FREE AGENTS

Thank you for your interest in West Texas Youth Baseball. This is not a draft league. All teams form on their own and participate in league play set up based on each teams individual level. Our program has been growing every year since 2007 and we are the largest youth baseball program in the area. We work very hard to provide our region with quality baseball. The league is run with the participants in mind seeking input from many knowledgeable baseball folks. This is the participants program, run by individuals who understand the ever changing baseball trends. The program will always strive to meet the needs of the competitive baseball teams and never allow agendas or egos to get in the way of our goal for quality baseball in this area.We are very lucky in this  area to have Amarillo Rotary Baseball Association and Canyon Baseball Assoc who run a recreational baseball program, assuring any kid who wants to play baseball has an opportunity to play. We do have a Free Agent list that consist of players who are looking for a team. We would be happy to add your player to that list. Click the FREE AGENT link below to fill out the online form. This is NOT a guarantee of getting added to any of the teams, but only a way for parents to show their kids interest in playing for a team. We will remove the free agent list 1 week out from the deadlines to signup for any of the rec sign up leagues, which gives parents a chance to register their kid for the draft in these programs. We will work closely with both of the rec programs now and in the future to assure all kids have opportunities to play the great game of baseball!! 

I hope this answers some of your questions.  Let us know if there is anything else we can do for you.

FREE AGENT FORM

3/19/2020 UPDATE: 

Update on local restrictions in regards to COVID19:

Per State of Texas declaration, all teams are to hold off on practicing until April 3rd. At that point as long as the dates not extended, teams can pick up practice. Below is our local restrictions.

As of today, both Amarillo and Canyon Parks Dept are restricting groups from using facilities until 4/16. We will at this point go with a 4/18 start date and build schedules accordingly. This said, we will have to cancel the 4/4 event. We will hold on to the 4/18, 5/2 & 5/16 dates for now but when building schedules for league if we can’t make it work we could have to cancel one or more. It’s our goal to give everyone a chance at at least one local event but as already stated, league will take priority. 

As many of you might already know, there’s some great news on treatment and even vaccines for this coming out and our president and leaders are working hard to get things rolling. This will pass and if we all do our parts, we will save lives. 

Lastly, Parents, please use this time to work with your kiddos at home. This social distancing might just do some additional good besides helping to slow the spread of this virus.

3/17/2020: UPDATE ON SPRING SEASON

Coaches and Parents, 

We are at a point where we can finally send out some good information in regards to this season's league and tournaments. First in foremost as we stated last week when pushing things back a week, is that we will put people's health first and follow local and national recommendations. We cancelled this weekend's event yesterday based on the recommendations of both parks departments. At this point we are looking at starting league play in Amarillo no earlier than April 4th and in Canyon on April 15th. These dates have been passed on to us by the parks dept and city management. If this remains the case, we will be able to finish the league as originally planned and keep a tournament option or two for teams that are interested. If we have to push league play much past these dates, we will likely have to cancel most if not all spring tournaments and just play league. 

Many of you have probably seen the updates just sent out from USSSA in regards to suspending their sanctioning of events until further notice. We will follow this closely and update teams accordingly in regards to our future tournament dates. They are trying to keep teams from traveling and seeing large events where people aren’t following the social distancing recommendations set forth by CDC and local government. Teams won’t be able to use city fields for practice, but are independent in regards to their insurance policy. That being said, I’d ask that y’all be smart and don’t ignore the safety recommendations that our cities and government are laying out. Parents are responsible for deciding what limited exposure they’re willing to accept. Coaches, please make sure you are supporting these decisions and hopefully cutting back on exposure during these difficult times.  

This will pass, and we have a solid plan in place to assure ALL kids have an opportunity to play some baseball. If this means we have to cut back tournaments and adjust league dates, that's exactly what we will do. I’ve had many comments that “worst case scenario we could play some baseball in the summer like we used to”. We’d argue that isn’t a bad thing. If that were to be the case and we had to play later into June, we would lay out how it would look and go from there. 

Very important: We had a couple teams who had decided to just play tournaments this season. I think I have gotten with all those teams and they are now playing league. It will always be our goal to make sure all kids get to play baseball and only fair to let these teams in since we’re having to reset the entire schedule. If I missed anyone and you’re wanting to play, I must have an email sent to wtyba@hotmail.com by this Thursday March the 19th.  Actually go ahead and also send to westtexasyouthbaseball@gmail.com as we’ve had some issues with hotmail and we don’t want to leave anyone out. We will not be able to take anyone past this date as we have to completely redo schedules and it will take 7-10 days. My plan is to start releasing schedules late next week. We have a few teams who haven’t turned in their league fees. Those must be received by this Friday or we will not include your team on the schedule. We do not have time to worry about one team and won’t be chasing things down at the ballpark. I know everyone is busy but we have a lot of teams to facilitate and really need everyone to do their part.

