I hate American Legion baseball

What Legion does better than anyone, at least in our state, is its all-star program. By the time they reach the East-West Game, there's a full complement of pro scouts on hand for the workouts (60, throws from outfield, etc.) and the "simulated" game.

Legion's still a big deal here. I think what some don't see is that it takes so long to get really decent weather in the spring, the high school season is relatively short. The kids are ready to play some more baseball by the time that's over.

 

I'm betting the Capitol-Journal didn't bite.

Yeah, the only team entered was from Topeka. Pittsburg was host and even it's own team chose to enter a different tourney.

 

Sounds kinda like Woodward, Okla. Or it least that's how serious Woodward was about it when I was living in Garden City.

 

It could probably be a lot of teams in Okla, Nebraska, etc. But this one was in Kansas; where there's nothing going on but Legion baseball.

 

We have two Legion teams in our county, we staff all of their games and have to do MLB-style boxes for everyone of them. With all the high scoring, that is quite a time-consuming chore.

Here's the kicker. One of the teams has two different AM radio stations that broadcast all of their games home and away. There is a lot of interest (half-and-half winner took home $515 last night for a home game) and both stations sell enough ads to both keep doing it.

By a prior definition, I must work in the most boring town in America.

 

Oh, hell, it's all relative. If there's enough interest in there to bring in $515 on 50-50, then you've got to have a crowd which at least brings some buzz into the game.

Very little of what you do out there is Yankees-Red Sox. Doesn't mean it's not good sport.

 

Legion ball at least gives us at least two local stories a day pretty much to put in the section during a time - the summer - in which small papers rely heavily on wire copy. it's a pain to cover a lot of the time due to how the length of games pushes deadline, but it at least gives us something to write about during the summer when all of the feature ideas have been tapped out.

 

Petrie, K-Falls rocks!

I covered a lot of Legion baseball at my old job, they had a lot of doubleheaders because of the distance between the cities/teams. The office was three blocks from the ballpark (this is in the old days, before portable computers that were really portable).

I'd cover the opener, get quotes, etc. head back to the office, write about 250 words, then come back. By then the nightcap was often in the third or fourth inning, and I'd catch up from the radio guy. Made it bearable.

The press box at the site of the state tournament one year had a vending machine that also distributed PBRs. That made postgame dictation very interesting.

Luckily I do very, very little AL baseball anymore, and I don't miss it at all. The Area Code games and other all-star events are slowly killing it so in another 10 years it won't matter. The Portland area just quit American Legion altogether and formed its own league, with far fewer games.

 

The worst part for me is that none of these kids are even college-level talent. Well, the really good ones in the league go D-3 and some kids "try to walk on" at D-3 schools, but blech. A routine ground ball to third might as well be chalked up an E5.

 

The problem is, finding enough teams with arm depth using Legion rules. The reason so many players play select ball instead of Legion down here in the La-Tex region is that you can't put together "super" teams in Legion without trampling over league rules. You are basically allowed to have one large high school (3k students) worth of players. That means, if you are a Texas 5A, for example, the 4-5 guys who threw the bulk of the varsity innings, then you have a bunch of guys with JV experience.

Four-team tournaments are more doable. Texas prep baseball does best-of-3 series up to the state tournament (Final 4? Maybe a Texan can help me). Both of those formats allow you to lean on those same 2-3 pitchers you've leaned on all year.

 

What I've noticed here in the Gulf South, the emergence of high-level high school baseball has relegated summer leagues to serving the same roles they serve in other team sports — as showcase time for the prospects and off-season rec leagues for the rank and file.

In the early 80s and earlier, it wasn't unusual for schools down here not to have teams. Now, baseball is huge down here. It's a draft hotbed. Most schools have baseball coaches as opposed to assistant football coaches who babysit a baseball team in the spring. There's a cottage industry of ex-player/coaches who open private businesses as personal instructors for players.

The good prep baseball programs in Louisiana play close to 40 or more regular-season games and 25 or so JV games. By the time summer rolls around, a lot of pitchers have thrown as many innings as the coaches want them to throw. So instead of playing Legion, they take time off, then join a select team later in the summer after the arms "recover" from the abuse they took during the prep season (and it seems all the good arms get abused).

The good hitters also play select and go to tournaments where they say they never see a fastball less than low-80s, so they come out knowing what "the next level" is like. Legion is left with the guys who need to get some at-bats because next year, they might make the varsity roster if they work hard and stay after practice to water the grass.

Now, summer baseball is very much like basketball has always been. You play your high school season, then the good ones play competitive select (usually AAU) ball and the average ones play in the local AAU league where the high school coach makes them go through the motions of the offense they'll be running the next season.

And it's like football, where the studs are going to one showcase camp after another while the average players are back home playing 7-on-7. And in places where 7-on-7 is REAL big, there are no showcases the week of the "big" 7-on-7 tournament, so all the studs can come back in play in the big event.

 

I'd seriously have to reconsider my job as a sportswriter if I had to cover a 7-on-7 summer league football game. An Arena League for prep football.