After many sleepless hours combined with frustration, I have some good news. Thanks to Rancho Bernardo pulling its second team, we are actually entered in the Oceanside tournament.  We will play a minimum of four games. Get ready for sleepless weekends! All games are at Capo park in very north Oceanside (near Camp Pendleton).

We start at 8 a.m. Saturday against South Huntington Beach 1. We then play against at 11:30 a.m. against Coachella. We finish pool play with a 1:15 p.m. game against Rancho Bernardo. Games are 1 hour 15 minutes, no new inning and pool play can end in a tie. All teams advance to Sunday's single-elimination bracket, which begins at 8 a.m. for the lower seeds. (You can tell that Rick Kearny is involved in this - that Marine loves getting up with the sun!)

Looking at its website, South Huntington Beach appears to be average. There 12U team last year had a losing record and the 10U Blue team played .500 ball. I am trying to learn about Coachella. Rancho Bernardo is always tough; they take pride in their program. But I believe we can be competitive with them. The key is to hit, hit hit. Then bunt, bunt, bunt.

Other teams of note in the Oceanside tournament include La Costa, University City, Vista, Oceanside and Santee. I believe La Costa, Vista, Oceanside and Santee are still "B." University City is "C." I want to use this tournament to begin scouting our opposition. I would like somebody to watch and actually score the UC team. I want to know its strengths and weaknesses. I also want to see what La Costa really has - I believe it is weak this year. But we cannot underestimate Nils Norby, the head coach. He is strong, fundamental and gets the most out of his players.

It is imperative that we have a strong practice on Sunday. Expect to go from 1 to 5 ish at the earliest. By the way, the RB website informs parents that all-stars is a competitive commitment. Teams will practice at least five days a week, then reducing to two or three times when tournaments begin. The expectation level is to play in EIGHT tournaments. This is the competition we face. This is how serious they take it. This is why I am racketing up the all-star team so that it can compete with our opposition.

I will go over in details the other changes that have occurred in the past 24 hours. We are no longer going to the Carlsbad tournament. Instead, we are going to University City. We are not going to Ramona. The board (Pat Connors) did not get our entries submitted in time. (Don't start me….). We are looking for a tournament to fill in for Ramona. We may be going out of town. Or we might host a mini-tournament at CSP. I will explain all in detail when we see each other….

Dennis