Boston West Coed Softball is a fun and competitive adult coed slow-pitch softball league in the greater Boston, Newton, and Waltham area. They have teams and players from novice to advanced levels of play, A, B, C and D divisions, with A being the most competitive. All games are umpired. I had the pleasure of winning two titles in three years, we won in the fall 2005 D Division and fall 2006 C division. This fall our team, The Angry Pandas, is taking a shot at the A division. If you would like to know more feel free to contact me. We're currently looking for experienced female players. read more

Boston West Coed Softball League - Amateur Sports Teams Near Me

Having had quality, well-run and communicative experiences playing in social seasons with BSSC and SBS, I was anxious to see what BWCSL had in store with their Sunday Funday slow-pitch action. In addition to the least flowy acronym, Boston West has the most overpriced, imbalanced and poorly managed leagues of the three. The league price is incredibly expensive and completely non-inclusive. No equipment, no ump fees, no T-shirts, no shit. Fine, I guess, if you still have that clay-tinted Pirates uni from the company softball tourney three years back, but not if you're signing up for a casual league and a good time. Speaking of no. No fun! When our captain registered us, he explicitly explained that most of the team had never played before and that we were looking for the least competitive division. The "commish" suggested the Sunday league, which, as luck would have it, is not tiered at all. We ended up being pitted against squads ranging from silent but deadly diamond demons to all-stars from the MA Women's Penal League. Couple these glowing traits with the broad application of Boston's city limits (some games played in Waltham and Hyde Park) and more than few late cancellations, and you've got a season worth forgetting. Only I can't forget. It was pretty bad. read more

This is my 3rd season as a captain for a team in this league. The league is overpriced and disorganized. The guy who runs it really doesn't care about communication and makes you pay EXTRA for the HORRIBLE umpires he gets to sometimes show up to games. Thsi season we played 3 games without umpires. There is one really annoying umpire with a giant beer belly who shows up and sucked the fun right out of recreational softball. He truly is a buzz kill. He yells at you if you leave a bat on the ground. It's like playing for a JV girls softball team umped by the bitter guy who wasn't chosen to ump the varsity team. they never call or email when games are canceled. when they do call games due to rain or forfeit, it's usually 20 minutes after the game has started.... and it's usually in the form of an email from some random guy who runs the website. if you do happen to get the guy who runs the league on the phone for any problem you might have, be prepared to listen to him tell you he is missing his children's sporting events and other activities for the league and is doing his best. i really dont want to hear the sob stories. if you TAKE 700 bucks from each team then we are paying you to provide a service.... not listen to you say you're missing your kids events for us. if you cant handle it, don't do it. its a waste of money. the fields suck and you usually end up playing at some field in Hyde Park with marshlands in the outfield ,... takes about 45 minutes to get there from anywhere. ill find a better league next time. gave this one 3 shots and its really been a true disappointment. read more

Let's just say I was not impressed with this league at all. It's seriously disorganized (they make the schedule as the season progresses) and over-priced for what you get, which isn't much. Some major annoyances: you have to provide your own bases and game balls, pay umpire fees before each game ($2 per person), and you don't even get a stupid t-shirt. Furthermore, the fields are not very easy to get to (South Boston, Newton, Hyde Park). Definitely not T accessible. Then to top it all off, the Sunday League is an Open League. This means you end up playing teams full of former jocks trying to relive their days of high school baseball glory or semi-androgynous former collegiate softball players (not for the feint of heart). Our team has been mercy-ruled on several occasions, but we are improving! Apparently the week-night league is organized according to skill level, which I wish we had done. Hindsight is always 20/20. At least we had fun, right guys? read more

This league is good, laid back and fun. It is however poorly run and the head of it will talk your ear off if you let him about stuff that doesn't have anything to do with the issue at hand. Paying umpire fees before every game really is a pain in the ass and should not be each team's responsibility. Going to Hyde Park to play sucks, the fields are not in good condition generally and if you ever slide without long socks or a sliding guard you will lose your leg from infections. The people in the league are generally light hearted about it and umpires are hit and miss. But being able to play under lights in the summer in Allston and Brighton, gotta take what you can get. It's good, not great. Definitely could be better, but still a fun time to be had. read more

