American Legion

Legion lost out twenty years ago. They had a great product and a good market share, but failed to change with the times. They fought against the travel ball tide rather than embrace it and work with it. LL did the same. They fought it for years. LL, however, had something AL didn't - a big tv contract that served as just enough incentive to keep communities hooked to LL. Even then, they had to relax their rules to allow TB participation. There were a few AL programs that were able to stay strong, usually by participating in showcase/tournament ball as part of their program. Whereas 25 years ago or so, if you were watching the AL W/S, you were watching the best amateur baseball in the world, that clearly is no longer the case.

This is true here in CA as well.  My kid played Legion this summer and after his team got bumped out of the regional tournament, I wanted to see who won.   Forget about it. No website, no nothing.  If you were a player looking for a team you'd be SOL.

He did get to see some pretty good pitching. 3 D1 commits that I knew of and a bunch of JC kids.

Short version you are wrong and I like legion. from my perspective my son has played travel for the last 5 years, he has been on what I call a regional power. They don't travel near like some of the national teams but they play in all the large events in the area, the they have gone 5-2 and 4-2-1 the last 2 years down at the BIG PG in July so they are legit. during this time my son has had gotten to play about half the legion games here locally. it keeps him in touch with his friends, he is part of the organization locally and the truth is he wants to go to school closer to home.

Travel ball is great and you can take it to many levels, at the end it is all about what you feel is right for you. if you want to be seen by lots of colleges you don't have to go to FL or GA  depending on your goals but you do have to get out and play more then just legion.

My objective is to have a child who has been tested and competed on a big enough scale to be confident going to college but is balanced and ready to knock it out of the park in the game of life...how you accomplish this is totally up to each individual.

Hand picked after paying big bucks and passing through one or more local and regional level events right? I'm sure it's true that the best players don't play AL for the most part, but I wonder how much of that can be attributed to privilege and opportunity?

This kid is a good example. Cut every year from his prep school team. Played Legion ball. Walked on at UMass and picked up by the Orioles. http://www.masslive.com/umass/...ennis_torres_ov.html

I guess my point is that if you're that good, word will get out and you will be seen.

We need to have realistic goals and expectations for our players. You can ride a kid like a mule (such as the pitcher described above who played travel all summer then Legion, suffered injuries etc) risk dead arm or rotator cuff problems, and it's not going to make him a better player or improve his chances of getting picked up by a college.

I'm not arguing that many/most high level players are doing the UA and PG thing. I'm just not convinced that it's the only way to skin that cat.I'd be interested to see what percentage of those players go on to to d1, d2 and d3 schools. In other words, what is the ROI?

You miss the point on Torres. His path to success is such a rarity that it makes a good story. If this were common, no one would be writing about it.

To answer the ROI question - it's never a good ROI if all you're talking is money.

If you're looking for ROI, get out of amateur baseball immediately...

A major issue with Legion is that the membership is aging and not being replaced by younger veterans. Eventually, many legion teams will need sponsorship by some group other than the local Legion Post.

Other issues that I've seen locally are squabbles over release forms for players, determining districts, state rules vs. national rules interpretations, and of course, teams turning in other teams over eligibility issues. There is competition and politics between the area Posts regarding baseball. And with an older guard running things, you may have old ways of thinking that haven't served the baseball program well.

One thing that is heavily promoted is the number of games players play and that it's "real 9 inning baseball" where winning matters and local through national playoffs are offered. That type of promotion of Legion is a slam against showcase. And some of the Legion faithful really don't understand the differences between travel ball, showcase teams, and showcase events, and don't want to either.

There are some really good things about Legion. The patriotic values are a major plus, along with the code of sportsmanship. Our local legion team draws from several schools and my son has made friends with kids from other high schools. In addition, he played legion for a coach and staff from a rival high school which was a good experience. And of course, it was free to play.

>Compared to Legion ball which is often free or cost of program priced. Only a >few catches??? 18 roster spots for the local team and you have to make the cut out >of several combined high school area.

