WBA World Series

·         We utilize our WBA drop down system whereas all teams will receive seven games (weather permitting) and champions will be crowned in four to five levels of play - Platinum, Diamond, Gold, Silver, and Bronze (format may be altered dependant on the number of teams entered). All rostered players from all teams will receive an award of some type as long as they are present at the awards ceremony. We will not give awards to coaches for players not present, and we will not ship any awards.

With the cost of travel increasing and the economy in turmoil we realize that every dollar saved is important so we are please to bring you the following loyalty and promotional discounts. Most of the discounts have a deadline date and we will not extend them so if you plan to take advantage of one of our promotions please pay special attention to the deadline.

If your team qualifies for one of the discounts outlined below, enter the promotion code on your application and pay the discounted entry fee instead of the full entry fee. Promotions cannot be stacked, if eligible, only one discount per team can be applied.

La Plata, Maryland

NEW - Promo code: LA Plata Travel: This discount applies only to clubs and only to teams traveling to Maryland from another state and registers and pays by May 31st, 2010. If your club brings a minimum of four teams and you are coming from a state other than Maryland - you qualify for our Multi-Team Travel discount which is good for $125.00 off of the advertised entry fee representing a minimum club savings of $500.00 the four teams must submit their paid applications together and mail in the same envelope.

Promo code: SVA0057 - Any team from SVA (teams who play their league at SVA), who registers and pays by May 31, 2010 can deduct $50 from the advertised entry fee.

Promo Code MD9876: This discount only applies to teams that did not participate in an WBA World Series in 2009 but plan to utilize the Early Bird discount, and by paying your entry by February 1, 2009, you will receive a $150 discount which will reduce your entry fee to $545.00 (a savings of $150.00). Your application must be post-marked by February 1st - no exceptions.

Promo code: MD8u: Any 8U team that registers and pays by May 31, 2010 can deduct $100.00 from the advertised entry fee.

How the drop down format works`...

The WBA World Series will again feature our drop-down format during the 2010 Open World Series. This format insures that teams from all levels of play, from the strongest travel team to the mid-level recreational team, have a chance to be crowned National Champions.

We do not pre-qualify teams by forcing teams to play in "qualifying" tournaments; instead all teams are free to register regardless of your win/loss record and regardless to your National affiliation. Our drop down format will "qualify" teams into 3-5 levels of play during the initial round of play. You will be ranked by the results on the field in round one. If teams aren't playing the same schedule during the spring and summer it is virtually impossible to rank them into a balanced system that would allow teams to participate against teams of equal playing abilities. We feel our drop down format corrects that problem.

While many National organizations host World Series events for individual classifications of play (Major, Minor, AA, AAA, Elite, American, National, etc), we still feel there is a problem with most of these events. First, unless you play the same schedule, simply having similar records doesn't equate into parity among those teams. Second and most important is the politics that always seem to find their way into determining team’s levels of play. All too often strong teams seem to find their way into a lower level tournament which takes away any chance the teams that are legitimate within that classification have to win a World Series title.

Our format corrects the above problems. In round one there will be a few lopsided games. However, after round one based on the results on the field all teams are re-bracketed (depending on the number of teams), into three to five different brackets of play. These brackets are very balanced and every team within that bracket has an equal chance to win a World Series title. This format has been very, very well received by our teams.

Teams are bracketed geographically which simply means we try to keep teams away from each other in the initial round that may be from the same area back home. After round one seeding, all teams will be bracketed from number one to the last team based on the results on the field from the round one seeding games. Using a field of 32 teams as an example ... the top sixteen teams will play a one game playoff based on your seed to determine which eight teams will enter the top level of play (Platinum) and which eight will play in the second level of play (Gold). This is done to insure the top seeds weren't benefited by an easy round one pool or that the lower seeds weren’t hurt by a stronger than normal round one pool.

We do the exact same for the 17th-32nd teams with the top eight moving into the Silver level of play and the bottom eight entering into the Bronze level.

Once the teams have been placed into the appropriate brackets (Platinum, Gold, Silver, & Bronze) we will play bracket play to determine a champion in each level of play. At the completion of bracket play not only do we have a defined champion but all teams will be playing for a final place (i.e.: 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th, etc).

The above example was based on 32 teams per age, the actual number of teams may vary but the format will run close to what was described above.