How many American Legion teams are located within each state?

Kevin Manero - The case for American Legion baseball

http://baseballbytheyard.blogs...american-legion.html

The article is propaganda. It hits travel at the issues of the weakest teams. I dont see showcase tournaments with hundreds of college coaches mentioned. It addresses the issues with 14u daddyball. I'm familiar with some of the names in the article. Yes, they played Legion. But they were found by colleges at showcases not at Legion games. Legion in the Philadelphia area is desperate to stop the hemmoraging of players leaving for travel ball. I stopped by a Legion game while I was biking one day. The local newspaper covers Legion. I knew the writer from high school games. He called Legion ball in the Philadelphia area JV caliber ball. He said very few pitchers in Philadelphia area Legion throw over 82.

I was once watching a Perky League playoff game (adult/college summer league). A bunch of Legion officials were behind me. They were talking about what they have to do to discredit travel and stop losing players. Our local Legion coaches keep telling players and parents Legion is the best avenue to college ball. Then the parents see most of the best high school players play travel and no college scouts at Legion games.

The Legion coach my son would have played for has one year of experience twenty times over. He teaches hands to the ball and choke and poke. What he knows about baseball would fill a thimble.

The Legion teams in the area with any kind of tradition get travel kids qualified for the tournament with minimum regular season play between travel tournaments.

I played Legion ball. It was the best avenue for ball when I was in high school. But the effort the local Legion people are willing to go to attack and discredit travel ball is ridiculous.

I'm a member of the American Legion, and I think Legion baseball is a wonderful program in many ways.  

Depending on the strength of local leadership, it can do a lot of things well, and those are principally the things it is designed to do:  teach young Americans the importance of sportsmanship, good health and active citizenship; promote equality by making teammates out of athletes regardless of their income level or social standing; be a stepping stone to manhood.

Some Legion players do go on to baseball greatness (e.g., Greg Maddux), but the program is not designed to prepare elite talent for pro ball or the highest levels of college ball.  

It grieves me when promoters of Legion baseball try to sell it as something it is not intended to be.

That's what the Kevin Manero article does.  His argument about how Legion ball is the most cost effective way of preparing for college ball just does not hold water.  To find enough examples of "recent" local players who went to D1, he has to reach all the way back to 2007.  Even with this 7-year window, he mentions fewer college playing alumni from his whole region than moderately successful travel programs produce every year.  Also, about half of the young men he names are in the Perfect Game database as having attended PG showcases or played in PG events, so we don't even know Legion helped them reach their college goals.  

His case is further weakened by his assertion that his local Legion teams play in the most successful region of the state with the best Legion program. Thus, he leaves us to assume that the modest record of college placements he describes is as good as it gets anywhere in the Legion program.

If you're trying to market a product, you need to differentiate it from its competitors in a way that is both accurate and responsive to the market's needs.  Legion is a great option for thousands of players, but it is not the right option for all players.  Legion baseball advocates would be more persuasive if they spent more time explaining the strong points of Legion ball to the players who can benefit most from the experience it offers.

My son has been playing "travel" baseball for 8 years....and I have never heard of AAU baseball.....lol  It's tough to take a guy seriously when he talks about AAU tournaments.    Had to laugh at one of the comments below the article that said "almost every travel team wins some kind of national championship"....lol 

Buckeye ... When my son started playing travel in Pennsylvania the local organization running the tournaments was ECTB. It went from being East Coast Tournament Baseball to Elite Championship Tournament Baseball. Its national affiliation was AAU. Sports At The Beach in Deleware had the USSSA affiliation. Eight years ago ECTB changed their national affiliation to USSSA. SATB became affiliated with Triple Crown. But many people outside travel still referred to travel as AAU ball. Travel ball in Massachusetts is affiliated with AAU.

The AAU Grand nationals pulls in some big name travel teams down in Florida. I am personally a member of AAU baseball even though there are no tournaments within a 1,00 miles. It's a great organization for getting your non-profit status. It's definitely regionalized in baseball, though. There are other organizations like that. Triple Crown being another. In the Rockies Region, it's bigger than USSSA. On another note, no one around here has ever heard of some of the big East Coast organizations.

