Aug 19, 2015 6 min read

Inside the baselines, the National Pro Fastpitch league offers softball fans a highly skilled, top-of-the-line product. The talent level is unmatched anywhere in the country.

Outside those lines, the NPF is run too much like a Sunday church league.

The NPF, which has been in existence since 1997, struggles to find the right mix of competitive softball and solid marketing. The stumbles hurt the league in gaining exposure, attracting fans and building the brand.

The following is a critique of those missteps.

The first hint the NPF is a step behind could be found on the league website.

If you clicked on the Standings tab two weeks into season, it showed a message that the team standings would be appearing soon. This in a five-team league.

This is a small foible compared to other problems.

The NPF season runs from the middle of May, when camps open, to the middle of August. That’s approximately 90 days to complete a 48-game season and a week-long championship series.

The early start to the season is a disadvantage to some teams, especially to the two newest franchises: the Pennsylvania Rebellion and Dallas Charge.

The first practice dates for the NPF land in the middle of the NCAA softball tournament, which is where most of the recently drafted players are still competing.

Craig Montvidas, the Rebellion’s first-year coach, conducted early practices with only a handful of players. Players trickled in – sometimes after the season began.

How is a manager to determine talent under those conditions? Maybe that’s why the Rebellion played their best softball in the second half of the season.

The USSSA Pride, Chicago Bandits and Akron Racers – the league’s most established teams – have a competitive advantage early in the season because their lineups are filled with veteran players who arrive at camp en masse.

It might be the early start is required because of time concerns, but the Rebellion had 32 off days once the season began: 16 in June, 12 in July and four in August.

Dallas had 28, Chicago 25, Akron 28 and the Pride 22. The Pride’s smaller amount of off days can be attributed to their later start in the season, June 6.

With a five-team league, scheduling can be tricky and days off are obviously necessary to make it work. But long periods off can be avoided by starting the season the first week of June.

Incredibly, the Rebellion were away from Consol Energy Park for a month: from June 10 to July 10. Three home games were played in central Pennsylvania in that span but 27 days away kills interest.

With expansion expected for 2016, the league might have an even amount of teams but the scheduling is a mess right now.

One of the bigger expenses of the league comes with securing umpires for the games. The NPF flies in some, gives lucrative mileage to those who wish to drive, houses them at nearby hotels for free and feeds them after games.

The league could save money by using local umpires but NPF commissioner Cheri Kempf said last year she wants to avoid any hint of parochialism.

That’s what makes what happened in a June 9 game between the Rebellion and Chicago one of the more embarrassing moments of the season.

The umpring crew didn’t know the rules.

The two teams were tied heading to the 10th inning, which is when the international tiebreaker system – starting each inning with a runner on second base – should be used.

Despite being asked twice about the rule in the 10th inning, the umpires failed to implement it.

The Rebellion lost the game in the 11th inning, protested to the league and won. The game was replayed from the 10th inning on three weeks later.

Would local crews do worse? Probably not.

Despite not having a team in Hoover, Ala., the NPF holds it championship series – the league’s version of the college world series – at Met Stadium, a beautiful stadium that seats 10,800.

Or about 9,000 more than needed for these games.

Crowds were so poor at the series that live scoring on the internet did not list the attendance.

Kempf said the site was chosen because it was a hotbed of softball interest.

She’s right, but that interest is reserved for Alabama and the rest of the SEC softball teams that come to play there.

Hoover, Ala., is 558 miles from Kissimmee, Fla., home of the Pride; 633 miles from Dallas, 703 from Akron and 732 from Washington.

The final game of the series, which pitted Chicago’s Monica Abbott against the Pride’s Cat Osterman, drew 1,140 fans.

Each team should have an opportunity to host.

Akron’s Sarah Pauly won her 100th career game, most in NPF history, this season. It might have been news to the league because the NPF records only go through the 2011 season on the website and listed her win total at 68.

Who’s second in wins? Third?

Who knows?

They can’t be found on the league’s website.

This might not seem like a big deal, but it exemplifies the problems the league has in marketing its star players to fans. Problems that could be erased with a little attention to detail or a summer intern with knowledge of computer design.

It’s indicative of the struggle of the NPF and why it still has Sunday church league status.

Assistant sports editor Joe Tuscano can be reached at jtuscano@observer-reporter.com