2010 AN UP AND COMING YEAR FOR THE NPF!

Welcome! Wow, there’s a lot of welcoming going on in the League these days – which is a really good thing, since new, equals growth. Growth for the League, as you will see, in many different directions.

First of all, we welcome a new coach to the pro ranks. Now, this isn’t just any person grabbing a line-up card, creating some tricky signals, and hitting ground balls…In fact, ground balls is something she has never been particularly good at. The new Head Coach of the Akron Racers is much more familiar with hitting balls that preferred the air to the dirt and often chose to fall beyond the confines of the 250 marks. Crystl Bustos, the most prolific power hitter the game has ever seen has crossed from between the lines to just outside them to lead the Akron Racers this season. Field Coaching will be a new bullet point on her resume, and if the already popular clinician can transfer her ability to teach skills from young amateurs to seasoned pros, and be a team motivator along the way, then Akron will continue to reap the rewards from the presence of the legendary Bustos.

Next, we welcome a new Team! The Tennessee Diamonds have started business as the latest NPF franchise. The Team will be located in Maryville, Tennessee and will be led by former NCAA standout and NPF player, Sarah Fekete. This is exciting stuff! The Diamonds received first right of refusal to a Rockford Thunder championship roster from 2009, (that unfortunately ended up without a home). Tennessee has chosen to keep most of the rostered players together and make a run at bringing an NPF title to Smoky Mountain country. I am particularly excited about landing a team in the heart of SEC country, where interest in the sport of fastpitch softball has simply exploded in the last ten years. It is time to expose the fan following and enthusiasm to fastpitch softball at the professional level.

While we are welcoming new faces, we have a few new sponsors on board early on. Tyja Sports is an apparel and equipment company attempting to make a dent in the youth sports market. Tyja is committed to providing top quality apparel and equipment to the recreation sport, youth, and school athletes. They are a Long Island based company with established ties in USSSA and we are happy to have them on board with NPF.
Another sponsor that we welcome back to the League is Louisville Slugger. Louisville Slugger has a deep tradition in the diamond sports of baseball and softball and is a company that has been in the business for 120 years. Louisville will enter back into the League this season as a manufacturer sponsor and we look forward to seeing their participation throughout competition as well as Battle of the Bats.

Last but not least, we have recently announced some fabulous player additions to the NPF ranks. Several are returning after a brief hiatus and one enters with rookie status. USSSA has managed to stock their roster full of veteran player superstars who were not participating in NPF action in 2009. Welcome Natasha Watley, Jessica Mendoza, Katie Burkhart, and Lauren Lappin! These players are people who make a difference on the dirt and off. They bring with them a feverish passion for the sport of fastpitch softball. You need only to watch each of them compete to feel the intensity in which they play the game. You need only to watch them sign autographs, speak to young athletes, or teach a clinic to feel the inner passion translate to motivation and inspiration.

The NPF has improved in the last 3 months and these improvements will be far reaching. We welcome all of our new additions along with those to come in the near future. In the next month, we will see more veteran players re-enter the League along with a promising group of new rookies from the 2010 NPF College Senior Draft, who will attempt to bring their game to the next level in professional competition. We will see new sponsors and make in-roads with new franchisees. I look forward to the light that all of our new additions will shine positively on professional fastpitch in the NPF.

It's official.....USSSA owns an NPF Franchise!

It’s official!! The documents are signed and USSSA now officially owns an NPF Franchise - The USSSA Florida Pride! A lot of people may not have realized that due to the urgency in which USSSA arrived into the NPF in 2009, the completed process of buying the Team was postponed until after the season was over. USSSA agreed to take on the Team in a Management capacity for the NPF through the 2009 season – a move to which they committed a significant amount of time, money, and resources, just several weeks before the beginning of the season.


This is a great moment for Professional Fastpitch. Don’t let it get by you too quick. As the known “Powers That Be” in the world of softball (organizations who have gained a great deal from the sport’s development), continue to attempt to hinder the progress of the professional game, an unexpected hero stepped out of the shadows – Mr. Don Dedonatis and his amateur sports association. The fact that the USSSA is the largest amateur sports association in the world, and the fact that DeDonatis has been the catalyst behind their climb to the top, should put a smile on your face if you’re pulling for this League to make it on a large scale. We just added a clean-up hitter to our Team. One of those clean-up hitters that can change the game, practically, from the point his name is announced.


What Don DeDonatis sees, is the possibilities of the sport at the professional level. Halfway through a meeting last spring, when we were trying desperately to fix a crisis of a bad sell gone worse, Don Dedonatis got excited. He got excited because he smelled potential – potential to make a difference for women in this sport at the highest level, and consequently the potential to do much more in the development of girls in youth fastpitch softball. And that is why you should have the smile on your face. History shows this guy is a winner. History shows that he swings a good bat.


So, it’s with this addition, to an ownership group that has strengthened itself tremendously in the last 18 months that the NPF takes a giant step forward. And it is this addition that should resonate with the softball community that longs to see the game continue to be played at its highest level. This is a visionary and an entire Association that has stepped up with voice and support for professional fastpitch softball. Surprisingly, it is not one of the associations that have gained the most on the backs of elite female softball players. Those two are still frantically busy trying to stay in the way of the professional game development….But that’s another blog for another day.


Right now, it’s time to celebrate a very positive addition to the National Pro Fastpitch League. As a fan of this sport, I am grateful to Don Dedonatis and his top Executives Jim Swint and Dan Brown, for signing up – for seeing that the world is not flat, and that fastpitch softball is poised to be the most successful professional women’s team sport option.