Sports

Legion Baseball Team Finds a Way to be Competitive

Despite having to cancel its Junior Legion team season because of lack of players, Post 68 is one win away from a state tournament berth.

Berlin Post 68 American Legion Baseball coach Rob Manzo was distraught at the beginning of the season.

He sent an e-mail detailing that the Junior Legion season would have to be canceled because of lack of players.

The Senior Legion team struggled at times both on offense and defense but finds itself with a chance to make the state tournament despite not having all the best players in town playing for the team. This is the same team that was state runner-up in 2008 and in 2009 advanced to the American Legion World Series.

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"We had a sign-up on Dec. 11 and had a great turnout, we had 35 to 38 kids somewhere in there show up," Manzo said. "We stayed in touch with them. When the high school season started we needed to get birth certificates and we went down to 28 kids. That made it borderline for having two teams. We had 25 kids come to tryouts. We had some kids who you could tell just didn't want to be there. We made some phone calls after the first day but then we lost another veteran player and that was it.

"The older kids are not playing summer baseball. We had a couple of big surprises that didn't come out or came out and left. It's disappointing and frustrating because I feel like we have developed these kids when they were younger so that we would have success as they got older and then they walk away. We played West Hartford one of the first games of the season and they have 10 kids from college and 70 kids try out. How can you compete with that?"

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Post 68 stuck with 18 players aged 14 to 19.

"Do we work too hard for these guys? Manzo asked. "It's a big commitment. We play 35 games and we practice a lot. I just don't know why kids wouldn't want to compete at the highest level. I don't like to make sweeping statements but kids just don't have the commitment they had say 10 years ago. There was never a question where you played in the summer if you wanted to be a good high school player or wanted to play in college.

"Here's an example. We had three catchers in town not come out for the team. We used to have another Jaycee-Courant team in town, which offered a different alternative, but they aren't around anymore. We lost some to AAU and some of the college kids might be playing on a twilight team in Wallingford. You can't even compare the best AAU teams to the best Legion teams. American Legion baseball in Connecticut is the best brand of baseball there is."

Manzo said he wouldn’t be around to see a shortened season.

"If we have to shorten the season and practice less to get more kids to come out for the team, I won't be here to coach that team," he said.

In spite of all the distractions, Manzo could not be more pleased with the team he has now. The team is one win away from claiming a berth in the state tournament, which would be a huge accomplishment. 

Game 1: Berlin 2, Madison 1 (9) Two Madison outfielders collided on Jamie Brancato's line drive to right center field as Kevin DeVivo scored all the way from first base as Berlin secured the walk-off win in game one of the DH 2-1. 

Connor Bennett (3-1) went the distance for Post 68. 

Game 2: Berlin 8, Madison 3: Post 68 pounded out 14 hits and rode the arm of Will Matuszak's six strong innings as Post 68 improved to 12-10 in Zone 3 and 12-12-1 overall. 

Berlin travels to East Haddam today, Friday, for a 6:30 p.m. start and finishes their zone schedule on Sunday at 11a.m. in a suspended game against Meriden where they trail 1-0 in the bottom of the second inning.

Post 68 needs 1 more win to qualify for the post season.

Berlin 2, Cheshire 1: For the second straight night Mike Perno came up with a big hit in the bottom of the sixth inning, against Cheshire it was a two out double scoring Colin King to tie the game at 1-1.

Jeff Sylvester followed with game winning single as Berlin defeated Cheshire 2-1. 

Sean Sylvester pitched a complete game for Berlin 10-10 who is now only one game out in the loss column for second place in Zone 3. 

Post 68 needs to win 3 of its last 4 games to qualify for the state play-in tournament. 

Berlin 10, Meriden 4: Tim Norton pitched a complete game and Berlin recorded its best offensive night of the summer as they rallied from an early deficit to defeat Meriden 10-4 in Zone 3 play. 

Offensively Mike Perno with three hits, Sean Sylvester with two hits, and Jeff Sylvester with two hits led Post 68.  

Guilford 2, Berlin 0:  Tim Norton was the tough luck losing pitcher as Berlin Post 68 dropped its fourth straight Zone 3 contest to Guilford 2-0. 

Berlin fell to 6-10 in Zone 3 and needs to finish 7-1 to qualify for post-season play. 

Follow the Zone 3 standings at www.ctalbb.com.


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