Legion Releases: Facts & Myths

Well I did not know that, thank you for telling me because I always thought that a player had to get a release "renewed" every year. So I'm assumming now that Zach Simpson who had to get a release from Mocksville last year will not have to do that this year? That would be a big relief because it always becomes a pain.

You know it always seems that the commisioners do not read the rule book and they make up rules as they go along. For example; last year when Rowan and Burlington were playing for the right to go to the state tournament and Rowan won that game that they continued and apparently they were supposed to start it over but Jim Lippard didn't "know". Too many fishy things go on in legion in particular with the commisioners.

 

tj,

How new are these rules (and the transfer rule in particular) and how often do they update them?

 

Thanks for that information Tj I always thought that it was an every year thing. I looked back 3 years so I know that the rule is atleast 3 years old. As for the guy that got released from 4 teams, I think that is just wrong. Most teams don't give players that are asking for releases that much trouble, because most teams want players that want to be there and the fact that legion baseball is suppose to be for the young men.

 

Guys, all I can find on the national website is 2009 rules, but I can tell you this has always been how we understood the release rule at least since I have been involved around 2002. I'll go out to my junk (garage) building and see if I have any old rule books just to see if its ever been any differnt, but dont think so.

I think we can all agree though that many times its not the rules, the confusion comes in how different people (YES EVEN different commissioners) interpret the rules. Only have to go back as far as last summer, when South Rowan had to start a rained out playoff game completely over, yet the same area commissioner allowed Rowan County to pick up their game in the 2nd inning when it was rained out. Only when ruckus was raised, did the commisioner go back and make Rowan start their game over too, which was only fair since South had to do it.

Not blaming anyone commissioner either, at least the guy last year tried to make his error right, even if it did rile up Rowan fans.

We could go into the whole Link/Moore fiasco again and that situation really wasn't the commissioner's fault yet he took a lot of grief from the Salisbury Post. Bottomline, the rules are there. But people sometimes make mistakes.

 

Westboy,

I think you are wrong here, once a player is released from 1 team he is no longer property of that team, no release needed every year.

Sorry guys, didn't finish reading the rest of the threads to see that this was answered and discussed.

 

ONLY 1 RELEASE AFTER RECEIVING RELEASE YOU MAY NOT GO BACK TO THE TEAM THAT GRANTED THE RELEASE.

THE RELEASE RULE WAS CHANGED SOMETIME IN THE 90'S AT ONE TIME YOU COULD ONLY PLAY FOR THE TEAM THAT CARRIED YOUR HIGH SCHOOL ENROLLMENT IT DID NOT MATTER WHERE YOU WERE CLOSER TO.

 

I can't find anything thats ever changed, you can only play for the team who carries your HS enrollment now....
a) kid gets release

b) can only consider going to next closest team (this part of the rule is why someone would have to get 4 releases if he's moving several counties over)

c) next closest team MUST BE ABLE TO INCLUDE new kid's HS enrollment and still be under the 5,000 student limit.


***Note: Even if a kid gets cut from a neighboring team, or if a kid lives in an area where the legion team folds or there is no team,,,,,,,, for any team to pick up these players, you MUST BE ABLE TO INCLUDE that players HS enrollment and remain under your 5,000 limit.

 

One other FACT about releases. Each legion team has a base HS that you list as your central school (for boundary purposes). Any players who attend that base school, can NEVER be released. Unless, the only way base school students can ever get released, would be if they change their permanent residence before March (I believe) and move to another HS where they no longer attend that base school.

 

TJ, I got to check that rule out, I am pretty sure we have released players from our base school before.

 

Tools, we released one who attended our base school once, but only because he moved and changed schools during the middle of the school year (which meant he no longer attended our base school). We had another example just last year, there was a player who actually went to Concord HS but he lived in Kannapolis, so he wanted to play for Kannapolis Legion. We told him that he would need to get Concord Legion officials to release him because we know Concord HS is their Legion's base school, but they came back and told us that they could not grant such a release even though they wanted to work with the kid, and it was because he attended their base school. It was pointed out to us that the rule book refers to base school players and releases here...

http://www.baseball.legion.org/forms/alb_rules2009.pdf

... see page 9, Rule 4. B. 2
..."Teams may not recruit a player(s) from another team's base school"...

As for Junior Legion, I'm not involved, but it appears they cannot release players at all, for no reason. (page 8, rule 3. B)