2018 Cambria County Legion Baseball

[knowitall]

I read elsewhere that it may have been past city practice to pay its umpires as though they were salaried employees, i.e., issuing 1099s.  This could be a problem attracting umpires.  The city apparently pays $42 per game.

[lgb87cape]

Forfeit scores are 7-0 not 2-0 based on number of innings played. 

[pennstater1212]

What do the legion standings look like down the stretch? Is it the usual with 3-4 solid teams and the rest not so good?

[Manfred]

Obviously. But Somerset's recent tailspin has given Lilly a shot at playoff spot #4.

[lgb87cape]

I have to say that the Cambria County American Legion league has become the biggest joke around. 
Ebensburg has forfeited the rest of their season. NC came to a meeting in February showing a list of 40 kids signatures.  They call and tell us we don't have enough players for a DH last month.  Tonight's excuse field is wet. No you don't have enough kids. Richland tries I think they struggle to get nine and forfeited last Friday not surprising weekend nobody wants to play. Cernics plays in a swamp and cancels alot which is fine but they need to play at CV HS.
Consolidate Richland and Cernics. Ebensburg combines with Lilly and do away with NC shinanigans and Patton can stay in the Federation .
6 teams 15 games no DH unless at the end of season if make ups  needed. 
Quit starting the season the week of Memorial Day. That's the last week of school and senior trips. In the last  6 years we've had to reschedule 8 game during that week because of senior trips and other stuff. 
Get somebody in there that knows what they're doing. I'll do it . 
Teach coaches how to keep score. I have never seen such ridiculus scoring. A base hit is not a routine ground ball that goes through the fielder's legs. When a player stops at third and the coach sees the ball thrown away and the runner is content to stay there and runs home after seeing the over throw it's not an RBI. He scored on the error.
Earned runs . You must reconstruct the inning. Yes a run can be earned if an error is involved during that inning when reconstructed properly. 
A save is only given. If a pitcher comes in with the tying run on deck or enters the game with the score 3 runs or less . If a pitcher pitches the final 3 innings of the game regardless of the score. 

[lgb87cape]

Oh! A walk , a hit by pitch, a sacrifice bunt and sacrifice fly DO NOT count as a time at bat. 
A sacrifice fly is only given when a run scores NOT if the runner moves from second to third on a fly out to right it's just an out and a time at bat!
Rant over.

[reugenev]

How are you going to get rid of NC after the state director personally granted them a franchise?

[Manfred]

My understanding is Richland is them, Windber, -and- Westmont. And you want to combine them with J'town, Ferndale, CV, and whatever's left? Kids just aren't playing baseball anymore. Too busy snacking down with their Playstations. You make a few good points. The first week of the season distractions being a good one. Graduations, in particular, are on different days for different schools. Gotta get that 180 day cirriculi in! One team gave a kid his release to play for Cernic's, 2 others for Ebensburg, and somehow still fields a team every week. Baseball as a sport, at least at the amateur level, is fading away, and eventually it will catch up with the college and pro levels too.

[Crimson's Ghost]

I don't think kids are playing as much baseball - but I don't know if it's the cliche "oh they're just playing video games."

Kids are specializing these days. They aren't sitting inside playing video games, they're playing AAU basketball or playing 7-on-7 football.


Also, it sounds like the Legion league is rather bad. If someone asked me where to send their kid to play baseball and they lived in Johnstown - I'd tell them to play in the city league. Why travel to play in Lily and Patton when you can go to Roxbury Park and save on the travel time?

[223113]

I hear ya. And, I don't doubt for a minute that there are kids that pass on baseball, for the video games. But, that's not the case for all. My youngest, probably the best natural athlete of my 4 kids (the other 3 were pretty athletic too), passed on doing any sports in college, and this year, passed on what would have been his last year of AAABA.

He wanted to get a 2nd major in college, so he took 6 weeks of summer classes, while working 1 job. When classes ended, he's now working 2 jobs. So, video games aren't always the culprit.

As a parent, yeah, I would've loved watching my kid play ball 1 last year. But, I taught him to be a leader, not a follower, to make his own decisions, and stand by them.

His priorities, are not my priorities, and I have to respect that. He'll graduate with 2 degrees, and start making his own path thru life. I'm more proud of that, than anything he did in sports.

I don't think there will ever be a decline in baseball at the college, or pro levels. The athletes with the skills to make it there will continue to pursue it.

But, at the amateur level,...the kids that are marginal, or simply not very good,...now have more options than when we were kids.
I would've played doubleheaders 7 days/week when I was a kid, haha! I see baseball as the greatest game ever invented, love it, everything about it. In general, kids today don't see it that way. That's why you have people that don't know the rules, or don't know how to score a play, or keep a scorebook, as lgb87cape pointed out.

If you love something, you try to learn all you can about it.

For a lot of young people today, baseball just isn't, "the best thing since sliced bread", like it used to be.