Logging In

ENYTB refers to its registered members and "registered" non-members as owners. Each owner is provided his owner access codes (a user ID and a password) when he activates his registration for the current season. In addition, each owner is assigned two sets of access codes for each team he registers with the league, one pair for the team manager and one pair for the players and others who the team manager wishes to grant access to.

Owner, team and player access privileges differ greatly. Owners have the highest level of user access. It includes the same level of read/write access as each of its teams plus more. For example, teams can not enter the owner's home area but the owner can enter each of its team's home areas. Owners have master access. Players/others have the lowest level of access privileges. They have less read privileges than the team codes and no write privileges. The same access relationships apply to registered non-members and their teams except that they may have access to certain capabilities blocked altogether, depending on the level of non-member services purchased.

If you are an existing ENYTB owner and your codes are not working from last year you need to contact the League Office (Ed Frye, (518) 356-9089, fryes@nycap.rr.com) to activate your franchise and renew your access codes for the current season. If you have already done so and have lost your owner codes, you will need to contact the League office by email or phone.

If you want to join the league as a new member or participate in the league on a limited basis as a non-member, you must register with the League Office to obtain your access codes.

If you are a team representative for an existing owner you can obtain your team and player/other access codes by contacting your owner. Tell him to look in "Login Codes" under "Team Info" on his "Homepage". If your team has not been assigned access codes, have your owner contact the League Office with the codes that he wishes to apply to that team. With the ENYTB website, ENYTB members are never in the dark about what's going on inside their league. It provides every member a personalized window to all the action, all the time.

Website Access

All new members are given full website access when they join the league. Access codes expire each year when the website is initialized for the upcoming season, usually about mid-November. To regain full website access, members need to activate their franchise for the upcoming season and establish their new teams with the League Office. Non-member owners can obtain full website access for all their teams for a single $75 fee.

Direct communication among participants is vital to the proper functioning of any organization, including baseball leagues, especially travel leagues with as many members, distances to span and range of activities as exist in ENYTB. This website includes many easy to use communication tools to facilitate direct communication among all participants. These tools will be summarized as a group before the other password-protected features and interactive capabilities available on the website are discussed.

• LEAGUE TO MEMBER COMMUNICATIONS.......
  1. MESSAGE BOARDS

     Each team has access to two message boards on the website: the League Board (Front Page), and its Division Board (Team Home). The latter is for messages of interest to individual age divisions only. Division Directors as well as the League Director have the capability to send messages on the Division Boards. Both Message Boards provide important information and reminders to members and non-members throughout the year.

  2. LEAGUE EMAIL

     The website has an email capability that enables the League Director and Division Directors to address email to any target audience. The target audience could be those teams registered with a specific sanctioning body, in a specific age division, or even a specific team. Email can be further directed to specific groups of individuals associated with teams e.g., owners, managers, primary contacts, all coaches, all.

• MEMBER TO LEAGUE COMMUNICATIONS..........

  The League Director, Ed Frye, maintains a League Office and can be contacted by email, fax, phone or mail seven days a week. Ed's contact info is repeated throughout the website. Ed has a reputation for replying very quickly to inquiries. Many email inquires will be responded to almost immediately and most within 24 hours. If your inquiry is not responded to within 48 hours, resend the message. Contact info for other Board members is listed on the Front Page (Executive Board). Contact info for Division Directors is available in the League Directory (discussed next).

• MEMBER TO MEMBER COMMUNICATIONS...........
  1. LEAGUE DIRECTORY

     No more searching for scraps of paper with scribbled phone numbers. ENYTB maintains its own online yellow pages - the League Directory. The League Directory provides website users with comprehensive contact info for every participating owner, team, division director and more. Users have the capability to add/revise their own information. Several search functions are included for obtaining contact info on any group of league owners or teams, including registered non-members.

  2. AUTOMATED EMAIL ALERT SYSTEM

     The website also is equipped with an automated email alert system. Currently this system emails any team whose online schedule was affected by a change made by another team. All such changes should be confirmed by both parties BEFORE they are made on the website. If this is not the case, or the change has been entered incorrectly, the email alert brings the matter to both teams' immediate attention. In such cases, members should attempt to resolve the matter between themselves ASAP. If this fails, the next recourse is to bring it to the attention of their Division Director and finally, the League Director. Other email alert systems are under consideration, such as for newly activated teams and listed free agents. Recipients of these alerts would be restricted to teams in the same age division.

• MEMBER TO ITS OWN TEAM COMMUNICATIONS........
  1. TEAM POP-UP MESSENGER

     This communication tool allows a team owner or manager to address a message through the website to his team only. Every time a user signs in with that team or player code, the latest message from the team manager or owner pops-up. This tool is handy for informing players and their families of last minute changes or as a reminder. For example, you may want to remind your players to bring something to a game or practice or to make sure they are aware of a rain-out, or other recent schedule change or new practice time etc. No more dialing and leaving the same message again and again. Simply tell your team to check their website schedule every day at a certain time for new messages.

