1. Welcome to SportsJournalists.com, a friendly forum for discussing all things sports and journalism.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register for a free account to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Access to private conversations with other members.
    • Fewer ads.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

I hate American Legion baseball

Discussion in 'Anything goes' started by kingcreole, Jul 26, 2008.

  1. Faithless

    Faithless Member

    American Legion baseball state tournaments take time and manpower away from what's really important - working on the football preview section.
     
  2. Faithless

    Faithless Member

    And I bet those old men were smoking in the dugout, too.

    Ever been to an American Legion post? The one we have here has a permanent cigarette odor to it. The smell was so bad at one time, a high school girl who visited the local post for a Girls State seminar couldn't handle it and became ill. I was there to do a story on the girls for a community news section, and damn near got sick, too.
     
  3. WS

    WS Member

    in my southeastern state, American Legion baseball is going the way of newspapers - all the good teams and good players are starting to play AAU baseball. The local legion team spends its midweeks playing teams of 15 and 16 year-olds while playing good tournaments away on the weekends.

    My fond memories of state tournaments include showing up, covering the games, seeing about 10 or 11 men 60 and older wearing their American Legion garb, all affiliated with one of the teams, and all walking around thinking they're God's gift to baseball and how dare you make any kind of suggestion on how to better run the tournament.

    They wonder why they don't get coverage when the state tournament's an hour away when the blind draw is at 1 p.m. the same day the tournament starts. Instead of games at 2 and 6, games are at 5 and 8, when our local team plays at 8, which we can't cover because of deadlines. Doesn't matter that first game score is 17-14

    The next day? Hell, bring out the winners at 10 a.m., not the losers. I'm fine with the level of play, but the good ole boys that run the show have run it into the ground. Sound familiar?
     
  4. kingcreole

    kingcreole Active Member

    Yes. I couldn't believe it. That was definitely a first for me, seeing that a Legion baseball game was being broadcast on the radio.
     
  5. 2muchcoffeeman

    2muchcoffeeman Well-Known Member

    Go west, young man. Lotsa Legion ball on the radio.

    At my first post-college newspaper job, a couple of the players' dads working as scorekeepers showed up for every game with tortilla chips and fresh homemade salsa. :)
     
  6. BrianGriffin

    BrianGriffin Active Member

    I always had a problem with Legion's insistence on playing 9-inning games in the post-season. You generally had 15-player teams (more or less). Maybe 4-5 decent arms on each team. You play an 8-team, double-elimination free-for-all with 9-inning games. Do the math.

    It's always been a formula for disaster for a pitcher's arm or a formula for a 17-10 game when teams start dipping down for pitcher No. 6 or 7 in the, ahem, rotation. Usually that means the starting second baseman is going to have to try to throw strikes on his first mound appearance since last year — and in the championship game (can you say "warm up our No. 1 on one-day's rest?")
     
  7. WS

    WS Member

    The legion team here has 18 players for tournaments - the coach has to have a cut list by July 1. Usually, all 18 of those have pitched at some point in their high school careers, but 5-6 are guys that would pitch at the next level, which for this bunch JUCO is normally the highest they'll get.

    The best thing my state did was go to a 4-team state tournament instead of 8. With the teams declining every year, the scores of the first two games of Day 1 were 17-14 and 12-8.
     
  8. shotglass

    shotglass Guest

    Legion ball's as good as high school ball here. Maybe a little more parity.

    The seven teams in my hometown's league finished within three games of each other.
     
  9. Smallpotatoes

    Smallpotatoes Well-Known Member

    Can anybody offer a good reason why Legion playoff games should be nine innings?
     
  10. shotglass

    shotglass Guest

    NO. Great point.
     
  11. 2muchcoffeeman

    2muchcoffeeman Well-Known Member

    When I was in high school in Florida, we had five high schools feeding one Legion program. I played about one inning a weekend but fuck it --- we won games, dammit. :D
     
  12. Appgrad05

    Appgrad05 Active Member

    We had the secondary town in our coverage area set up a legion team two years ago. We were all curious where they would get players from, because hs baseball in that county was notoriously bad. Turns out, they had a simple plan. They let the main town pick their players, then grabbed all the kids who couldn't make it. It was hilarious, and awful (I think the first time the two teams played, it was 21-3 or something similarly disgusting).
     
Draft saved Draft deleted

Share This Page