The fall rec season will run from Labor Day through Thanksgiving.

10U and up will participate in interleague play with other local USA South Bay leagues, which will be a great experience for our players. Field practices will be held on weeknights at Alta Vista Park, and they will begin at 6:00pm or later due to AYSO’s priority over field space at Alta Vista during the fall. Cages are still available to us anytime and therefore cage practices might be earlier than 6:00pm. Games will be doubleheaders against other local leagues, either on Saturdays or Sundays, and either at Alta Vista or traveling to other local leagues within LA County. The schedule will be managed by USA Softball. Rec Teams will have the option to joing the LA South Bay “Turkey Tournament” around Thanksgiving (NOTE: the fee for that tournament is not included in the registration price – about $50 per player).

8U and down will not participate in the LA/SB league. We have found in the past that the travel and doubleheaders associated with LA/SB are too much during fall for the younger kids. Instead, we’ll keep our youngsters local and schedule games in-house and against Beach and El Segundo and maybe other local leagues. Some games will be at Alta Vista while others will be at local fields in the South Bay. We will run 6U (with outs, like we did in spring), 7U (machine pitch for fall only), and 8U (kid pitch) this fall if there are enough kids who sign up. 5U will take the fall off and return in Spring 2025.

Cheer for the players when they make a good play but cheer louder for them for displaying admirable effort even if they don’t succeed, and cheer loudest of all when a player displays outstanding sportsmanship. We handed out hardware for outstanding sportsmanship last fall and last spring, and we’ll do it again this year. We are building character through softball.

Thus, it is our expectation that you will always model good and positive sportsmanship while at our fields and games. This includes positive cheering from the stands or from the dugout if you are coaching, respect at all times for our umpires, and refraining from criticizing or yelling at players, coaches, umpires, or fans. Don’t forget that the players see and hear us when we yell/scream/criticize someone or otherwise embarrass yourself and the league. Be a role model!

Sunset has a zero tolerance policy for instances of unsportsmanlike conduct. Our Board’s disciplinary committee investigates every instance of unsportsmanlike conduct that comes to our attention and hands down an appropriate consequence to the offending party if the allegation is sustained. This is true even if the allegation is made against a coach, manager, sponsor, or board member. It is a privilege to be a part of the Sunset community, not a right, and extreme or repeated instances of unsportsmanlike conduct will result from expulsion from the league.

Defensive face guards are required for all infielders in all divisions. You can read more about this important issue here. Incidents where players are injured in the face playing softball happen constantly, and Sunset is a leader on this important safety issue. Thank you for your support and cooperation.

Everything from uniforms and softballs to umpires and USA fees keep rising, and as a non-profit we need to charge enough to continue to run our program. Registration fees go towards all sorts of things: uniforms, USA Softball player registration, adult background checks, league registration fees, umpire fees, clinics, and softballs, sportsmanship medals, materials for events like the trunk or treat, plus the inevitable miscellaneous costs.

Early Bird: $248 + $20 RBUSD fee (ends July 31)
Regular: $338 + $20 RBUSD fee (August 1-18)
Late/Waitlist: $428 + $20 RBUSD fee (Beginning August 19 until full/close, if space is available)

This past year was an odd one – we had a USA Softball age cutoff change, and we rolled out two new divisions (5U and 7U). Thus, we were very lenient last year with play ups.

Beginning in Spring 2025, we will return to our historical rule: a player must evaluate in the top 15% of the play-up division in order to be eligible to play up. Since we are not doing evaluations for fall, we will allow play ups this fall if your player played on a Gold All-Star team this summer for the age that they would play in Fall 2024. (Thus, if your player played on the 8U Gold All-Star team, they can play up into 10U for fall only. In Spring, an 8U player would have to evaluate in the top 15% of 10U players in order to play up. So if there are 80 kids evaluating in 10U, then your player would have be ranked by the evaluators as one of the top 12 players in 10U in order to be eligible to play up).

You can consult the 2024-25 USA Softball age chart here.

We will NOT run evaluations for fall ball. We will consider coach and friend requests, but the coaches will form the teams at a live draft and will be encouraged to but will not be required to honor friend requests.

We will run a “Fall Stars” program this fall which will include several weekend tournaments in November and December. Tryouts for “Fall Stars” will be held over the weekend of August 24-25. We’ll form more than one team if possible, but in 2024 we had only one team per division. “Fall Stars” is only open to players who also participate in Fall Ball Rec and who are not playing travel ball. Fall Stars is a separate program from Fall Ball and will have additional fees to pay for their uniforms, equipment, and tournaments. Interested players should submit their interest here.