Except for the League Message Board (Front Page) and the contact info for the Executive Board (Front Page) these communication tools are all password restricted and require full website access privileges. The remainder of this section will discuss the remaining password restricted capabilities available to members and other full access website users.

All of the content in both the FRONT PAGE and the LEAGUE INTRO sections is accessible for public viewing. However, there are three functions on the FRONT PAGE that are password protected.

• Open Tournaments/Sign-up - these tournaments are sponsored by either ENYTB, its members or its registered non-members. To sign-up for an open tournament, non-member teams need to be registered with the League.

• Open Tournaments/Sponsor - members and non-members can announce/manage their own tournament on the ENYTB website. This feature includes an online sign-up capability for tournament entrants. Non-members need to be registered with the league and purchase a dedicated tournament code to obtain his service. Members need to purchase a dedicated tournament code to use this premium plus service as well. ENYTB sponsored tournaments will use this feature as well.

• Hosting ENYTB Events - the league needs fields for sanctioned and other tournaments that it hosts. The League pays all game expenses (umps and balls) and the field owner provides and maintains the fields, keeping whatever concession revenues are generated. A similar opportunity exists for regular season play on Opening Weekend. Because members are increasingly interested in these partnering opportunities, ENYTB will introduce an online bidding system in 2005 to fairly share these opportunities with all interested parties. Proceeds from these auctions will be dedicated to the League's Tournament Hosting Fund. Non-member teams need to be registered with the League to bid. They also would need to have the League Director enter its field(s) in the league's field database beforehand. Preference in bidding is given to members unless there is a significant difference in the quality of the facility offered and/or the amount bid.

The other main area of the website is INSIDE THE LEAGUE and it is password restricted in its entirety. Its tab reads LOGIN until the user is signed in. INSIDE THE LEAGUE provides full access users with an unparalleled suite of interactive tools to facilitate every aspect of league participation and/or enhance each team's total baseball experience.

INSIDE THE LEAGUE is personalized to each owner, team and player via the user's login codes (separate user ID and password required for each). Each owner and team is provided its own home area on the website. All information unique to that owner or team's participation in the league is entered and/or displayed in its home area. This includes everything from online registration and scheduling, to rosters, game scores, standings and player stats.

Login to the website requires a pair of codes, a user ID and a password. The user ID uniquely identifies each user as an owner, team manager or player/other. Each of these user groups has a different level of access privilege. Owners have the highest level read/write privileges, including exclusive access to the Owner Home area, where all field information is maintained. Owners also enjoy master access to any of its teams' website pages (explained below). Team managers have extensive read/write privileges as well but not quite as extensive as owners. Players/other have read only privileges.

The system also uses the user ID to determine the franchise or team the user is associated with. For example, when a user signed in with a team or player code clicks My Schedule, the system brings up the schedule for his team. Owners have master access to all their teams. When a user signs in with an owner code and clicks My Schedule, he will be asked to select a particular team from the group of teams he owns, before its schedule is shown. Because of this master access capability, it is convenient for owners to always sign in under their owner codes, rather than their individual team codes.

A complete list of the many interactive capabilities available within INSIDE THE LEAGUE to member owner/teams as well as non-members with full access privileges follows:

• TOURNAMENT POP-UPS - showing the complete information for every individual sanctioned NCTS tournament and ENYTB sponsored tournament. These pop-ups can be triggered from three different website locations:
  1. the FRONT PAGE - found by clicking the menu button for SANCTIONED TOURNAMENTS. This is the only location where all such tournaments are grouped by age division and can be viewed all at once. This is an ideal view for teams when they are trying to decide what to register for as date conflicts between tournaments are easy to identify.

  2. INSIDE THE LEAGUE - found on each team's REGISTRATION page (Team Home). This list includes only those tournament options that the team is eligible to register for, based on its age and skill level.

  3. INSIDE THE LEAGUE - found on each team's STANDINGS page (Team Home). Each standings includes a link to the sanctioned NCTS earmarked to it by the League. Click this tournament berth link on any standings and a list of the tournaments for that NCTS appears. Click the individual tournament desired and its pop-up appears.

     NOTE: Similar tournament pop-ups are available for OPEN TOURNAMENTS (FRONT PAGE) sponsored by ENYTB, its members and its registered non-members.

• CUSTOMIZED REGISTRATION - ala carte style. Select only what you want from an online tournament option list customized to your team's age and power rating. This feature also creates an online team invoice and payment record.

