BleacherCoaches.com

Well seriously I don't care about Legion, I follow the City Leagues at Roxbury more. My point wasn't to be taken as an attack. So cool the Jets.

My Things....

Say Claysburg can only get Claysburg kids, say only 7 of them actually want to play Legion Baseball, being that is a very small area...And a school much smaller than Forest Hills.
So Boom that is one less team, right? I'm guessing that is where the merged team thing derives from? Do the Westmont/Ferndale kids now play with Johsntown? Is it fair or not to give those kids a chance to play, because they don't field a team anymore?


Isn't the point of merging to give kids a chance to play? That is where my question got taken as an attack and Bishop McCort Catholic High School was thrown into the mix.

So perhaps next year only 8 kids sign up for St. Michael, you guys have to merge...Would it be even playing field because St. Michael has more than one area to pull from now?


That is my what I am asking, I don't know the issue. I am curious.

Like you asked, let's say that only 7 kids from Claysburg want to play Legion baseball. Do you think these kids would probably be GOOD players who REALLY want to play baseball? So now these pretty good kids who have an interest in baseball combine with another team. What a shot in the arm for the team picking them up. Who wouldn't want 7 half-decent kids interested in baseball. Meanwhile, another team (such as St. Michael) which has more than enough kids is made up of SOME good kids, and SOME mediocre kids who all live in the same area. Sooo...they have enough kids, but the talent level is LESS than a team put together by a mixture of kids from several areas. Get the point. A team from ONE area has to take those available, good or mediocre. A team PUT TOGETHER generally will have a better team, made up of good kids who want to play badly enough that they will travel distances to be on a team. And of course, that's what you see at McCort. Kids willing to travel to McCort ( such as from Ligonier, Somerset, Boswell, Seward) for athletics are generally not schmucks, but pretty good players (in any sport). Meanwhile, the Conemaugh Valley's of the world take what they can get from their area. There IS a big difference, and an advantage for the teams "made up" from "assorted" area players.

So we are in favor of denying these kids the right to play American Legion Baseball if they can't field a 12 man team made up of kids from their own district? Is that right?

This is based on records reported to newspaper (which arent' always accurate):

Somerset 9-0
Claysburg 11-1
Bedford 7-1
Patton 4-3
Ebensburg 4-4
Lilly 3-4
St. Michael 3-6
Stoystown 2-4
Richland 2-6
Cernic’s 1-6
Meyersdale 1-9
Portage 0-7

Patton has a 12-8 lead on Bedford in a game suspended after 6 and St. Michael has a 3-2 lead on Lilly in a game suspended after 4.

What if your school has no boy's volleyball team, or tennis team, or cross-country team? That's the way it is. So you're in favor of creating uneven playing fields to make a few kids happy?

Of the 12 teams, How many are comprised of more than one district?

Somerset = Somerset
Claysburg = Claysburg, Williamsburg, Central, Tussey
Bedford = Bedford, Everett, Ridge, NB
Patton = Heights, Glendale, added Northern Cambria last two years
Ebensburg = Central Cambria, think they added Blacklick this year
Lilly = Penn Cambria
St. Michael = Forest Hills
Stoystown = North Star, Shade, Conemaugh Township
Richland = Richland, Windber
Cernic's = Johnstown, Conemaugh Valley, think they got the Westmont kids this year
Meyersdale = Meyersdale, Berlin, Shanksville, Salisbury I think
Portage = Portage

So essentially we want a Four team league, Somerset,Portage,Lilly,and St Michael because they are the only areas that can field a complete team. Just Because.....

El-Moldo wrote:That's the way it is.

I have to agree w/ Crimson's Ghost on this one. It actually makes the league better by having teams be able to pick from the better players from different schools in order to compete. Those 4 schools (Somerset, St. Mike, Lilly, Portage) 2 or 3 of those (Somerset, St. Mike every year it seems) are 2/3 of the "top dogs" in the league. Why not let some other teams compete?

No, you McCort guys are missing the point. In American Legion Baseball, there is only one division regardless of how big or small your recruiting zone. I have watched a lot of these games over the years and the following is basically what I have seen. Every team in the league puts together the best team they can based upon their legal recruiting zone. Teams like Somerset and St. Michael have larger base schools so they have more local kids from which to select their teams. But rules dictate that if you have enough local kids you cannot go outside your zone. Since Somerset and St. Michael are surrounded by smaller local teams, they have to take who signs up. Smaller teams like Richland-Windber, Portage, and Cernics-CVJ may get a few extra Westmont players because they routinely don't have enough kids sign up. Additionally, they have to contend with Johnstown and Highland Colt Leagues so a lot of the time they aren't even getting some of the mediocre talent.

On the flipside Bedford and Claysburg are in a different environment than the rest of the league. Both have base schools comparable with Somerset and St. Michael as Claysburg has a large AA (recently was AAA) in Central-Martinsburg, and Bedford has Bedford, of course, which is also a large AA / borderline AAA school. However, neither town has any brand of baseball above teener league, so there is no direct competition for their kids. And since both of these legion teams are based in a rural county they have always been allowed to play the "rural" card. By this I mean they claim that they can't get anybody else in their zones such as Everett or Ridge or Martinsburg to field a team, so all the kids have to play for them. Do they really want to add another team in their midst??? Doing so would water-down their talent pool.

Therefore, any kid in Bedford county that wants to play legion ball has to play for Bedford. Meanwhile, any kid from Blair county and part of Northern Bedford county (not sure of the line but I have seen numerous NBC kids play for Claysburg) play for Claysburg. Since the zone is so large, and the travel to away games so great - as Manfred said - only the most dedicated and talented kids sign up.

Over the years I have heard these complaints any time I have attended a local legion game, while it will probably never be fixed, I do feel that it does need to be put in perspective. Its not like we are talking major league talent. But for Bedford and Claysburg going down their rosters they will always have more talent than the rest of the league - just because of the numbers. The end result is that they will always win most of their local games. But when they get to regional action and have to contend with other similar teams, they play two or three games and go home. This is in stark contrast to the real big-dogs of PA legion baseball like Carfly's State College juggernaut, or Boyertown, or Shillington, or Blackhawk. These legion teams used to go to showcase tournaments and clean house against travel teams. Heck, Brooklwan, NJ has their own charter bus that takes them all over the East Coast during the season - so again - put it all in perspective. Its the Cambria County League.

One way to look at local American Legion Baseball is that it could serve as a model of what consolidation would look like. The teams that have consolidated are much more competitive than the smaller teams that don't have unlimited recruiting zones. However, once the consolidated teams go against other consolidated teams, they don't stand out either. So you have to ask, is it better to just have a small local team so that kids can continue to play and develop? Or do you forsake development and simply try to put a winning team together - even if it only wins at the local level. That is a decision that each team has to make themselves.

By the way, I have been to three Cambria legion games this year and the umpiring has to be the worst I have ever seen - just saying.