American Legion Needs to Adjust Tournament Rules
• Teams Forced to Show Up at 7 AM After Late Night Game
Jul 23, 2012 – American Legion Post 70's Senior Baseball Team – comprised of next season's seniors, juniors and sophomores at Nutley High School – ended its summer season in the payoffs of the New Jersey State championship finals this past weekend.
The tournament series also reflected some bad judgment by Legion officials both on the district and state level beginning with Saturday's 5:30 p.m. game with Waldwick Post 57. It was an excellently played game but the problem was it got underway three hours late – not until 8 p.m. and leaving both teams baking in the hot summer sun for four tiring hours waiting for the game to start.American Legion Post 70's Senior Baseball Team – comprised of next season's seniors, juniors and sophomores at Nutley High School – ended its summer season in the payoffs of the New Jersey State championship finals this past weekend.
The tournament series also reflected some bad judgment by Legion officials both on the district and state level beginning with Saturday's 5:30 p.m. game with Waldwick Post 57. It was an excellently played game but the problem was it got underway three hours late – not until 8 p.m. and leaving both teams baking in the hot summer sun for four tiring hours waiting for the game to start.
Return by 7:30 AM or Face Expulsion!
And then once the game got underway, a 10:15 p.m. curfew imposed by the state legion's rules brought an immediate halt to the game. Both teams were ordered to return at 7:30 the next morning to resume play at 8 a.m.
Coaches from both the Nutley and Waldwick teams protested the 7:30 a.m. order. Traveling back and fourth to the ball park and the late hour would mean that players would get about six hours sleep at the most. Both coaches said they would not return for an 8 a.m. game. The argument continued for nearly 45 minutes as players and fans awaited the outcome which finally was an edict demanding the teams to either return at 7:30 a.m. or face expulsion from the state legion organization, making both Nutley and Waldwick ineligible for play in the coming years.
The two coaches reluctantly agreed.
For the Nutley players, that meant not getting home Saturday until after 11 p.m. and having to be up at 6:30 a.m. for their 7:15 a.m. arrival time back at Overpeck County Park in Leonia.
After Nutley took an early 1-0 lead in the game, Waldwick pulled ahead, with six runs in the top of the sixth inning at the time of the Friday night curfew. The two returned shortly after 7 a.m. Saturday and finished the game; by 10 a.m. Waldwick had won, 11-1.
An Unusual Play in Baseball Ends Pequannock Game But the series was not over for the two exhausted teams. For Nutley, the team was given only an hour before warming up for a noon tournament playoff game against Pequannock. Not surprising, Pequannock won the match 6-4. An unusual baseball happening in that Pequannock game came in the bottom of the ninth inning with no outs, and runners on first and second base. The next Pequannock batter belted a long ball deep into center field. Nutley's Matt Smith made the catch and threw the ball all the way to home plate where catcher Dominick Auriemma tagged the runner. Auriemma then immediately threw the ball to third baseman Brandon Bossbaly who tagged the other Waldwick runner for a triple play. The final state championship game in the American Legion series came on Monday, July 19 against Union Catholic. Phil Bruno pitched the first seven innings for Nutley with the scored at 8-8. But after a pitching change, Union Catholic pulled ahead to win 11-8. Both the Nutley and Waldwick coaches are asking the state legion officials to examine the curfew rules and develop a schedule that would better accommodate weather and other delays such as those encountered last weekend. Overall, for Nutley, the team's performance this season was spectacular, having placed in the state championship finals against a team more than a year older in age and experience. The age differential was well known to Nutley and other Essex County Legion fans. Teams in Essex limit participation to players who will be entering their high school senior year in September. That's because the summer play for the Essex teams is designed to groom young players for varsity competition the following spring in their respective high schools. The rosters for the teams Nutley faced last weekend included some players who were two years older than the local Legion team. Playing Against Older Players Adds to Experience "We're not complaining about that at all, it's an Essex County coaches' decision that has proved its worth in the quality of baseball that we have in Nutley," Coach Agosta said. Some of the Legion teams that played in the state tournament were also allowed to recruit older players specifically to play in the championship games. Again Coach Agosta said such recruitment was well known to the Essex teams. But Agosta did have a few suggestions for American Legion state officers when it comes to scheduling and helping to avoid the lack of sleep and triple back-to-back games that Nutley had to play last weekend. Agosta notes that during regular season play, all Legion contests are seven inning games with players using wooden bats. But for the championship games, the Legion authorizes metal bats and the games are extended to nine instead of the seven innings played during the regular season. "The metal bats result in more and longer hits in every game; that mean that, on average, each inning takes longer to play. And then the championship games are nine-innings which makes the games even longer to play," Agosta said. So Nutley's suggestion is to limit the championship games to seven innings played with the traditional wooden bats. That would help reduce the chances of tournament games' running three hours behind their scheduled starting times. As far as limiting the Nutley players to high school juniors (seniors by next September), Coach Agosta said has no objections to older participants." "Again, the restriction to juniors and and other underclassmen is something the American Legion coaches (in Essex) have agreed upon as part of our program of developing experience and skills for our high school programs."
