On behalf of the FHLL President, Paul Murphy and the FHLL Board of Directors--Welcome to Spring 2011 FHLL Baseball!  First, and foremost, we want you to feel comfortable and know that our number one priority is your son or daughter's safety and well-being while playing baseball--oh, and FUN too.  Please be confident in knowing that your baseball coaches have been trained and are experienced in coaching and more importantly will make the right safety decisions for your child.  We have empowered our coaches to be safety officers as well and they have undergone safety training with FHLL.  Our safety philosophy can be summed up with the acronym A.C.T.--Assess the environment for risks/hazards any time we practice or play; Consider options to mitigate or reduce that risk/hazard; and finally, Take the appropriate action to mitigate or reduce that risk/hazard.  Whether it's a young man swinging a bat without a helmet, lightning, heat illnesses or wasps we have it covered.  If for some reason the situation or environment doesn't look right, it probably isn't.  If you identify a hazard, please contact your coach immediately, as well as me, your safety officer.  I would ask that you please review our safety manual on the FHLL website (recently updated for 2011) and let me know how we can improve our safety program.  In the event your son or daughter is injured, your coaches will fill out a FHLL Accident report (Appendix B of the FHLL Safety Plan).  Some of our best ideas have come from you, the parent.  I would highly encourage that one of the parents become your team's "safety" parent and look for ways to improve your team's safety as well our league.  Whether it's from the players, parents, coaches, and/or the Board of directors--we owe it to our children to keep the playing environment and areas safe from as many hazards as possible so we can enjoy the great game of baseball!  Let's play ball...SAFELY.

Very Respectfully,

Mike Sundsted
2011 FHLL Safety Officer/Player Agent
240-338-9839
mdsundsted@gmail.com