Exactly! To me it seems more elite to earn a spot on a team like this than simply writing a check. But I guess there are good arguments to be made on both sides.

Thanks everyone for the discussion and thoughts.

If this were ever true, it certainly isn't true anymore. I wish it were that simple.

I wondered where it went!

Depends on where you live.  I can tell you that making the roster on at least a dozen travel teams in my area is far more elite than landing a spot on our local Legion team.  We have to write checks because there isn't a sponsor paying all our fees, but simply writing a check won't get you on any of these teams. My son's travel team played the local Legion team twice this past season.  Beat them handily both times.  It really wasn't a contest.  Of course, areas of the country where there are far fewer elite travel teams and Legion ball is strong, you'll get different results.

As to your earlier comment on the comparison of Legion ball and PG, I wouldn't think that the winner or runner's up of this year's 18u WWBA championship would have much difficulty with either the South Carolina or Louisiana teams  from the ALWS finale.

You make a good point that PG isn't the ONLY way to secure a spot at the next level.  Jerry Ford will echo that on this board himself, however you will find the greatest concentration of the absolute best players in the country at their events.  

Am I missing something? What happened?

This was our first year in Legion ball. I have absolutely no complaints as it was a great experience and opportunity for our HS program that is trying to rebuild itself after a bad 10 year run. We won our league championship. It was our first title in Spring or Summer in the last 10 years. Legion is definitely not as big as when my husband played it in the 90's, but it feels like it's making a little comeback in our area. However, the difference here is that many of the teams are not actually sponsored by a local post. They are sponsored by businesses and/or kids have to pay to play. It's still relatively cheap for a 40-50 game season ($200-$400 depending on the team), but even that small amount can cause a hardship for some families in our area.

For anybody that thinks Legion ball can replace tournament teams, showcase teams or showcases in general, I think you should do a little more research. If you want to play locally and for D3 or NAIA, then you may be just fine playing only Legion ball during high school (not knocking that level of play at all - they just tend to do a lot more local recruiting). However, if you want to play for a bigger school or farther from home, then you aren't going to get that level of exposure during any legion season. I can't imagine there were a lot of scouts at the ALWS looking for talent. Throwing high 70's to mid 80's isn't going to attract the big schools. To see the difference in talent level, all you had to do was watch the PG AA game on Sunday and turn around and watch the Legion semis on Monday. It was night and day in level of play and I am a fan of Legion. For our area, that Oregon team is really good as a HS team that plays together for most of the year.  

Was this deleted? If so, I'd like to know why. I completely disagree with it, but it's a valid opinion and one which deserves to be discussed:

"It all comes back full circle to previous discussions regarding the For Profit Promoters and growing Pay to Play industry inserting itself as the middleman between high school athletics and college athletics.

Got money to spend? There is a team out there for you to play on and a place to promote your skills. Whatever level those skills may or may not be. If you got the money to spend there is a baseball promoter/academy/showcase/website on every corner ready to cash your check and pander to your hopes and dreams.

Compared to Legion ball which is often free or cost of program priced. Only a few catches??? 18 roster spots for the local team and you have to make the cut out of several combined high school area.

Miss the cut? Disillusioned about why or talent perception? Coach got some perceived political agenda or just doesn't see your immense talent?

Well look no further than your favorite friendly For Profit Promoter standing on the corner waving huge signs 'come one, come all' to our fabulous academy/travel/showcase/etc event. As long as your check don't bounce and the stream of $650 keeps pouring in we love ya! Forget about that troublesome Legion team that just didn't see your checkbook,......err I mean tools.

If you think those guys at PG events are guys who "didn't make the cut," I think you grossly misunderstand what the showcase circuit is about and who is participating. Are there guys in PG/PBR?etc. events that shouldn't be? Yes. However, that's because these organizations don't work under a policy of deciding ahead of entry who is good enough and who isn't worthy of showcasing themselves. Their not a recruiting service promising anything other than providing a stage for you to showcase what skills you may (or may not) have. As to teams or organizations that will take anyone with the ability to write a check - yeah, they definitely exist. Buyer beware.

