Zone leaders hoping to keep summer alive

Since the 2020 Connecticut State American Legion was cancelled on May 11th, Zone directors and coaches have been looking to create a new path to get their players on the field at some point this summer.

Any potential season would be created independently from American Legion, which pulled all sponsorship and insurance for 2020.

As a response, the Connecticut Elite Baseball Association has been formed with the goal to lay out a plan for the next few months.

“The goal is to play under Legion rules, but we can’t call it Legion,” Connecticut American Legion State Chairman Dave Greenleaf said. “Me, myself as a member of the baseball committee, can’t be directly involved in it which is why they need to find a new organization. They are hoping to come up with some sort of blueprint. Whoever is going to be running this needs to protect themselves against anyone making a claim that they shouldn’t be playing baseball with insurance, that was the biggest thing we lost when Legion pulled out, was the protection.”

While the Connecticut Elite Baseball Association has been working out different scenarios, some Zones, specifically Zone 2, have been taking initiative

on their own.

“We disagree with the position that the state took in terms of canceling the Legion season over insurance, because that problem is easily remedied,” North Haven 76 General Manager Charlie Flanagan said. “I am in the insurance business and I called a company and they said it is no problem. They could provide the coverage that is at least as good as what nationals provided us and as it turns out, it’s less expensive. It meets the requirements of the towns that we all play in.”

Though clearing insurance difficulties is a step in the right direction, there is much work to be done by all parties before the kids hit the field. Governor Ned Lamont said this week if the infection and hospitalization rates remain at current levels, that summer youth sports and public libraries could open June 20.

“We want to get back on the field, get these kids playing in games, get the kids that are going to be playing in college some live looks because these guys have been shut down since March,” Flanagan said. “But it is a process, I believe

we are through the insurance hurdle, I believe we can figure out the scheduling, but we’ve got to get in place testing and social distancing guidelines. We need to reach out to our players, to our towns and parks and rec departments, notifying them that as soon as governor Lamont allows us back on the field that we are in a position to procure field usage and players.”

Flanagan and the Connecticut Elite Baseball Association are ultimately working toward the same goal, but without one specific organization leading the charge, it is unknown how similar this potential season will look to a typical Legion season.

“(The Connecticut Elite Baseball Association) are talking about having one group that can come together and coordinate a playoff at the end and maybe a championship,” Greenleaf said. “They are meeting (Saturday) with a lot of the same Legion people. Some of the zone directors are going to try to set up some type of structure.”

Because the Zones are based on location, there is room for variation in how each individual Zone moves forward as teams from different zones would likely only compete in a postseason

format.

“The Connecticut Elite Baseball Association doesn’t really pertain to us because that is mostly in a different part of the state,” Flanagan said. “We wouldn’t be interested in traveling to Simsbury to play. The good thing about it though is that they are doing something, and what I proposed in our meeting last week was to see if we can have some sort of state tournament on our own, but it is nice to see that the Legion coaches aren’t just going to roll over.”

It appears that there are plenty of coaches like Flanagan willing to fight for their teams.

“We would like to get all of the zones playing,” Greenleaf said. “I don’t know if we will have all six zones. We would like it all to be under one group, I don’t have any say in it anymore, but I am hoping we don’t have Zone 2 going out and doing their own thing and Zone 4 going out and doing their own thing. We hope it is played under the same rules so when we come back next year we still have all those teams and all of those players.”

The Connecticut Elite Baseball Association will meet Saturday morning to discuss how to move forward in regards to insurance, background checks and scheduling.

“We want to keep our brand going, keep our rules and keep our players under the Legion umbrella, that’s what we really want to do.” Greenleaf said. “We don’t want to lose kids to other programs and then next year struggle to put our teams back together.”

Though Zone 2 and the Connecticut Elite Baseball Association are laying the groundwork for a variation of 2020 American Legion baseball, there are still many obstacles to overcome before the gloves start popping.

“We in North Haven want to make sure that we screen kids and take their temperatures,” Flanagan said. “We don’t want to have any issues with kids contaminating other kids or coaches so we are going to try to control that as best we can. We will probably seek advice from people who are more experienced than we are, but we have time to do that. It looks like we will probably get going in the second week of July, maybe sooner if Lamont opens it up in the third week of June. We just want to get everything organized so that when we are able to hit the road that everything is already in place.”