This morning (Monday, July 22, 2024) kicks off Bracket Play at the 2024 edition of the PGF Nationals after two days of Pool Play for the 18U and 16U Premier and Platinum Divisions.

The weather has been what you’d expect— bright, sunny and warm—for Southern California at this time, but there has been one major factor impacting opening weekend of play… and it’s not specific to PGF, but is instead a national mess that has impacted people everywhere… the computer glitch that happened last Thursday that is STILL impacting people several days later.

The travel industry, especially the airlines, has perhaps been the most affected and that has trickled down to travelers nationwide including many who were stuck last Thursday, Friday, Saturday and even yesterday, Sunday, and not able to make it to So Cal for the beginning of PGF.

I personally had my flight delayed on Friday by over two hours and it made me late to that evenings PGF coaches dinner by 45 minutes.

CNN.com reported today that the “computer update problem caused more than 5,000 flight cancellations around the world,” with “Atlanta-based Delta canceled 1,500 flights on Friday, or more than a third of its schedule.”

The glitch impacted flights all over the country, including Hawaii. I have a friend, Shannon, who was scheduled to fly from Honolulu Sunday evening to make it to PGF for the start of Bracket Play today.

However, late last night, her flight was cancelled just hours before it was supposed to take off. She looked into alternatives and the best Delta could do was get her on a Tuesday evening flight.

Personal opinion alert: when an industry like airline travel cancels you, it should do its best to remedy the situation and that didn’t seem like the case when Shannon looked into same-day (Sunday pm) flights and they were over $2,000!

More directly to the softball world, I spoke on Friday and Saturday with club coaches who said three, four and even five players were stuck at home because of the travel mess.

One example is the Georgia Impact Sampson/Gusaeff 18U team.

The roster has 14 players on it but in a pool game on Saturday, the team led by Head Coach Brett Sampson only had NINE players to take the field. Players like pitcher Morgan Reimer were forced to play shortstop and other positions they rarely if ever played.

“We have kids stuck at home,” Assistant Coach Scotty Lowrey said on Saturday, “and we’re just hoping they can get here in the next day or two to join us for the start of bracket play.”

This wasn’t an isolated incident, either; I talked to probably a half dozen head coaches of club teams at the 18U and 16U divisions and they were experiencing the same things. Interestingly, half of them were from Georgia, which makes sense when you consider the Delta mess (the airline is based in Atlanta).

The computer glitch, considered the “largest IT outage in history, and “that was caused by the CrowdStrike, shut down an estimated 8.5 million computers running Windows software worldwide, disrupting hospital operations, package deliveries, banking and retail transactions.”

Hopefully, most players and their families that were originally grounded have been able to make it over the past couple days but there is a very sad story that apparently won’t have a happy ending.

Andee Dircks is a talented 2024 grad who has signed with Michigan and plays for the Unity 18U – Betsa/Hebert team. From South Carolina, she and her parents had their flights cancelled and drove to Atlanta to try and catch a plane to California on Friday, but nothing was available.

PGF Nationals would have been the first time this Summer that both her parents would have seen her play together but that dream was smashed when the best flights they could find initially were upwards of $2,800.

The family was forced to cancel its plans to fly cross-country to So Cal to play at PGF Nationals… what a crappy way to end the summer for the talented player and her family.

I’ve been to every edition of the PGF Nationals, which is 15 years old in 2024 but was cancelled in 2020 because of the COVID pandemic.

Fortunately, the computer glitch situation hasn’t had that wide-ranging of an impact, but it has for some in our softball community.

Let’s hope the folks responsible for letting this happen gets their act together and this doesn’t ever happen again.

But for some of our softball friends, the damage is already done.

Brentt Eads/Line Drive Softball