Some areas have junior programs and others don't. If not, 15 year olds can find themselves competing against 18-19 year olds in legion, some having already finished one year of college. A talented 15 year old may be better served competing against others from his own graduation class than sitting behind an older player on a legion team.

In Nebraska there are 284 Legion teams according to the American Legion website.  The vast majority of teams(at least in my area) are sponsored by local businesses, are linked to a specific high school, and are coached by the same coaches as the spring team. Making it really just one really long high school season.  At my son's high school we pay $600 to play and have to do volunteer work like run concessions, gate, scoreboard, etc.  To my knowledge there is one travel team in Nebraska.  The roster is impossible to find and the only person I know of who plays on it was cut from his high school team.  And his parents are paying $3500 for him to play.  I think that includes his travel costs but not theirs.  I would venture to say that the majority of families cannot afford to pay this amount of money for their son to play ball.  Especially for a team that may not have the best players in the state.  I have no idea since they don't publish a roster.  One would think if they DID have the best players that roster would be all over the place. 

Now, that doesn't mean that travel ball isn't the far superior product elsewhere.  Or that taking a kid out of Nebraska and getting him on a good travel team in Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma might not help him with exposure.  I'm sure it would.  But, again, the financial considerations would remove most families from making this a viable option.  So if a kid is pretty talented, wasn't born in the south or along the coasts, and comes from a family that can't afford to drop $5-10k per summer for him to play travel ball, is he just doomed? 

I've personally come across SEVERAL Nebraska travel teams.

Your shtick is getting old IO.

I would love to find out who they are if you could PM me.  I honestly have googled and looked all over and found nothing outside of the Sluggers. 

Whose?

There will always be someone willing to take your money. And there will always be people who will take advantage of others if given the oppportunity to do so. With the growing "Showcase" arena and everyone wanting to get in on it of course that happens. But come on. So your son can't play a lick and you think you can pay 650 and get a scholly? So who is the person out of touch? Now some just want their kid to get the same opportunity that other kids are getting. To play at the college stadiums or MILB facilities. But so what? Don't people spend thousands of dollars on boats, vacations, etc etc? And there is a problem with a family spending thousands of dollars on baseball? Why? Who are you or anyone else to determine how they spend their money? Or what their dreams should be?

If these kids are so bad how would they make the Legion Team? Maybe they don't want to sit the bench? Maybe they want to travel and play at the places these teams offer? Legion suffers in my neck of the woods because the host schools play my home school ball. The coach of the host school plays the players from the host school or the HS coach won't let them use his field. The players from the feeder schools who are better either get cut or sit the bench. So kids just say no. The level of competition is so poor its pathetic. A nine inning game with 3 a week is impossible without a walk a thon because no one has enough arms to do it. And then the ones that can throw are thrown to death. Bad free baseball is still bad baseball. There are areas in my state who have outstanding legion programs. But they are few and far between and simply not an option for many players.

Nothing is coming between the HS players and the College coaches. Every single year I get numerous questionaires from college coaches. Who do you have that you would consider a college prospect? Who in your conference and what school do they attend that you would consider a college prospect? And there are several more questions. Nothing prohibits a coach from building relationships with college coaches and picking up a phone. There are numerous college camps every single year.

This is a choice that people make. People do it for all types of reasons. When I run an ID camp or an ID showcase I see numerous players that obviously are not college prospects. They run an 8 plus 60. They have no arm strength. They can't square up bp. So  I am going to go over to that kid and his parents and say "What are you doing here?" "You shouldn't be here." "Do you know your wasting your money?"

No. The fact is when you run something like that it is not for the average kid in attendance. Your casting a wide net and hoping to catch a couple of fish. And guess what? You catch a couple of fish and they get an opportunity. Those other kids got an opportunity as well. When you put on an event your giving kids an opportunity. And if the parents want to pay 650 or 950 to give that opportunity to their kid that's their business. I don't run down to the lake on a Saturday morning and say "Hey stop spending 35k on that boat dude!" I don't go to my neighbor's house and say "You spent 10k on a freaking ATV!"

