Local good guy, John Witherspoon, aka "Cheeseburger", is in need of some help.  Cheese is scheduled to have a surgical procedure on his heart within the coming months, but requires some financial assistance.  For those who may be unaware, Cheeseburger has been an umpire in the Salem-Keizer area for decades.  He has also coached infinite amount of youth teams in every imaginable sport and, plain and simple, has been an awesome member of the Salem-Keizer athletic community further back than most people's memories can go.  Cheeseburger holds a special place in West Salem Baseball's hearts for countless reasons; in-particular, he volunteered his time to help us with a few projects while we we building our clubhouse.  Please support "Cheese" any way you can!

Here's a link to the Go Fund Me page set up to raise funds for Cheeseburger's operation.

• http://www.gofundme.com/savecheeseburger
  

Here's an article on Cheeseburger from the Statesman Journal.

• "Community rallies after Cheeseburger has health scare."

On Monday, April 20th Pancho Tavera passed away after a long, hard-fought battle with esophageal cancer.  Pancho has been a well known figure and familiar face in the Salem-Keizer baseball community since his youth.  Most recently, Pancho coached McKay JBO and High School teams.  His spirit, friendliness, and love for the game of baseball will be missed.  West Salem Baseball sends its thoughts and prayers to the Tavera and McKay families.  



For more info on Pancho check out these links from the Statesman Journal.

• "Pancho Tavera dies, leaves legacy with Salem youth sports."
• "Pancho Tavera still making an impact in his final days."

Just a reminder that postponements and cancellations are bound to occur throughout the season.  Here are some items to make note of:

• In most cases we will try to make-up a postponed game in the next open date on our schedule.  
• Umpires need to be available for make-up games (umps work other leagues on our off days and have full time jobs)
• A make-up date needs to work for both teams.  Games will be made up in the order they were originally scheduled, so if we rain-out with a team they may have others to make-up prior to making-up our game. 
• Saturdays are mandatory make-up dates, meaning that if the first available open date is a Saturday, we will schedule it for then.  Parents/families need to be aware of this when making plans.
  
• Varsity games take priority in re-scheduling before other levels.
• Transportation can come in to play when re-scheduling games, especially for the Freshman level who travels opposite V/JV in most cases.
• Site changes (moving from one school to another) can happen if the scheduled field is unplayable but the other is not.
• In the case of predicted poor weather dates of games can be changed AHEAD of time, but there's a lot of red-tape involved with that.  For example, if we have a Tuesday game but Monday seems to be the best day to play there may be an opportunity to move the game up a day.
• Particularly for JV/Frosh levels, games may not be made-up on the next open date because of the reasons stated above, but know that at some point in the season the games WILL be made-up.  As always, plan accordingly.
• Rain-outs vs. league opponents take precedent over non-league rain-outs.  Typically, once league has started non-league games are harder to make-up (think pitching match-ups, travel, the fact that other leagues play on different days, etc.) and may have to be placed on the end of the schedule (after league play). 

As a result of these variables make-up dates can be very fluid.  Sometimes, we may not know until the last second.  We will do our best to give you enough notice, but at times it may be out our control.  Let's hope for a dry, sunny season so we don't have to worry about any of this!