously recruiting umpires. And so that's taken a big load off of my shoulders because every Sunday before Gil was helping me out.
Every Sunday I was up at 6 in the morning waiting for that call. I can't make it. I woke up sick or my car broke down and it's like now it's like my first game is at 8 o 'clock and if I don't have a replacement, I have to go on par, which is obviously the last thing I want to do.
Lance (34:28.55)
Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. Arbroath down, yeah.
Art Padilla (34:46.007)
But again, it was just a big burden taken off of my shoulders when Gil pretty much took on that role. So he kind of works as our assigner. He holds regular umpire meetings. We do take a lot of feedback from our managers. As far as like, if an umpire had an off day, they'll bring it to his attention and then he'll have a meeting with them and say, hey man, you guys kind of blew it Sunday. You missed a lot of calls. Obviously the judgment calls are always going to.
Lance (35:13.053)
Right.
Art Padilla (35:13.367)
You you can't do much about it, there will be certain things that need to be addressed such as, you know, we're really strict, you know, the rules that we have. We do favor our own powers as far as, you know, trying to protect them and, you know, and, you know, we want to let them know that we have their back when a player acts up. You know, that certain behaviors aren't going to be tolerated or personal insults. So.
In order for us to be able to enforce that, that umpire also has to kind of behave, you know, has to follow certain rules and have a certain character as well. So, you know, if the umpire, if we end up hearing that the umpire was, you know, cursing at the player, you know, or threatening him as well, kind of doesn't work, doesn't make us look too good. And I always saw our umpires, you
I can't be at every field, I can't be at every game, neither can Gil. So you guys are a representation of us. So we need you guys to be at your best behavior. Because again, we've had this happen where a city mayor or a city manager just happens to be driving by. And again, because we look.
pretty professional with our uniforms and everybody out there. And I do feel like we're really well organized. You'll have them driving through their city and say, hey, let me take a look at this game. And if we have a city mayor of one of the parks that we utilize in the stands.
and you have players cussing at the umpire or the umpire cussing back at them, it's not a good look for us of course and I'm sure we'll probably get a phone call on Monday saying, you guys can't use our fields anymore or something of that effect. But yeah, that's actually been a really big help for me. Again, he's constantly recruiting. It is difficult to find umpires to do modified.
Art Padilla (37:18.583)
We're not paying them what other leagues are paying, unfortunately, again, because we're trying to keep it low and we're trying to, again, cater to that working class player. We could only pay them a certain amount of money. So in exchange when Gill's out there and he sees this umpire at a certain game at another game, another league.
and starts talking to him, he's like, hey man, you look really good out there and presents them our league and tells them what it's about. They seem really excited and they're like, oh yeah, I'm definitely interested. And then once we tell them how much we pay, they're like, ah, know, I'll get paid double for umpiring a bunch of 12 year olds or whatever. So again, and again, it's not easy because you are dealing
Lance (38:04.882)
Yeah.
Art Padilla (38:12.803)
You know our league is from 18 to whatever you know so you're dealing with different different generations different ages different personalities I've umpired games, so I definitely know I can feel even people get competitive And they stay professional, but they get pretty competitive, so you definitely there's a lot of pressure on you not to blow a game especially if it's a very important game, so so I definitely can see how our umpires are
That's their jobs aren't easy. So so I definitely feel for
Lance (38:42.588)
Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, think I have two more questions. One is a follow up I kind of meant to ask you earlier, but you mentioned a banquet. So I'm curious, like, what is that banquet? know, you know, I talked to a bunch of leagues across the country and a lot of them do have that very social community focus and they'll throw parties or whatever. So I'm curious, like, what's your take on that? Is that like a once a year banquet at the end of the main season? And then, you know, how does it work? Is everybody invited?
where do you guys do it and what are the details of this banquet?
Art Padilla (39:16.055)
Yeah, really quick, my dad used to have a banquet every year for as far back as I can remember as a kid. I'd have to help him. He used to rent this one particular hall where it had stairs. You had to take stairs to go up to the hall. It was a pretty good size hall, but you had to take stairs to go up there. So I'd help him, myself and my best friend, we'd help carry the trophies up and carry the alcohol up. And it was just a pain.