You do your thing and make it so good everyone will want to do it and run your competition out of business. Parents want to make sure their kids get opportunities. And many times they just don't know until they see for themselves. And you don't get to tell other people what they should or shouldn't be doing. That is their choice. How hard is that to understand? Not going and never knowing is far worse than going and not showing. And if a parent wants to give their kid some great trips and life long memories while playing a game they love even if they never step on a college field that's their right. And if they want to spend their money to do it who are you to say they shouldn't?

Yes there are people who lie and sell people short. Since when has baseball had a monopoly on that one? If I have something I am going to sell it. I am not going to try and tear down others in an attempt to make what I got look better.

Obviously, in some areas of the country, Legion is the only viable option to play baseball during the summer.  It also sounds like most of the good players are on Legion teams.  It also sounds like, due to the geographic limitations, those good players are spread out and not concentrated on a single team, or several higher level teams.  That's where part of the recruiting problem may come into play with the recruiting end of things.  LivingtheDream stated there are 284 Legion teams in Nebraska.  If there are even 5 potential college kids on every team in the state, how do recruiters get out to see all those kids?  It would be extremely time consuming and probably pretty expensive to them.  They would have to be on the road all summer all over the state of Nebraska in order to see all the kids they wanted to see.  And as some other's have stated, the good Legion guys usually wind up playing at the Local State U.  And the Local State U only has so many spots available.  Let's say there are 10 freshman spots that open up every year.  Well, there are 1420 players capable of playing there (assuming 5 players per Legion team).  A lot of good players will have a tough time getting exposure or having a spot to play because of the limited recruiting due to the sheer numbers of games recruiters have to go to.

And that is where organizations like PG come in to help fill the gap and give players the opportunity to play in front of recruiters, not just from Local State U, but from other areas of the country.  Or even other areas of their state.  If a recruiter can go to the 17u WWBA for one week and see approximately 6000 kids play in one week, all in one area, wouldn't that be preferable to driving all over Nebraska all summer?  In order to provide that service, it costs money.  But then, every service provided by anyone costs money.

But maybe what Legion needs to do is to get out of the current mold.  Maybe take their teams to some college showcase events around the state or the region.  Sure it is fun to play with your friends, but I think at some point, you need to look beyond that if you want to have a chance to play at the next level.  If you are a super stud, Legion may be good enough because Local State U will want you.  But if you are a pretty good player that is maybe a lower end D1, D2 or D3 kind of guy, Legion may not get you where you want to be.  I really don't want to turn this into a thread on the virtues of playing showcase baseball.  Just sayin'...

InterestedObservor (IO).

IMO, this area still has some shades of gray. My son played HS ball in a small state. The best player in the state (class of 2015) played HS and Legion only. No showcasing, no travel team. He clearly has D1 talent, and the largest public University in the state could see him play pretty much whenever they wanted. They offered him a scholarship, and he accepted.

Could he have expanded his options by hitting the travel/showcase circuit? Probably, but I'm not sure he would have made a different decision in the end. As many have said before, every situation is unique.

Don't get me wrong. It definitely happens. I used to coach on an AL team and we had a guy drafted in the first round who is in the majors now. He only played HS and for this AL team. However, we took that AL team to several travel tournaments for exposure.

CMass, to address a couple of your points.

My son had not played in any PG related events before he was invited to a major PG Showcase. So, yes, your son could play in no PG events and still get invited to a PG Showcase.

And yes, as I have stated on here before, I believe that my son would have gotten noticed and seen eventually BUT would it have been in sufficient time for him to get recruited by the schools that he wanted to get recruited by....I doubt it!

I've certainly spent my fair share on travel and showcasing. In the end, I'd say my ROI came mostly from my son improving his game by playing at the highest level possible, and the fun we (family) had along the way. I'd have to say that the "exposure" piece was a very poor investment, but I honestly wasn't looking for a payback there.

Again, depends on the strength of the area. There are a lot of scouts at our state Legion tournament.

