A Group of Gentlemen Reduced Communication Stress with BAND
Preserving the 19th Century Tradition in the 21st Century
In the San Francisco Bay Area, there is a group of gentlemen who play baseball in fashion. The Bay Area Vintage Base Ball league(BAVBB), is a registered educational entity that is celebrating it’s 10th year of vintage baseball this season. The league plays by 1886 rules, therefore the team uses heavy wooden bats, gardening gloves, and old school uniforms to match the era. Back in the day, baseball was originally called “base ball”, but as time changed and the game developed they made it into one word!
Baseball was quite different back in the 19th century. Foul balls were not considered strikes, bats were heavier, hitters didn’t wear a helmet, and gloves were just leather gardening gloves without padding. As a result of such original attires, injuries are quite common amongst the players of the vintage baseball league.
Besides the rich American history and the overall appearance of vintage baseball, there is a huge emphasis on gentlemanliness, brotherhood, and respect for the game. The umpire, who is called “The Sir,” is the most respected man on the entire field. There is no cursing allowed, no fighting of any kind, or else bans and fines would proceed.
In the 2017 season, the BAND Team had a chance to work together with the defending champions of the league, the San Francisco Pacifics to assist them in enhancing their team communication!
Founded in 2008, most of the members on the San Francisco Pacifics have been playing together for almost a decade. In their first season, they didn’t win a single game. However, they slowly improved over the years, and they are now the two time champions of the Brass Crab— awarded annually to the City’s finest team by their overall record.
The team name, “San Francisco Pacifics”, originally belonged to one of the most dominant baseball teams in the area, which played from the late 1860s through the 1890s
Currently, the Pacs(Pacs is a nickname for the Pacifics) are chasing the Hayward Journals closely by one game to become a team to win two consecutive seasons. In order to do so, they continue to practice hard by meeting every week at a “hitter’s club”, where players visit batting cages early in the morning before they start their day at work.
Although the Pacs have been playing together for almost a decade, the head coach had been facing many difficult challenges that most other coaches face as well; too many channels for team communication and too many communication burdens on the coach.
Everyone has their own preferred channel for receiving team-related information. The coach had to spend too much of his time sending text messages & emails, updating the website, and making phone calls throughout the week. In retrospect, even making a team decision such as deciding on a new color of socks to wear, was almost impossible to figure out.
Not everyone checks their emails or replies in a timely manner. There was no way for the coach to check who had read his emails, other than making phone calls to everyone to assure they were accountable. Every coach knows, tons of phone calls can get tiresome!
1. Email conversations would most likely be hijacked by irrelevant content like funny cat videos.
2. Everyone has their own lives outside of vintage baseball with different schedules and different lifestyles.
So, the coach needed a one-stop shop where every team-related communication took place. With BAND they utilized the Calendar for game schedules, they discussed uniform designs with the Poll, and even arranged carpools for away games using the Chat!
The Pacs decided to streamline all communication onto BAND, a simple yet powerful app for sports teams. By making the switch over to BAND they were able to save a lot of time for the coach. Time management is crucial for a team’s success, just ask the Pacs!
BAND has helped communication flourish that would have not necessarily happened originally. The night that the Pacs won the league championship last year, one of the players wrote a poem that was inspired by “Casey at the bat,” and kept it to himself. Before their new season started, he decided to share the poem with the team on BAND.
Utilizing an app such as BAND allowed for the the Pacs to grow much closer to one another both on and off of the diamond. Having fun away from the game with the team is just as important as having fun when you’re all together doing what you love! …GO PACS GO!
Are you a coach or on a team who needs a space where all communication happens? Be Like the San Francisco Pacifics of the BAVBB, and give BAND a shot today!
Download BAND with your team to start building your own story. Enter the “BAND Challenge #2” event for a chance to win cool prizes!
