Plainfield Athletic Club

Unless your child is in travel ball, your kid is not important to them. Our son started in Maverick, to learn the fundamentals of baseball, he continues to learn, considering baseball is a tough sport. He has had great coaches, mainly because his experience level is a beginner and the coaches are hand selected for the kids who have high ratings. The «left-​over» kids get drafted by new, un-​experienced coaches, who in my opinion actually care about the children and remember that its only a game.
We’ve been a part of PAC longer than we should have and we blame ourselves for not pulling our child out of this organization after the first year. Unfortunately we are in the start of our third year so we will have to play it out till the end. We did try leaving before the draft, but the organization we were interested in already started first practices and we didn’t want our son to walk on to a team, we wanted him to be part of the team from the beginning. Quickly I’ll add, they start draft way too close to opening day, giving the teams little time to practice or prepare.
I’ll start with the fees. Registration is high for what you receive, the uniforms are never the size you ordered and handed out close to opening day, almost making it hard to get names on the back (they do not provide that) the pants are either too small or too large. They usually offer a «pant exchange» but that didn’t happen this year. We are going on the third game and I’ve seen many teams with mis-​matching, different colored pants. You would think with all the money you throw at them, the uniforms could at least be uniform. However, travel gets very beautiful fitting jersey and pants. The fields are always in poor condition, which I assumed that was another thing we were «paying» for. In their fees they include a Parent fee of $ 50, which you can get back if you volunteer in some way. They have a fundraiser buyout too, if you pay $ 70 you do not have to buy the candy money for $ 90 later on. The emails you receive are non-​stop about fundraising opportunities for Travel, family nights at resteraunts, or sports authority days, etc., never fundraising opportunities for in-​house, because that was already ‘paid’ for in your registration fees.
Next, the fields. The one thing we were looking forward to this year was the field. This division is finally at the Four Seasons park. Much nicer fields than the school field at Indian Trails, or the Four Seasons West field which is always under water. The kids get to play on ‘real’ fields now, that’s exciting for them… Until they sent out an email stating that if your game conflicts with travel, location and times may change. Nice! Since Maverick, we have known that in Mustang, each team gets at least one night game under the lights. Unfortunately my son is on one of the teams that does not, there are only a couple of teams that do. I wasn’t surprised that the commissioners team gets one of the night games, he is of course the commish. What I was surprised about was the fact that the VP of PAC is the assistant coach for the commissioners team, a little favoritism I guess, which IS NOT uncommon in this organization.
There are so many things wrong with this organization, the main issue is the politics. I know there is politics in every league, but this one is down right corrupt. I’m more disappointed in the fact that we let our child continue with PAC, than how they run it. This league is not about the children, well in-​house children, they do not care about the parents, and they are impossible to get a hold of. Last year in Pinto, there were many problems with coaches fighting, Parents being nasty, and getting ejected and suspended. One of those suspended coaches was allowed to continue on to be a Travel coach. I’m not putting travel down by no means. My child isn’t at a level to play travel and I wouldn’t want him playing travel here if he was. My child just enjoys playing, he doesn’t know the truths about this league and he never will.
I cannot fit in here all that is wrong or unfair about this place, Parents opinions do not matter unless you are on the board or friends with a PAC official. They do not organize anything for the parents to participate in together, like opening day celebrations, or family nights, those things do not exist here. Once you pay that’s it. We already know where we are going next year and it is a little farther away, but worth it to us. I highly recommend parents look around, ask others, there are many organizations that teach the child the basics, that show the child they are important too, and that appreciate their families. Unfortunately, Plainfield Athletic Club just is not one of them. Shame on them for not putting the kids first, but shame on us for staying with them.

*Rules are very vague
*no pitch count limit — only innings
*extremely political
*disorganized
*field conditions are poor especially mounds
*umpires from PIU on power trip
* managers uninformed regarding rules