He would put in a lot of his own money for this because he was banking on selling tickets the day of the banquet. So as I got older and I ended up attending one of those banquets, I mean the banquet hall was for 200 people. And I want to say I showed up to the last one that we did, there was maybe 50 people. I pretty much, all these trophies were just left behind.
All the alcohol that was purchased was there. So I pretty much told him, hey, you know what, the teams aren't really appreciating this, so let's just stop doing banquets. We started it up again before COVID, which is we wanted to do a 40th year banquet to celebrate the 40 years. At that time, my dad had just been diagnosed with cancer and he had some health issues. So a lot of stuff was going on where we couldn't do the 40th, so we ended up doing it two years after.
And it was a great success. So we saw the participation. Again, Gil's wife, Angie, she actually helped me kind of plan, gave me ideas on how
how to collect prior, so a lot of things that I wouldn't have thought of, she kind of said, well, you got to do this, this, and that, it'll probably work out better. So again, having someone that kind of can get people to buy tickets ahead of time and obviously reserving the hall ahead of time and giving you a better idea of what your cost is going to be for that day so you don't overspend. So that was a big help for the first one. So there were some things that we could have improved on on the first
Art Padilla (41:25.857)
but for the most part it was a great success. We got, you know, we sold tickets prior. We reserved the hall ahead of time. We ended up finding the same hall that my dad used to use. It was now under a different ownership. It had been actually renovated. And this time in the past, dinner wasn't an option. And now actually the hall offered dinner, which we found that a lot of people enjoyed. A lot of people enjoyed knowing that they were going to go to a banquet and there was going to be food served. So basically,
COVID hit so of course we didn't have any maybe for like two years after but we had one our first one that since COVID last year again a lot of success. You know have players talking about it afterwards you have players that didn't show up regretting that they didn't go. A lot of the guys like the whole plaque thing that hey man I didn't know I could get a plaque for being playing in the league for 20 years and yeah you get a plaque. Just you know gotta give us your name but
Lance (41:56.914)
Yeah.
Art Padilla (42:22.049)
So we're starting to build up that interest. So again, that's what we're doing again this year is basically following the same steps we did last year and learning from some of the mistakes we made from the past two banquets. And hopefully we can keep that going because it does seem that players, managers, their families, they come out. Obviously with the alcohols, they kind of like that too. mean, it's all you could drink. So again, we put that at.
Lance (42:47.612)
Mmm.
Art Padilla (42:50.165)
We kind of look at that cost and put that on the ticket. So that's on what they're gonna pay. So and they seem to be okay with that.
Lance (42:58.248)
Yeah, I love that. mean, that's a huge part of this for so many people is the community, the social aspect. since 1976, there's been a lot of changes with how people have community and how, I think there's a stat I often quote that the average, or the number of people who have no close friends has tripled since 1985. Like there's just so many more people who are lonely and just don't have community. And so I haven't tried any of the party type stuff for our leagues, but we're.
you know, thinking about it. Because yeah, I mean, that's an important you play and it's super fun to play and maybe stop off a little bit slower so you can have more conversation. in soccer, you're not always catching up that much during the game you're playing. And so it seems like there's a lot of value to that kind of separate social time.
Art Padilla (43:33.315)
Exactly.
Art Padilla (43:40.052)
Exactly.
Art Padilla (43:44.355)
Yeah, we also have a clubhouse where that's where we hold our managers meetings. So it's kind like our office clubhouse. We have one manager's meeting a month where all 25 managers, for example, this season we have 25 teams, I believe. So for the most part, most of them show up. And kind of like what you talked about, our meeting lasts about an hour. But after that, it's just every manager, no matter what, either knows each other
Even if they just met from going to the meetings, but they're all interacting. They're all having a good time. They're all talking about softball or other things. But it's great to see all of them kind of just intermingle and pretty much enjoy themselves even for a manager's meeting.
Lance (44:30.31)
On the business side, what do you guys cover for that hour? Was that just like sportsmanship issues or what is the?
Art Padilla (44:36.929)
Yeah, for the most part, any issues that have come up with either umpiring, any rules that they may have questioned, because we've changed some rules. Like before, we didn't have a DH rule in the past, which is a designated hitter rule. Now we do. of course, sometimes maybe an umpire maybe misinterpreted the rule or a manager did. So we just kind of clarify the rules.