RJM do you consider Brooklawn part of the Philadelphia Area? They are literally less than a mile across the river from Philly, just wondering...

Saying Legion ball is good ball because Brooklaan and Boyertown are good would be like saying the Angels are the best team in baseball because Mike Trout plays for them.

These teams have a tradition. So they roster travel players and get them just enough playing time to be eligible for the post season. Then all the best players show for the post season games. I'll hold to my statement. Legion ball in the Philadelphia area is JV and varsity bench caliber baseball.

Not quite sure I understand your analogy however I can tell you first hand that Brooklawn players from day one practice and/or play in every single game. Even summer vacations are not allowed, no one misses a game or practice so there is not such thing as "they roster travel players and get them just enough playing time to be eligible for the post season. Then all the best players show for the post season games." Just does not happen at Brooklawn. Granted everyday competition isn't always the best but there are some tough teams in NJ and once playoffs start it gets good. O and the cost for Brooklawn players = $0

You stated the main problem. There isn't much competition until the playoffs. Who cares what it does or doesn't cost. Lack of competition makes most of the season a waste of time playing weak competition. Plus college coaches can't gauge talent against weak competition. I'm more familiar with the PA side. My son played Legion after his senior year. He said it was fun to play with the high school buddies one last time. But from a baseball standpoint it was a waste. All the travel players came back after senior year. They waltzed through the league. A local sportswriter told me he hates covering Legion. He said since travel became a big deal most of the best players aren't playing Legion.

Having read the blog I feel like there is a lot of truth to what he is saying...and a lot of streching of the truth make his agruement. the one thing I do belive that is missing from showcase baseball that he touches on is winning. how many weekend tournaments are 3 game or 4 game showcase no playoff? open subs...pretty much do whatever you want. as you hit the older levels these seem to be the standard. They don't make for good baseball and you don't get to see how a kid plays in a real team first situation. Somewhere in the souting process we have lost the fact that winning matters and I don't think college and pro scouts put enough into that. They get hung up on the numbers be it size, speed, velo or whatever. The MLB has many players that would never get a look from top college programs because of what they are built like.

The arguement he makes about the money is not relevent IMO - if you can afford it so be it. That is the free market at work. Most of the players he mentions in the blog played travel ball for years either before or during HS / Legion age anyway. Yes I live in the area.

Where a top travel program really has its advantages IMO is from 13-16 - that is where the training and coaching, assuming it is good, really pushes the kids forward. I believe those are the critical years to top level HS / Legion / college development. It is also the age where a "good" or "solid dad" who coached in youth travel ball and did a great job starts to fall behind in coaching. the little things start to show more example- infielders coming through the ball and rounding their lines a bit to help, outfielders taking straighter lines and drop stepping properly, execution of 1st/3rd plays and the like. Not that a dad can't coach it just that it becomes much harder to keep up.

as far where i stand with old school jr...I will ask his opinion and will look at me like it is one of the dumbest things I have asked him...and then he will say I am staying with my travel team!! LOL I will still have the conversation I just know how it is going to go.

The truth is if we could get all of the kids from HS playing travel to come back for legion it would be one of the "teams to beat" but we don't have the system in place to keep them.

Having read the blog I feel like there is a lot of truth to what he is saying...and a lot of streching of the truth make his agruement. the one thing I do belive that is missing from showcase baseball that he touches on is winning. how many weekend tournaments are 3 game or 4 game showcase no playoff? open subs...pretty much do whatever you want. as you hit the older levels these seem to be the standard. They don't make for good baseball and you don't get to see how a kid plays in a real team first situation. Somewhere in the souting process we have lost the fact that winning matters and I don't think college and pro scouts put enough into that. They get hung up on the numbers be it size, speed, velo or whatever. The MLB has many players that would never get a look from top college programs because of what they are built like.