This is a great league. I have played during the summer over the past 5 years. The league is competitive but no team takes it too seriously allowing everyone to have a great time. Our games are mostly played in Brighton, Medford, Watertown, Cambridge. If you are looking to put a team together I would definitely suggest this league. I play for The Shockers (Green Team) and we are usually in the top 4 teams or so but have not been able to put together a championship. We like to hang our hat on being the funnest team out there. read more

this might be the most poorly run sports league in the history of sports, save the XFL. The commish, Dan Doria, has TERRIBLE organization, some examples below... -the schedule is released only a few weeks at a time, and changes to field location, date, and/or time are often made at the last minute. If you like stuff planned out, you're S.O.L. -calling games due to rain happens at the last minute and there usually is no notice given to teams, they only find after the fact. I dont know why its so hard to say its been raining all day and supposed to rain all night, maybe we should cancel the games today and let ppl now not to waste their time. Two of the best lines Ive ever heard come from the wife of the commish "Well its not raining here in Canton so I dont see why the games would be cancelled." Maybe that would be ok if all the fields were in Canton but they arent, some are quite a ways away in fact. My personal favorite is "The weather radar map is not accurate, go to the fields and see if they are playable." I had no idea the radar was so innacurate, maybe we should tell the national weather service they are wasting their time. Also, shouldnt it be the leagues job to see if the fields are playable, not the teams? -Game balls may or may not be provided for you. This season, Fall '08, most teams were not given game balls. -There usually is no notice given when your opponent forfiets. Lets say you have a 3:00 game on sunday, at 3:10 no one from the other team is there, you call the commish, Dan Doria, the usual response is "oh, team X forfieted that game." you might reply with something like "well how am I supposed to know that, were you planning on telling anyone?" Dan replies with something like "Oh geez, I guess I forgot to call you." -there is no regulation on what skill level teams are in. many teams sandbag into lower divisions just so they can win every game. Dont you think after 30 years of running a softball league you could tell what division a team belongs in? Even if you were (are) that dumb, wouldnt scores of 35-5 every game set off some kind of alarms? -most of the umpires are terrible, have never umpired before, and probably never even seen a rule book in their life. Some umpires are good, if you are lucky enough to have one of the younger guys who play in the league as your umpire. read more

I never made it as far as playing in this league due to my bad experience with the clown who runs it named Dan Doria. This guy is a Waltham fireman who apparently does the league as his side business, and he treats it that way. After many attempts at arranging a time to buy some bases from him (which is mandatory to play in the league) I was told to go the firehouse on Lake St. after he starts his shift at 6:00 pm. Thinking that they're firemen and would be up anyway, I showed up at 10 pm and he became irate, swearing at me, using the "F" word repeatedly. "Do you know what time it is? It's after "effing" 10:00! This isn't my home, it's my place of work!" He ultimately refused to give me the bases I was there to buy from him. My advice to you is to find another league to play in. It might be convenient to play in Waltham, but it won't be worth the aggravation of having to deal with this jerk, ever. And apparently I'm not the only one who thinks so: http://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=HF7_r3KjwsXCR090fmn9EQ I can only hope that he doesn't get this upset when he gets a call at midnight to save someone. "Do you know what time it is!" Thanks for reading. Rob. W read more

Played a season in this league a few years ago and the poor reviews are pretty accurate. Luckily my teammates were cool people, but the league commish is kind of "eccentric" to say the least. I've been playing BSSC coed for the last few years and I have no plans in switching. read more

After reading the reviews some are accurate but some are also dated. We have been in the midweek league for 5 years now and I am the captain. The schedule is released in chunks as the season progresses. And you do have to provide bases and shirts (balls are provided but they send out an email saying to go see so-and-so umpire at such-and-such time. The midweek leagues are separated by skill, but even so some teams in the league teams are too good for it and some teams are too bad for it. Technically drinking alcohol is not allowed. But almost every team openly drinks beers and most umps don't care, although a few do say its not allowed. Most teams are pretty chill and laid back. The fields are hit it miss. There is a crappy one in Hyde Park that everyone hates, but there are also some beautiful fields in Charlestown (with an all turf field) and fields in the river and at Cleveland circle that are fun to play at under the light. They have gotten better about calling games for rain via email by 4pm so people don't have to trek out to the fields only to have the game called. Only once have we had an issue with an umpire not showing, but I called the commissioner and he had someone there in 30 minutes. And only once did a team not show and we didn't receive a call first from the commissioner. Speaking of the commissioner he will talk your ear off when you call him. He has a few minions who send out the league emails and they are all good to deal with over email. Overall we like the league, and the value is good when you consider they have a double elimination playoff format (we played 5 playoff games and only made to semi finals). read more