That's great for those players. From everything I've heard there weren't really many at the AAA state tournament here, except for maybe a couple of the lower level D3 schools (not knocking D3, my son very well may end up at that level) and JC. Were the ones at your tournament from big or small schools? Were they mainly local or did coaches come from a distance to see them? Like I said above, if you are targeting local, smaller schools, then Legion is probably fine in our area.

Couple things

I love Legion Baseball

Many Legion players have attended PG events, including some like Madison Bumgarner.

Some Legion teams have played in PG tournaments.

ROI is zero for those that lack talent.

Did someone really ask if PG All Americans are at DI, DII, DIII colleges?  Well first of all, so far one out of every three of those players have become first round picks.  (ROI very good). Many others drafted in the first 5 rounds. 7 have been the first overall pick of the draft.  They pretty much all commit to the top college programs in the country.

I don't know about the numbers when it comes to travel baseball. We are only one small part of Travel baseball.  But I do know that over the past decade or more that that 85%+ of all the high school players drafted by MLB teams have attended PG events.  So that leaves about 15% who didn't.  However, more than 95% of all the first round picks did attend PG events.

People can say what they want, but they should understand that we see more talented players every year than anyone involved in baseball.  All the MLB clubs and all the top colleges know that.

That said, we do very little to help all these talented kids.  That credit belongs to the player and those that have helped him develop.  We just happen to hold several of the best events for exposure.

I love it!  Go on to UA's website and you see the exact same type of stats. 

Do you know what organization can claim that 99.99% of every starting D1 player came from? 

Those stats mean nothing. 

Does Perfect Game invite players pro bono to attend any of their showcase events? 

Does anyone really think that if your kid was one of the best 100 18yr olds in the country that you would have a hard time finding a college scholarship of your choice or getting drafted?

How about one of the top 500?  1000? One of the top 2000?  or 3000? 

Who filled all these spots preshowcase? 

Of course the talent level is better at the PG event.  The talent came from a national pool of players.  There should be NO comparison.  Those PG pool of players will have ZERO problems finding a place to play baseball with or without PG's services. 

The players on the AL team ARE the caliber of players that have to fight it out for spots post HS.  How much exposure do you think the AL players received?  The ones that actually need it???  Who provided the best exposure for them?  AL or PG??

I too grew up in Nebraska and have lots of family back there still.  Almost moved back when 2016 son was a sophomore.

What you describe is what made me glad in a baseball sense that we did not return to Lincoln.  Legion ball is basically just an extension of your HS program.  You are basically stuck with the biases of one coaching staff.  My son has had a great HS experience in TX, but I know D1 commits on his travel team that have not and are glad to only play HS ball for 3 months out of the year.

To your other major point.  I know of a kid in Lincoln that is committed to A&M that is my son's age.  He has his Legion Team listed as his summer team but has played in large PG tournaments in the past.  I don't know for sure but my guess is that A&M is not recruiting the AL circuit in Nebraska.  Another example of a small town kid just south of Lincoln.  Got drafted and was a PG AA.  Had he just played AL he obviously would have played college ball but I am not so sure he would have been drafted and certainly wouldn't have been a PG AA.

I post this not to discourage you LivingtheDream (after all I do love all things Nebraska and it will always be home) but the reality is if you live in a state like that and aren't a 1%er and your goal is to play D1 baseball you are most certainly at a disadvantage with the Legion system in place vs. all the travel kids.  Unfortunately as you and my brother in law well know only the 1%er in the state have the talent leverage where they can tell their Legion coach (who is their HS coach in most cases) that I am going to spend some time playing elsewhere because this is my dream and I need the exposure. 

Do you know Valentine, Nebraska? Great town in the old Basin League.

Bob

Yes. Great place to visit and float the Niobrara river in summer. 

The use of all caps kinda undercuts your argument.  Makes me think you are yelling.  Are you yelling?

Only used caps to emphasize a few words and abbreviations???  I wasn't yelling.  I don't drink all the Kool-Aid for PG.  PG does a great job but if they shutdown tomorrow it would have zero impact on players. 

My point was AL is providing much more exposure for those players.

You've made that point A LOT.