North Dakota Preps

Has anyone heard of the new proposal the ND Legion Committee is considering for 2014? It will consist of the "larger" class b legion towns in their own class. I have been told they are looking at 12 teams divided 6 east and 6 west. They are not sure of how a state tourney will be formatted. Some of the towns being considered are: Casselton, Grafton, Washburn, Beulah, Watford City, Lisbon (I think), Valley City. Obviously there are others but they escape me at this moment.

The reason behind some of this push is the Whapeton (sp?) thing that happened the summer of 2012. There is no way they should have been class b, but that is old news Grafton ended up winning state, Whap did win the regional. I have also heard rumors that IF this proposal becomes reality Grafton will opt out and play Babe Ruth, I don't know but that's what I heard.

Any comments?

would they make this new class do scheduling like the current class A does? I don't see it being financially feasible for most of this new class to pull off traveling around the state like the current Class A teams do. Wahpeton and Valley City could barely pull it off when they were in the top class.

This is not under consideration this is a done deal.

I believe they are using an East and West setup, so the travel wouldn't be quite as extensive. Not sure we need a third class, but it is here.

This is going to hurt these programs more then it is going to help them in my opinion, with more travel and more expenses.

Has anyone heard that Fargo will now have 2 Legion teams with the revamped divisions?

If so, anyone know who is coaching? How they are splitting the two posts? Where they will play? etc.

How will rest class b structured after this new class of legion is formed. They will have to restructure the regions I would imagine after this because some of regions were getting down on teams and now loosing these teams out the regions would not be enough teams left in few regions. I think it should have happened long time ago we probably have few more legion teams left. Grafton had players from St. Thomas and I believe also from Minto this past year. This may mean that ST. Thomas and Minto may have team again this coming year. There are a lot of towns in area that have pewee and little league programs but seem not to be able to continue when they get either to Babe Ruth or Legion I wonder why were not able to continue the interest and participation.

Beulah received a call from Russ Kroshus about some upcoming changes in Legion Ball...
• This is for a two year trial period
• There will now be 3 classes in Legion
• - AA – Fargo, Williston, etc
• - A – Minimum of 12 teams based on High School enrollment-
• - B – 4 sections- West, East, North East, Central Eastern
• Your division will be determined after May 1st, when all teams have been registered
• If you feel you are in wrong division, you can petition to play up or down
• There is a chance state winner may be able to advance, that is still being determined.

Not sure if A would be determined by all schools making up the team as Washburn in our area has had Turtle Lake, Underwood, Wilton, and Center players.
Two big problems 1) nothing set until after May 1st .... and 2) doubtful some teams forced to play up can afford it so I see more programs ending,

If it's not broke then why try to fix it? I understand this is "just" a trial, but if programs go under due to the trial is there a guarantee they will ever come back later? I think that B Legion has been very fair over the last 20 years. OK Wahpeton had a tremendous team 2 years ago and happened to be moved down at the time. But, Wop did get beat at State by Grafton. I think a lot of this has to do with Wahpeton not wanting to play AA ball, I think it would make more sense to allow Wop to play B legion than to mess with everything else. The larger B Legion teams such as VC hasn't won state or had a dominating long stretch. I just don't think it's in the best interests of ND Legion baseball. That's my opinion.

The teams effected shouldn't mean the end of legion teams for these towns they are towns that have large enough population to support baseball team no matter. I have feeling that it may help some smaller legion teams keep a team because they now don't have to compete against these larger towns. Also these A teams will be able to schedule against some b teams to keep a full schedule but just means when it comes to playoffs and state tournament they will be playing against teams with equal size to develop a team. Most of these towns already play in similar situation in high school football and I don't see this as such a big deal for these towns it should make for some real good matchup this summer. I already have seen Grafton travel to play in larger tournaments to play against better competition and bigger programs so it should not be doable by these towns. The big change is that these towns will not have easy road to state tournament that they had playing a b level it will be quite a challenge to win and play for state championship which it should be. This will allow smaller towns now to have chance to get to state tournament which help keep kids interested in smaller towns because they have chance to get to state. I think this important because here in Northeast I have watched Grafton dominate legion last few years as well as Baberuth, and little league to where it has effected other towns programs. I can here critics this shouldn't matter but it does it hurts turn out and retaining kids in program. A example of this is look at Devils Lake at AA they couldn't field team from lack of participation but they have been at bottom of AA and it effects participation by kids today. Devils lake is big enough town that they should be able to put together team of 12 to 16 kids to play baseball. I think it will help baseball in ND because the numbers have been going down in legion teams across the state. Yet number of towns have still viable pee-wee and little league teams and quite a few still have baberuth teams but no teams at legion level. So wee need to try something to keep as many programs going as possible.

You are correct, the teams being moved to the "middle" class will not be affected at all. I just think the current system was working well. Here's what I don't like personally about it: The new class, will have 6 teams in the east and west. You mentioned it will be quite a challenge to make it to state...well not really as 4 teams will advance to state from each side of the state...yes 4 out of 6. Basically, win 1 game in your region tourney and go to state.

I do hope this helps small town legion baseball as it is very cool to pull into a town and see a sign on main street saying " Legion baseball tonight". Also, if they are doing this in Legion baseball they sure as heck can do it in HS Basketball. A whole other topic I don't want to get into.

Hopefully scheduling works out OK for all teams involved.

utilityman wrote:You are correct, the teams being moved to the "middle" class will not be affected at all. I just think the current system was working well. Here's what I don't like personally about it: The new class, will have 6 teams in the east and west. You mentioned it will be quite a challenge to make it to state...well not really as 4 teams will advance to state from each side of the state...yes 4 out of 6. Basically, win 1 game in your region tourney and go to state.

I do hope this helps small town legion baseball as it is very cool to pull into a town and see a sign on main street saying " Legion baseball tonight". Also, if they are doing this in Legion baseball they sure as heck can do it in HS Basketball. A whole other topic I don't want to get into.

Hopefully scheduling works out OK for all teams involved.

The only thing I'm going to point out here is that legion is in the summer where kids don't miss school for travel purposes unlike during basketball season. I don't necessarily disagree with you, I'm just pointing that out. That seems to be a big argument against a 3 class system in basketball.

I think the main reason that there is not 3 classes in basketball is due to the # of people it takes to have a team and how 1 player can carry a team so a small town can compete with larger towns. In baseball you need twice as many players and can have 1 outstanding player/pitcher but he can't pitch every game so small towns can't compete with larger towns.

I don't think the reason kids don't play legion is because they aren't competitive. I think its a summer thing. Back in the day when I used to play there were definitely kids within the community and neighboring communities that could have helped us and we were pretty dang good. Kids think they need to work for whatever reason. In my current town there are a lot kids that play in the HS season, but not the legion season.
I also think if you're having a good HS season the whole school knows it and you get some recognition. In the summer nobody keeps up with the legion team. Maybe this has changed or its different in different communities.

Here in NE part of the state I think it goods pretty good recognition the local radio stations in Langdon and Grafton cover legion baseball pretty good for the area. Also the local papers have story and pictures each week of baseball games. Occasionally the Grand Forks Herald may have some coverage of legion baseball game or teams. They also print box scores for the game regularly and local tv gives scores of legion games.