I was a captain of a team last year and was very disappointed with how the league was run. It was poorly organized, teams were of variable levels, fields were everywhere from cambridge to dedham and the fees were rather expensive. Not to mention the field quality was quite poor and the person running the league was also incredibly unhelpful. The league would benefit greatly from having an email list, updated website and helpful commissioner unfortunately none of these exist. The league structure is also very poor, 8-10 teams in A, 8-10 in B, 50+ in C and 30+ in D. The league we played in (C) was highly variable and scores ranged from 2-1 to 36-0. In addition our team received 3 ffts out of our 8 games and 3 others that might as well have been ffts. The rainout policy is a joke (call Dan 1 hr before the game to make sure its on), a group wide email would be much more practical and having a call time of like 5pm for all games would also be great. All in all I would spend a little extra and play in the BSSC leagues where the fields are maintained, the refs above average and the teams more friendly. The money is well worth the league structure and organization. read more

What can I say here that hasn't been said? The guy who runs the league is incredibly disorganized. They call rainouts at the last minute (literally as games should be starting) and don't inform the captains. They use terrible fields, and don't put in any effort to try to do a little work to them to make them playable when they are borderline. I'm pretty sure he's afraid of the internet. One Sunday had a series of emails confirming the games were going to be played, followed by one cancelling them (they took the phone off the hook that day so they stopped getting angry calls). When you call them, the league number is the guy's house. God forbid if you don't get him, it's like you had the nerve to call to find out if it is a rainout. Spend $20 on a burner cell phone and get a number just of the league, man. I always got the impression that any time I called them or interacted with the league, it was like they were doing me a favor by running the league, that I was putting them out to ask for my games that got rained out to be rescheduled. Oh, yes, the schedule, that comes out one or two weeks at a time. Some weeks you'd find out you Sunday game time on Tuesday or Wednesday. Madness. So why still two stars? Most of the other teams were fun and laid back, except when the Sunday league is played as one division and not upper/lower divisions. Some of the higher end teams can be dicks (someone one tried to get me out going back to first after I rounded the bag on an outfield single when they were already up 20-1, then flipped out because one of our players slid into second on a close play), but the average beer league team like us was a lot of fun. Also, it seems like someone has now started to help them run the league, and she's sending out a lot of emails and from the looks of it trying to run it better. But I don't know for sure, because we left the league and went to The Hub for a much better experience. Also, you do get a lot of games for your money in Boston West (compared to BSSC or Social Boston Sports), but no t shirts. And that Hyde Park field is scary. Puddles the size of the harbor when it rains, dirt like concrete, and your entire team will get lost finding the field, even if it is the 30th game you've played there. read more

I have played in both the BSSC and Boston West for the past 8 years. Boston West is the more competitive league, particularly in the A and B divisions, with better overall value. You get more games each season for the same or less money than BSSC and no additional membership fees. BSSC has the big advantage in organization and customer interface. BSSC has a local office in Brighton with a very user friendly website and league hotlines for game day updates. If you are new to league sports I would recommend BSSC but once you have been playing awhile you have to make the move to Boston West. read more

This is my first year in the league and so far my experience has been terrible. I would suggest paying a little more money to join the much better organized BSSC league. Below are some of my major critiques. League Divisions and Scheduling: The league is divided into 4 Divisions based on "skill level". However this yr it broke down to 8 teams in A, 8 in B, 43 in C! and 50 in D!!! My team played in the C league and we have found the competition incredibly variable. In addition, due to the large number of teams the schedule is usually random (regardless of preferred days or times) and updated about a week before the games. Forget planning your schedule ahead of time or trying to change a game, as that is not possible. This can lead to some frustrating conflicts and even weekend games (even if you signed up for a week night league). Rain Out Policy: This is one of the biggest drawbacks to the league. Dan's policy is to have only the captains call an hour before EVERY game to make sure that both the weather and the fields are ok for play. Not only is this inconvenient to the team but to the captain as well, as he/she has to get in touch with all their players ASAP. In addition, there have been 2-3 times where we would show up at the field (after calling 45 mins before) to find puddles and, upon calling Dan back, finding out that the game has since been canceled. Granted this summer has been very rainy but a different policy or use of a group email (that they use for random notifications instead) would make everything go much smoother. Field Quality/Umpires: Both of these can vary greatly, some fields are decent and some are terrible. In addition, games can be played anywhere from Charlestown to Brighton to Newton to West Roxbury so be prepared to travel and endure rush hour traffic. Umpires are genuinely ok in my experience and not too terrible but again they can be a mixed bag. Commissioner: Dan is an incredibly long-winded, stubborn, and disorganized commissioner. He has yet to utilize the internet for league notification (by far the easiest method to get in touch with everyone these days), as he states "I have been doing this thing for 30 years and it has worked fine so far". In addition, he fails to put the entire year's schedule online at the beginning of the season, which makes it very difficult to predict when or where you will play. He has no tolerance for any critiques of the league or attempts to reschedule any conflicted games (unless you tell him 6 weeks early that your whole team may be attending a red sox game, I heard that line about 7 times). and overall makes it very difficult to run a team. Overall, while Dan may promise to be incredibly accommodating in the beginning, he gets increasingly difficult to deal with as the league goes on. That and the amount of disorganization and confusion make the league more annoying than the savings are worth. read more

