For Softball Austin, safety for our members is the most important thing. If any of the threatening weather conditions listed below are present on the day of the event, the event may be delayed or canceled. When weather conditions or other physical conditions present a danger to participants, our board maintains the right to cancel the event. Less threatening conditions may cause alterations to the format to ensure participant, volunteer, and community safety.
Softball Austin may cancel or delay an event if any of the following weather conditions exist: Tornado Warning, Tornado Watch, Thunderstorm, "Heavy" Rain, Extreme Cold, Extreme Hot, or other significant weather conditions.
In addition:
Softball Austin may utilize all channels to send official notices to all players. This may include but is not limited to League Apps, email, text, as well as posting on social media of any official changes or cancellations as they are decided.
These announcements will be made as soon as possible.
Softball Austin is a “rentee” of fields from the “rentor” which can be the City of Austin PARD or other field complexes.
Maintenance and prep for rented fields are managed by “rentor” and done based on their processes that Softball Austin does not manage. Softball Austin is not authorized to provide maintenance to rented fields.
For the City of Austin PARD, office admin personnel are not available after 5 pm on Friday. In instances of changes where they work through their processes, they may reach out to Softball Austin prior to or during the weekend, but that is not always the case.
For City of Austin PARD field rentals, a Rainout Line is provided that they update. The timing of a Rainout Line update is at the sole discretion of the City of Austin. The Rainout Line number is: 512-978-2680
The board does monitor the weekend weather leading up to game/event days. If there is a potential for weather impacting a weekend, a contingency plan is discussed.
Monitoring of the fields after a weather event prior to a softball event is at the discretion of the board and based on availability. Typically a minimum of one board member is tasked with assessing the fields.
On a game/event day, a designated board member will be at the fields in the morning to assess a minimum of one hour prior. If the City of Austin or facility crew is there, they are able to discuss concerns, questions, etc… However, the field crews are not managed by Softball Austin and may do this as a courtesy but are not required.
If the board does not believe the fields are playable, they may cancel games for a field or for the entire league for the day. Based on who is at the field, this may be a full board decision or at the discretion of the board member and available board members at the field on the morning of the event.
The City of Austin or other “rentor” is the final decider. If deemed unplayable by the “rentor”, Softball Austin must abide by their decision.
We ask the city and any“rentor” to communicate their playable decisions with plenty of time to notify our members. However, a “rentor” will go through their processes, and we are not guaranteed to receive notification by a certain time. This means that Softball Austin will notify members as soon as possible. This decision could be less than one hour in advance.
If all games are rained out for a day, the Competition Coordinator will verify the date the games will be moved to.
If some fields are playable, the regularly scheduled games on the playable fields will be played, and the unplayable games will be rescheduled. The rainout schedule will be provided by the Competition Coordinator for a later date to be determined.
If maintenance is delayed in prepping the fields, Softball Austin may delay the start of the first game by 20 minutes. If maintenance delays go longer, the first game will be called a rainout and rescheduled by the Competition Coordinator. The second game will start at the regularly scheduled time. If the delay is within the 20 minutes, then the affected field assumes the delay, and all games will bump based on the delay. The delay will only apply to the field affected. Should a team need to move to another field, the next field will be notified of the delay, and that field may be delayed based on the team’s arrival.
For rainouts that may happen during a game being played, games will follow the USA Softball rules, and games that have not been played will be rescheduled by the Competition Coordinator.
Note: Guidelines for the safety of the league; however, the ultimate responsibility for protecting players is at the discretion of an individual player.