You know, we've actually had pretty good meetings where we haven't had a lot of complaints. In the past, it was kind of like, you know, a complaint after complaint. But again, one of the biggest things that I always push at our managers meetings is a code of conduct. And that's, you know, I mean, it's softball, it's sports, soccer, you know, you know what, guys are, guys are going to drink, you know, and, and unfortunately, you know, I can't be at every field, but it's kind of like going over it with them, like, Hey guys,
Don't drink in the dugout. Don't take your beers out in public. And then most importantly is making sure that there's no altercations, physical altercations. Because it's kind of like I tell them, if we're going to get as it is, in LA, fields are limited. We're competing with a lot of travel ball teams, a lot of youth sports.
So it's really tough, a lot of the fields that we used to use prior to COVID, they're no longer available to us for whatever reasons. We've tried to get them back. We've been fortunate enough that the city of Carson has been more than generous with their fields. It's a pretty big city, so they have a lot of fields out there. Same thing with city of Santa Fe Springs, they've been more than generous in trying to accommodate us. But again,
Some of the parks that we first started in that we have a lot of history in, like the city of Linwood, city of Huntington Park, city of Maywood. These are fields that a lot of our guys miss playing in those fields. But for whatever reason, whether it's resources, obviously once in a while still try to reach out to those cities and say, hey, you have any fields available? Because we do have a big population, because that's considered southeast LA. And we have a big population that lives in that area.
Art Padilla (46:56.319)
And they're constantly asking us, hey, I don't mind traveling to Santa Fe Springs or Carson, but hey, when are you gonna bring those fields back? And again, it's just typically the reply I get is at this point, we're either not renting it out to independent leagues or it's only for kids or we don't have the resources or staffing for Sundays. So,
Lance (47:02.694)
Yeah,
Lance (47:14.77)
Yep. Got it. OK. I know we're a little bit over time, so let's just do one more question, which is I'm very curious about starting in the 70s until now, you've probably seen a lot of change in technology. So how do you think about that from the very beginning? I guess everything was just total pen and paper and maybe cash or something. And then up till now, how has technology changed? And what do you guys use? And do you foresee using more
changing or what's the role of technology with you guys over
Art Padilla (47:47.543)
Well, it's definitely something that we want to take advantage of. Again, I'm not a tech savvy guy. I wish I was. I probably would have jumped on a lot of the technology that's out there. know, one of the managers actually recently brought me an old schedule that was typed. So my mom used to type up the schedules in her typewriter. And then my dad would make copies and distribute them to the managers. So we have a website, which is a very old website.
Lance (48:05.83)
Wow.
Art Padilla (48:14.563)
It's old, it's not user friendly. And one of our players who was in the league actually years ago, I can't remember when the website started, but he got into web design as a hobby. school teacher, Jose Jose Rinalso. I'll give him a shout out. He actually came out and told my dad, hey, I'm kind of toying with this whole website thing. Can I create your website?
And of course my dad's like, yeah, go for it. And that's the same website we've been using since. We actually had a couple of other players, you got another generation coming in. So we have one of my old players who
early twenties and actually, you he offered to redo our website. So that we're actually in the process of redoing our website, making it more user friendly, taking advantage of a lot of the things that are out there. So he's actually working on that. And then of course, you know, we want to take advantage of our social media. You know, we have like a Facebook page
I hardly even go on there, so I don't even know if people are messaging it. And it's just, can't find the time to do that. So there's definitely a lot of things that are out there that we wanna relook at. Hopefully with the help of preferably my family and close friends that are kinda linked into this league that can give me ideas and help me kinda take this league to another level. Again, even though we're happy where we're at.
And it's kind like I tell a lot of the managers, I'm not trying to grow the league so could, you know, become this, you know, rich guy. I want to make the league bigger because I feel like it's a good product that can be out there that a lot of people don't know about. And that's my main goal is.
Art Padilla (50:04.771)
I always tell people, I can guarantee you that if I were to get a retired Major League Baseball player to come out here and play, or even some celebrity to come out here and play, I can guarantee you that they'd love it and they'd be hooked. But again, it's kind of not out there. So definitely looking for that opportunity to put it out there.
Lance (50:23.442)
Got it, got it. Sweet. OK. I think that that's all my questions. So yeah, appreciate your time, and love to hear your story.
Art Padilla (50:32.832)
Thanks for having me, Lance. It was a pleasure.
Lance (50:34.491)
Yeah, take care.
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