My son played on two teams last summer. One was in a highly competitive wooden bat league consisting of players who’s goal was to advance to the college levels.
The second team was the local Legion team. Legion in our county has changed drastically in the last 10 years, it used to be the place to play. Now the majority of the better players are scattered around on travel teams. My son and a couple of his buddies wanted to hang out together this year so they all joined the same legion team.
My son being a pitcher only for his wood bat team wanted something to do between starts. He had already committed before the start of his Sr. year and knew this would be his last summer play with his buddies. The league has maybe 8-9 teams in it, his HS teammates were probably on at least 5 different teams. Every game he played in was against old teammates from somewhere in the past so it was fun attending the games from a social end, but from a baseball side it wasn’t pretty.
Folks in our county has always wanted to eliminate some teams, make one stronger team so they can advance in the Legion playoffs. This was my 1st season being exposed to our local Legion. As bad as the baseball was it was great to see marginal players with heart and desire go out and give it their all game after game. These kids hustled, got dirty, picked each other up game after game.
I hope they don’t take away the opportunity for participation from some of these kids. The talent may not be there, the players know it, the parents know it, but on a summer night sitting around a ball field watching neighborhood young men trying to beat each other giving it all they got in front of a 100 or so people can’t be beat.
The dogpile after they won the league title this year was really fun to watch!
I am not sure how the Legion affiliation actually works. Last season was the 1st year our league did not participate in the Legion playoff system. From what I heard it was a financial decision.
Last year was the 1st year that the Legion teams in the area did'nt hold their annual selection of all star teams and didn't have the customary showcases. Other areas of the state may still do that I don't know.