Truly a sad day

Legion ball in Raleigh

There are plenty of players in Raleigh to field teams; however, the population rule and size of schools (e.g Wakefield at 2800 or more) severely limits the number of schools that can participate on a team and thus limits the opportunities.

With all the other opportunities (e.g. showcase) or hindrances (HS coaches not allowing any returning players to participate in Legion) out there, it is difficult to get a majority of players from any one high school team to commit to a legion team, but to get any players, you inherit their school population.

If you can get the players, you have to find a field to use. Since almost all schools are participating in the HS league, field availability is limited and if you can get one, you get to pay Wake County Schools $35 per hour.

Funding is finally needed to pay for fields, umpires and other expenses. In past, both Post 1 and 297 would get costs covered so players would not have to pay a lot of expense. Therefore, you don't have a player that sits on the bench complaining about expense. So you better be a good fund raiser.

My hat is off to people like Ron Powell and Gary Harris who have worked to keep Legion alive in Cary and Raleigh. Legion in RDU and Charlotte area needs rule modification to keep it alive. Go back to area only or modify population to eliminate a grade (not many younger kids anymore with college players allowed). Also HS coaches need to allow players to participate - do HS Jrs really gain from playing in HS league.

Hope Legion does survive in Raleigh and Charlotte. Wish I could be in Shelby this week to see 82 and 100 go at it. Great to see how a community can support a team. Of course it is also great to see how a community can support a HS football team such as Shelby which is not seen in Raleigh

 

When did a HS baseball team become a coach's private fiefdom?

This is asking a lot of youngsters, but the good ones can tell the coach that they'll play where they want. They don't exist for his benefit.

 

TJ,

We have exactly what you are talking about in Winston-Salem, North Forsyth & West Forsyth are base schools, The WS team and Western Forsyth both have players from Mt. Tabor & Reagan, We had a private school that wanted to send a couple of players but we could not take their enrollment, I am sure that WS was in the same predicament. But I don't disagree with the 5000 limit rule. But it was tough telling the private school players they couldn't play with us & they could have helped.

 

This whole issue would be a good one for The Raleigh News and Observer to pursue. But Tim Stevens, the preps editor, cannot be bothered to write about Legion baseball unless it's a blurb about a local team making the state tournament. But they will cover a girls' soccer game in Greensboro.

The 2004 controversy over the state champion? They couldn't be bothered.

Going back to my conversation with the HS coach, the summer leagues may be a response to the state of Legion baseball in the Triangle. It is something worthy of some in-depth journalism, but what newspaper there cares to do it? The Durham team is non-existent as far as the Herald Sun is concerned.

 

RD,
I also must admit with 3 teams in the Forsyth county, then include Mocksville, Surry County & Lexington in there subscriber area they do absolutely NO coverage of legion ball, well matter of fact they do little or no coverage of HS baseball

 

Back when Fred Flinstone was working at the quarry, I covered games as a correspondent for the Goldsboro News-Argus. People would complain about the coverage of HS baseball. (It was still much better than what the fans in Greensboro and WS seem to deal with.)

One of my stock replies was: Are you going to buy the newspaper tomorrow no matter what? Answer: yes. Well, how much incentive do they have to improve?

Another thing I would say is that it is the job of the newspaper to reflect, not create, interest in a sporting event. The newspaper, and I'm just speaking in general terms here, is not going to cover Legion baseball extensively if you have only 50 people at the game. We are not entitled by divine right to the type of coverage we want. I don't have any idea about fan interest in the Triad, but it can't be worse than the Triangle.

Programs have to cooperate with the media. Maybe the WS Journal (and News and Record?) would do more if the programs were pro-active. Make sure you get the game information to them. Find a person who will take care of that responsibility. Make them go out of their way to deny you coverage. This last part is something we've discussed here. It's not easy to get people who will attend to these tasks year after year.

There are alternatives to the traditional media. We have a blog. I don't know how many people read it, but it's also a way for the newspaper to get information about the team. The NA didn't cover our playoff game at Pitt, but a full story was in the paper the next day because they got it from my blog. Every Post 11 game gets a story and a MLB box score. I ordered business cards to hand out to fans so they would know about the site and inform others.

A lot of this comes down to people not waiting for others to get something done. I realize, however, that not everyone is like me:

 

Just for the record Clayton only had three guys from Clayton this season because of the High School League and the fact that some of the younger guys (rising juniors) who are talented enough to play legion baseball are playing in the high school league. Clayton High School baseball team only graduated 3 seniors this year.

 

i've heard rumors that cary hs will be allowing players to get back into legion ball starting next summer.

 

This situation just keeps getting better- not only did we have to move several games and locations around because Riverside was unavailable Tues, Wed, Thurs, and Saturday, the Durham Parks and Rec didn't even use Riverside last night. So there was a vacant field that didn't get any rain.

THANK YOU DURHAM PARKS AND REC!!!

 

A couple of random thoughts:

I have heard that American Legion is dropping the 19 year old rule. THe rationale being that college players need to play in collegiate leagues.

AS far as the state of legion ball, I will have to say that it is on the decline. Roxboro post 138 draws from basically 1 school, and there is simply not enough pitching available for Roxboro to compete with a team like Post 7, for example which as basically a PAC-6 AllStar Team, (no disrespect intended as i have great respect for the Durham players) comprised of players from RIverside, Jordan, Chapel Hill, and East Chapel Hill, based on what I was told. That makes it tough for Roxboro to survive.

The Central Carolina Summer LEague was designed to develop players for the HS Programs. UNderclassmen can play together to bridge the gap between JV and VArsity Baseball. Different coaches have different philosophies with this. Some do actually use it to develop players, and give equal playihg time. OF course some coaches simply play it to win. You take the approach that best suits your situation, i guess but I like the player development idea.

If you play in the HS league, you leave out places for seniors to play. If 3-4 schools could combine, then you could have a good Legion program with Seniors from surrounding schools and get the player development with the HS league.