• CUSTOMIZED SCHEDULING - includes website calendars representing team and home field availability. Scheduling software, developed and owned by Ed and Pete Frye, is used to develop customized schedules. Each team's schedule is available in its home area (My Schedule);

• MASTER SCHEDULE - users are provided with the capability to search and view the league's master schedule by field, team or date;

• SCHEDULE UPDATING - every team schedule includes a set of editing tools that allows teams to update their online schedules throughout the season for postponements, reschedules, cancellations and even the addition of new games and practices. Any opponent can be added to your ENYTB website schedule, even teams that have not been activated in the website. This is a great feature for a team that schedules its own non-league games and/or participates in more than one league. Such teams can now maintain a unified updated schedule in one place for all its players, coaches etc. to reference throughout the season. An additional feature is an automated Email-Alert system to notify both opponents as well as league officials, of any schedule updates as soon as they are made (registered teams only);

• LEAGUE ROSTERS - maintains biographical data on players, including photo, from year-to-year. Teams enter their own roster information. Teams also have the capability to edit existing data, add new players, delete players (release), make players inactive (deny a release), and claim free agents, including those listed in the League's Free Agent Pool as well as players released by other members. Also, includes capability to print updated team rosters on the AABC, NABF and PONY official tournament forms.

• PLAYER STATS - maintains game stats for individual players for every conceivable statistical category. Teams enter their own player stats. These stats are used to compile team stats as well as season and career totals for each player. All player stats are sortable. A league leader board also is maintained by season (summer, fall) each year;

• GAME REPORTS - teams prepare their own game reports on an online form. Reports are emailed with a single click to all local newspapers from a preset list customized to each owner. Player and team stats already entered in PLAYER STATS are available for use in preparation of Game Reports.

• GAME FINDER - a package of several powerful search functions that finds competitively matched opponents available to play extra games. One of these functions also finds all available make-up dates for postponed games. Also included is a bulletin board where teams actively seeking extra games can post their requests;

  Perhaps our most popular feature, this interactive search tool is easy to use and gives teams three different ways to find desired opponents for extra games. Let's say your opponent postpones or cancels an upcoming game with you and you still want your team to play on that date. You have two options. First, you can go to our Game Request Board, and search for other teams, members or non-members alike, of the age and ability you would like to play, that are actively seeking games on the same date. If there are none, you leave your request and another team may contact you. But you still have another option. You can search our team database to find all teams of whatever age and ability level you prefer, to find all such teams that are available to play and do not have a scheduled game on the date you are seeking a game. (Note: For these functions to yield accurate results, teams need to keep their online availability calendars and game schedules current throughout the season.) Finally, let's say you have played a team and it was a good match-up for both teams and you want to play them again or, maybe it's a team from another division that you aren't scheduled to play. Game Finder will find all possible available dates for your two teams to play based on both teams' availability, existing game schedules and field availability.

• FREE AGENT POOL - owners/teams can add players to the league free agent pool and owners have the capability to claim players from the existing pool;

SUMMARY OF YEAR-ROUND WEBSITE INFORMATIONAL FLOWS

In mid-November each year, the website is initialized for the upcoming season. This is the starting point for the whole system. At this point, the League can begin activating new teams for the upcoming season. Team activations are shown on the website as they happen, classified by team age and power rating. Activated members have the instant capability to add and revise their own contact information on the website. About the same time, the League Director begins posting sanctioned tournament information on the website as it becomes available. Each sanctioning body has its own timetable for releasing such information. NABF information is available as early as November. AABC and PONY information usually isn't complete until March. Sanctioned tournament information is used by teams to make their registration choices. All teams are required to make their registration choices by April 1. As teams register, they are further classified on the website by sanctioning body (see Teams & Affiliations). Once registration is complete, this information is sufficient for the League Director to create all League Divisions, including wildcards, and assign specific teams and tournament berths to each division. At this point, every team's regular season competition is fully defined. The next step is to collect all team and home field availability information and develop each team's schedule, which is posted on the website for each team (Team Home/Game Center/My Schedule). In order to view its schedule, each team needs to enter its rosters on the website (Team Home/Registration Center/My Roster). The league also maintains an online Free Agent Pool. Players can be add to the Free Agent Pool by the League Office or any member or registered non-member with full website access. Member teams can claim players from the League's Free Agent Pool and add them to their roster. Member teams can also claim players released by other member teams.

The League scheduled more than 2,000 games in 2004. This is likely to increase to about 2,500 games in 2005. It is easy to see that keeping tabs on the regular season action alone requires a continuous flow of information. The ENYTB website is designed such that members can enter much of this information themselves, continuously throughout the season. For example, members have the capability to make changes to their contact info, availability schedules, game schedules and team rosters. They can also enter their own game results and player stats. Member response in 2004 to this capability/responsibility was tremendous. Most members posted their game results on the day the game was played. (Go to your schedule, click "enter score" for that game, and enter the score.) All standings as well as the league leader board are updated in real-time as game scores and player stats are posted. Each team has a customized standings page in its home area that includes all its standings. As mentioned in the list of capabilities provided INSIDE THE LEAGUE, each team can also message its players and coaches through a pop-up messenger and prepare online game reports that are automatically emailed to its local newspapers. This is a truly interactive website, where users have the tools to help build the information database and to help themselves have the best possible league and total baseball experience. The information on this website is updated continuously by the efforts of many throughout the pre-season, regular season, fall season and off-season.