The reviews for this league seem to be more a collection of stories about how terrible the commissioner is than anything else. Having dealt with him, I can understand why; I'm honestly not creative enough to imagine somebody being as much of an incompetent jerk as this guy is. Some of my horror stories before I left for a better league: He put us on Connell (the worst field in the league, for us) for almost all of our games, even after we explicitly requested to not play there (and requested nothing else), and got angry with me when I asked if we could move games (he claimed he didn't notice our signup form said we didn't want to play there, and put us there because "you played there before.") He eventually agreed to not schedule us to any more games there, an agreement he actually remembered for almost a month. When I asked if he could move the game, he yelled at me and hung up. Then immediately called me back; I didn't pick up, but he left an angry message about how great his league is. Another good one: the forfeit line isn't listed on the website anywhere. When I was out of town and my co-captain had to forfeit, he called it in late, because I was on an airplane and couldn't promptly relay him the phone number. After Commissioner Dan cursed at him for a while, he hung up and called *me* (then at the airport) to yell at me about it. Good times. It's always fun when you talk to him (it's amazing how often you have to, since he never gets anything right the first try) and he cuts you off to yell at his kids. I don't envy their lot in life. The league is also inept in more standard ways; we've had umpireless games, as well as games with too many umpires. Rainouts usually involve the cancellation line saying the game is on, showing up at the field, seeing that it's unplayable, and calling again, only to be insulted for some reason. No effort is made to enforce the different skill levels; we played in D, but the B games I saw had pretty much the same level of play. We've had night games with the lights off, and ended up taking almost an hour to remedy the situation. All in all: Wow. This league is just awful. read more

I play a lot of co-rec sports. This is easily the poorest run and most disorganized of them all. Games never run on time, the fields are terrible and the league does NOTHING to shape them up after weather. It is a royal pain to have to haul bases around, and while you're doing that, you might as well keep your bag stocked with plenty of game balls since the umpires are never provided with enough. The guy that "runs" the league is often rude if and when you can get ahold of him, and his "hot line" is a joke. The bottom line is that the guy owns the permits, so he corners quite a lot of the market. There is no upside to this league. My advice is to play with BSSC or EMAAC. At least they are professional. read more

This league is overpriced and completely disorganized. The guy that runs it must makes a fortune off of it, b/c he doesn't seem to care at all after he gets your league fee. He is unreachable and never checks his email. My team received an email at 11pm on a Saturday night detailing the times and locations of the next day's playoff games... ridiculous! The fields are ALL OVER Boston, and not easy to get to for those that don't have a car. For those that do have a car, prepare to spend 45 minutes on average driving to Hyde Park to one of the most inaccessible locations know to man. I understand field space is at a premium in a major city, but there are other options. The league commissioner clearly books the cheapest fields and schedules times at his leisure with little concern for players and teams convenience. I'm going to stick to the well organized EMAAC league going forward. read more

Poorly managed, terrible fields, lack of communication, less than adequate umpires (for the most part)... and all this for $700-$900 per team! What a bargain! NOT! Save your money and your sanity and look elsewhere. Try the Hub Softball League, www.hubsoftball.com. I played in the fall league (there are weeknight,. Friday & Sunday leagues as well) and it was run better and they actually provided shirts and decent umpires. Also, they will schedule your games so that you play in the area you request. read more

We've had a blast over the 10+ years we have played in the BWCS. Sure some of the fields are in less than great shape (but they have really made some good strides here in the last few years), the umpires are for the most part very good with a few exceptions and the league has every level of competitiveness. read more

Boston West Coed Softball is a fun and enjoyable league that offers several divisions to choose from. We have been in the league for 12+ years and depending on our team have played in the B - D divisions in both he Summer and Fall. We have won a few championships and have had some losing years, but the games are for the most part always a good time. You can expect to play any night during the week, but the owner works with the teams to schedule games based on your preferences (field locations or days/times) and avoiding dates you tell him you cannot play. While it's impossible to please all of the people all of the time, he does ask your input on how he can make the league better. The flexibility he provides is a big reason we have remained in this league for so long. read more

Been on numerous teams since 1997 in this league. Have also captained many teams in the league. Ive also played in the Hub and BSSC as well. You get more games for less money in Boston West and plenty of divisions to choose from to make sure you get the right level of competitiveness. If you want to play Coed Boston West is the best of the 3. Seems like most people would rather over pay and then complain about this league cause they don't get a crappy TShirt, read more