Thanks, Rob

3/13/2020- UPDATE ON COVID19 SITUATION:

West Texas Youth Baseball is monitoring the situation with COVID-19 and have decided to push the start of our regular league season back 1 week with a start the week of 3/30 and all teams playing by 4/4 weekend. We will hold off on releasing schedules until 3/23 instead of next Monday. This being said, we are also prepared to cancel tournaments and push season back to make sure these kids get an opportunity to play their developmental league games. We will do our best to give every league team an opportunity for at least one local tournament but again, our priority will be getting these kids their league games. 

As for the 3/21 tournament and other events, we will have to wait and see what schools and city leadership decide on postponing things. They have a tough job but we all must put the health and well being of others first. If this means postponing things and adjusting our schedules, we will sure make that happen.

NOTE: IF ANY COACH OR PARENT HAS ANY TROUBLES REGISTERING PLEASE SEND EMAIL WITH DETAILS TO WTYBA@HOTMAIL.COM

COACHES: ALL COACHES WORKING WITH TEAM  YOU NEED TO REGISTER WITH YOUR TEAM ON WEST TEXAS. JUST CLICK THE "GREEN REGISTER NOW TAB", CHOOSE COACH REGISTRATION, AND THEN FIND YOUR TEAM AND COMPLETE THE FROM. WE ARE STILL WAITING ON FINAL DETAILS FOR THE NEW BACKGROUND REQUIREMENTS THROUGH USSSA. I WILL GET THAT INFO TO ALL TEAMS AS SOON AS I GET WORD. THAT BEING SAID, WE WILL BE USING THE COMPANY WE'VE ALWAYS USED-"PROTECT YOUTH SPORTS" STARTING NEXT WEEK IF THEY DON'T HAVE IT WORKED OUT. WE PROCESS OVER 500 FOR SPRING SEASON AND THAT TAKES US A LOT OF TIME.

PARENTS:YOU MUST REGISTER YOUR KID ON YOUR PERSPECTIVE TEAM. IT'S SIMPLE AND MUST BE DONE BY THE PLAYERS LEGAL GUARDIAN. JUST CLICK THE "GREEN REGISTER NOW TAB", CHOOSE PLAYER REGISTRATION, AND THEN FIND YOUR PLAYERS TEAM AND COMPLETE THE FROM.

THANKS, ROB

7U-14U 2020 SPRING LEAGUE INFORMATION SHEET

7U-14U TEAM BLACKOUT FORM

2020 TOURNAMENT SCHEDULE

TEAM TRYOUTS

OFFICE ADDRESS 
13980 Buffalo Airport Rd

MAILING ADDRESS & PHONE:
PO BOX 20559

AMA 79114 

806-670-3164
EMAIL:

westtexasyouthbaseball@gmail.com

GENERAL INFORMATION

Parks: Violation of city park rules will result in suspensions. Please review rules at parks. Here's a few key issues that create problems

1. No pets inside any of the complexes.

2. No bikes, skateboards, scooters, hover boards, etc. This has become a problem. Please make sure parents know and share with family and friends.

3. Never park on developed grass areas. 

4. Of course no alcohol or smoking at any field. Coaches remember this at practices in regards to alcohol. Hate to even mention but actually have had to deal with this and it's not a good situation.

5. Trash: We have a great relationship with all facility owners and part of that is because we always take care of the facilities. Never leave trash in stands or dugouts. Also when using score huts, if we don't follow written rules posted inside we will lose the ability to use them.

Please remember our league rule of borrowing or adding a player for a league game. You can borrow any player from a team in your age, or a player that’s 1 year younger as long as you clear it with the kid’s regular team and follow league rule by batting him last and can’t pitch (9-14’s). You can also add players to your regular league roster as long as they are eligible through USSSA AND the kid’s parent registers them for your team on wtyba.com and you add them to your USSSA roster. No player can participate in any West Texas Youth Baseball event without being added as stated above first. If a coach is found to be breaking this rule they will be suspended for the remainder of the season and possibly banned from the program. Sorry if this seems harsh, but we have 120 teams and are very limited with our field situation so there's not much room for changes.