A link is also available to the memo from Williamsport outlining Little League Baseball's guidelines to league presidents and boards of directors regarding Internet postings.
I got to work during the '95 season, writing up some plain-text pages that would provide the framework for a Web site. Then the tournaments came along, and after that, I took a much-needed vacation in the Rockies.
When I got home, the buzz on AOL was that they had introduced their Web server for members. Now it was time to figure out how to get these pages up there. I started reading up on HTML (hypertext mark-up language), the system of embedding formatting commands and links into documents, and I found a way to get them onto the AOL server by about 4-Sep.
About a week later, a friend who had access to both AOL's browser and a local Internet service provider (via Netscape's browser) sent me e-mail. "I looked at your page. It looks bad."
Turned out the problem was easily corrected, by putting the correct header commands in and naming the document with a ".htm" extension. That way, a browser would have no trouble interpreting the document as HTML (rather than plain text) and would display it as a Web page.
The next thing I did was alert John Skilton of Delaware to the fact that the site was up and running. Skilton, a fan of the Eastern League as well as the Carolina League's Wilmington (Del.) Blue Rocks, runs a valuable Web site called John Skilton's Baseball Links, a list of over 3500 (as of 1-Mar-1998) baseball sites on the Internet, set up in twenty-one categories for easy reference, including an entire page devoted to youth baseball.
It didn't take long for people to start writing me letters asking the question, "How can I do that for my league?" This page contains my hints for getting a local Little League Web page up and running. It also addresses some of Little League Baseball's concerns about LL info on the Internet.
I happen to have the official scoresheet from every game on our Major League level since mid-1980, and I've been researching our league's history since late 1984. As a result, I had plenty of information available for creating a fairly comprehensive Web site. Most leagues won't have all that handy to them.
This is not a problem. The most important things you can put out on a Web site are registration information, important dates, the current season's schedule, and a mailto: link so that browsers who actually live within the boundaries of your league and want information can get it without having to go offline and dial the phone. I'm seeing more and more one- and two-page sites out there that are as effective as our nearly-100-page setup.
Denny Sullivan, the communications director for Little League Baseball in Williamsport, Pa., advised me recently that Williamsport is concerned about legal implications of the Little League name on the Internet. The biggest concern, in my mind, is to be mindful of Little League's trademarks as well as its ideals.
If you're not a chartered Little League, don't pretend to be. Use the proper name of your organization, such as "Valley View Youth Baseball Inc." Don't call yourself "Valley View Little League" if you're not chartered by Williamsport. Remember, too, that the name "Little League" cannot apply to any other sport. I cringe when I hear someone refer to "Little League football". Imagine if anyone tried to start a Pop Warner baseball program?
Anyone setting up a Web site is free to use the language I use in the disclaimer at the bottom of our home page, provided they have a Little League charter.
Rosters of league officials, managers, and teams are perfectly acceptable, with one caveat. Never include the address and/or telephone number of an adult league member without that member's express written permission . . . and NEVER include the address or telephone number of a player under any circumstances!
(NOTE: The previous paragraph is the humble opinion of the author of this document. The Williamsport guidelines posted in 1996 disagree, and do not allow the names of players to be posted by local sites. The Rutherford Little League site complies with the Williamsport directive.)
One of the most popular activities on the Web is to link sites together. Feel free to place links from your site to other baseball or sports related sites. Be careful, though. You don't want to set up a link that leads, with only a few mouse clicks, to any of the questionable material out there on the Net. It's not just a concern for the kids, either. The federal government could be watching, too, now that the Communications Act of 1996 has become law.
The first thing you have to do is make sure your pages are in the proper format. Fortunately, HTML is easy to learn and use, and there are a lot of handy aids available. My personal favorite is HTML Assistant, which can be found in a freeware version on all major online services and many local bulletin boards. There is also an HTML Assistant Pro ($99), by the same Nova Scotia-based company.
There are now more alternatives than ever to get a Web site started. Local Internet service providers are often eager to donate space to charitable organizations, particularly if the user looking for the space donation already has an account. Failing that, all of the Big Three online services (America Online, CompuServe, and Prodigy) offer Web space to their members as part of the monthly subscription package. Personally, I have averaged about $3 per month (over and above the time I'd ordinarily spend on line) to maintain this site. That's a drop in the bucket.
If you do use one of the Big Three, the prefix for your site is:
AOL - http://users.aol.com/ (or http://members.aol.com/)
CIS - http://ourworld.compuserve.com/
Prodigy - http://pages.prodigy.com/
Once you have your pages loaded and your links tested, you have to get the word out.
Your league's publicity committee is the best place to go for letting the community know the league now has a Web site. Have the person who writes up press releases include a simple statement in every release that includes the URL (Universal Resource Locator, or site address), like:
"The Valley View Little League may now be reached on the Internet. The league's World Wide Web address is http://service.provider.com/~valleyview/ll.htm."
It also helps to let other folks know that there's a site out there. Notify directories and search engines, like WebCrawler, Yahoo, etc. WebCrawler, in its Submit URLs section, offers a link to a service called Submit-It! which generates automatic submission scripts for other engines, such as Lycos, Excite, and InfoSeek.
Since this is a baseball-related site, you also want to notify John Skilton, of the aforementioned Skilton's Baseball Links. His e-mail address is feedback@baseball-links.com - send him the name of your page and its URL. And send me e-mail, too: CharlieZeb@aol.com.