The arguement he makes about the money is not relevent IMO - if you can afford it so be it. That is the free market at work. Most of the players he mentions in the blog played travel ball for years either before or during HS / Legion age anyway. Yes I live in the area.

Where a top travel program really has its advantages IMO is from 13-16 - that is where the training and coaching, assuming it is good, really pushes the kids forward. I believe those are the critical years to top level HS / Legion / college development. It is also the age where a "good" or "solid dad" who coached in youth travel ball and did a great job starts to fall behind in coaching. the little things start to show more example- infielders coming through the ball and rounding their lines a bit to help, outfielders taking straighter lines and drop stepping properly, execution of 1st/3rd plays and the like. Not that a dad can't coach it just that it becomes much harder to keep up.

as far where i stand with old school jr...I will ask his opinion and will look at me like it is one of the dumbest things I have asked him...and then he will say I am staying with my travel team!! LOL I will still have the conversation I just know how it is going to go.

The truth is if we could get all of the kids from HS playing travel to come back for legion it would be one of the "teams to beat" but we don't have the system in place to keep them.

I grew up with Legion Baseball.  My kids played Legion Baseball.  I absolutely love Legion Baseball, but if my grand kids are any good they will play travel baseball.

the most obvious thing that anyone can check out is the draft!  You could also check DI college recruiting at the top programs also, but that might take a bit more time. See what they played, legion or travel?  Take the top 50 draft picks out of high school over the past 5 years.  You can then track them through the PG site (Player Profiles).  In most cases it will tell you who they played for other than their HS team.  In almost every case, you will find they played travel ball.

There is a reason why the top levels of travel ball get scouted so heavily. It's where the best players are!

That said, there is a problem with travel ball.  It's turned into a new industry of sorts.  Too many people are starting teams just to make money.  Nothing wrong with making money, but there has to be another reason beside that.  So what has happened is you have many excellent programs with outstanding talent.  You have many teams that are good programs, help develop talent and competitive.  Then you have a larger number of teams that just don't belong playing at a high level. Legion ball would be a much better option for the last group.

Actually, I look at Legion Baseball today as something similar to the second group above in many cases. It is good, but a long, long, ways from the same talent level of the top level travel teams. The top college coaches/recruiters and MLB scouts know this of course.

Bottom line, Legion baseball is still very good in parts of the country. But when promoters start talking about results they haven't done the research Or they just want to ignore the true results.  The only way Legion will ever be at the top travel level is by joining them rather than trying to fight them.  The top legion programs can get into several of the same big tournaments and scouting events that have high level travel teams.  That could really give a big boost to top Legion programs.  Their players would get as much exposure as the top travel teams get.  It might even be a reason to get the top players in a region to play for their legion team.

But here is the problem... To join rather than fight travel ball would take some progressive thinking and that has never been a strong suit in Legion Baseball.  In the past no one had to promote Legion Baseball like people are now, Even on this site.  I don't think Legion Baseball will ever be what it once was. That's too bad, it was great!  However, stubbornness  just gets in the way of clear thinking.

Brooklawn plays in a few events during the Legion season, usually a PG qualifier, A bigger Diamond Nation event, a Tournament in Omaha during the World Series. Its a lot of Baseball and I am not sure that most Legion Teams would have enough arms to play as often as they do. Also their players work in Selectfest and Area Code as well as events in the fall like Ft Myers and/or Jupiter.

They also had their team in the Marzano Scout League. So their players get college exposure away from Legion ball.

Brooklawn is a freak, I watched them last year at the Mid-Atlantics and they were impressive. They would be a fine travel team, maybe not Evoshield but they could go anywhere and compete. They also rolled over everyone there (yes i was at the Boyertown game and it was not as close as the score ended up looking, Boyertown was never really in that game) and if I recall properly they did the same at the WS.

I agree about Brooklawn.  More of the top Legion teams should follow their lead. We have seen a few other good Legion teams doing the same thing the last couple years.  They are not among those complaining about travel baseball. They have actually figured out how to benefit from it!

Legion and VFW(10th grade) are king in Minnesota.