CSS League Policies

Published by Evan Wagner

Jan 17, 2025

Chico Senior Softball League Policies
(Revised Jan 15, 2025)

1. Playing in Multiple Divisions:
League players can play in your division, based on your age, and any division that has a lower/younger age classification.
You cannot play in an older age classified division if you are playing in more than 1 division.

2. Playing in an Older Age Range Division:
If you choose you can play "Up" a division if you think that fits your skill level more appropriately, register for the division you'd like to play in. Once registered please email the Chico Senior Softball Board of Directors at [email protected] stating your intention to play in a division above your age classification & a brief explanation so the league is aware The CSS Board of Directors will follow-up with you should they have any questions.

3. Chico Senior Softball Refund Policy:
Please understand that players’ annual registration fees are used to facilitate the entire season in advance. This means player fees are used to help purchase team uniforms & hats, secure playing fields via contract, purchase CARD required liability insurance based on player counts, and more.
Effective beginning with the 2024 season the Chico Senior Softball (CSS) refund policy shall be as follows,
a. If a player sustains a season-ending injury within the first six scheduled games of the season, the player may request a refund.
b. Refunds will only be issued through your team’s 6th scheduled game. After your team’s 6th scheduled game refunds will not be issued.
c. If you would like a cash refund, then the refund amount shall be $60. ($30 if it’s a 2nd division.)
d. Or you can request to be issued a $100 credit towards the next season instead. ($50 if it’s a 2nd division.)
e. Players requesting a refund must formally request to be dropped, removed from the roster, of their current team.
If you would like to be dropped from the league (team) and be issued a refund, please contact any member of the CSS Board of Directors or email the board at [email protected].

4. Managers:
Managers are volunteers. Prior to each season an email will be sent to all CSS players soliciting volunteers to manage in the upcoming season. If there are more volunteers than available teams, the board will ask if any of the prospective managers will voluntarily drop out of the Manager position. If there are still too many managers, new managers will be given priority and the remaining managers will be selected by random draw.

5. League Draft and Player Team Placement:
Players are placed on teams each year via an annual draft for each division, held on different nights, a few weeks before the season begins. Nothing in the draft is based on the previous year's results.

The number of teams per division is based annually on the number of registered and paid players before the draft. Additional consideration is given to Chico Senior Softball Rule #31, which states that teams will have a maximum of 13 players per team.
Players must be registered with their league fees paid to be included in their division’s draft. Unregistered players, players with incomplete registrations, and players registered but unpaid will not be included in the draft.

For players that register after the draft, Chico Senior Softball will make the best efforts, but there is no guarantee those players registering after the draft can or will be placed on a team.

As per Rule #31, team’s managers are not required to accept new players if doing so will exceed a 13-player roster. This policy is to avoid the overloading of teams, which leads to reduced playing time for the existing players of those teams.

6. League Draft - Masters Division Only:
The Masters use a draft to determine teams. The draft will be held after the registration is closed and at least 1 week before the season begins. The draft will be as follows:
1. Each manager will be solely responsible for drafting his team. Any co-manager will be named after the team has been drafted.
2. The draft order will be determined by random draw and will be in a ‘serpentine’ format.
3. The managers will be ranked and assigned to their team in the appropriate round. The appropriate round will be one later than the ranking indicates. For example, if a manager is ranked in the 3rd round, then they will be slotted in the 4th and will be their team’s fourth round pick.
4. If all managers agree that ranking is not necessary, then there will be no seeding of the managers and drafting will be done using only 1. and 2. above.

NOTE: To support the managers’ drafting and facilitate #3 above, the 3 Masters Board members will rank all the players. That rankings will be averaged to create round by round player ranking (for a 4 team league players ranked 1-4 is round 1, 5-8 round 2, etc). The Board may solicit player rankings by others if needed.
Once the draft is complete, players may be traded. All trades need the approval of each Manager.

7. Team Shirts & Hats:
Each year Chico Senior Softball (CSS) will provide 1 team shirt and 1 hat for each player of each team up to the current maximum roster size at the time of the draft.

Any team that chooses to have custom shirts and/or hats are free to do so. No funds will be provided to those teams by CSS for those custom shirts and/or hats. CSS will still provide the typical CSS team shirts and hats to all teams. Teams that choose to get custom shirts and/or hats can then do with those CSS provided shirts and/or hats whatever they choose to do with them.