Local News
Local players declared ineligible for Wyoming Legion tournament
del.icio.us
Digg
NewsVine
FarkRAPID CITY — Rock Springs Post 24 Mustangs went to the Wyoming State Legion baseball tournament as the No. 1 seed expecting to contend for the championship.
Instead, on the afternoon of Aug. 6, as it went through pregame warmups moments before the first game, word came down from American Legion that four of the Post 24 players — all of them from Rapid City and all of whom had played previously for Post 320 — had been declared ineligible.
Left with eight available players, the team was ousted from the tournament.
“In December, two Rapid City kids, Andrew Wolf and Jeff Frease, decided to come to school at Western Wyoming Community College,” Rock Springs assistant coach and WWCC director of admissions Joe Mueller said. “They decided at that time that since they would be attending summer school, they would like to play baseball with the local Legion club. They talked to coach Leo Beauchamp and since they were from South Dakota, Leo called Wyoming commissioner Paul Eastridge and asked him if the kids needed a transfer.”
Beauchamp was uncertain of the procedures for players playing Legion baseball in a different state.
“I was not certain about the part of the rulebook that says if a player is registered in a school, public or private, he has the option of playing for that Legion team, or where his parent’s domicile is. So I called the state chairman Paul Eastridge and asked for clarification of that rule. I was told that it was fine, no problem, let them play. Not a big deal.”
As is often the case with American Legion baseball rules, interpretations are often left to either local or state officials, and rulings are many and varied.
Based upon that initial ruling, Wolf and Frease decided to play with the Rock Springs team and Mueller decided in February to become an assistant coach since he knew the kids and had coaching experience himself having served in a similar capacity previously including for Rapid City Post 320.
In June, two more Rapid City youths decided to follow a similar course, attending summer classes at WWCC and playing baseball with the Rock Springs Legion team. Again, according to Beauchamp, Rock Springs contacted Eastridge and received permission.
On July 15, the Green River Legion team filed a protest with the Wyoming commission claiming that Rock Springs had ineligible players on its roster.
“Five days later we receive an e-mail from Eastridge listing five or six reasons why the Rock Springs players were cleared to play and denying the Green River protest,” Mueller said.
With the issue seemingly settled, Rock Springs headed for the state tournament in Gillette on Tuesday.
“We were about an hour outside Gillette,” Mueller said, “when we get a call from Jim Quinlan, a national Legion guy, advising us that Green River has filed another protest about illegal players, and this time it is being honored and we are supposed to turn around and go home.”
The Rock Springs team and coaches decided to go to the tournament and try to resolve any issues on site. The officials declared that if all coaches were to agree Rock Springs would be back in the tournament.
Wednesday morning, Rock Springs was led to believe that the matter had been resolved in its favor and went out to the ballpark expecting to play baseball. However, 30 minutes from first pitch the team was informed that not all of the coaches had agreed to their participation and they were out. The season ended standing on the sidelines in full uniform dreaming of what might have been.
“Eastridge told us that he messed up, sorry. Well he never actually said he was sorry, but at least we got to play in the summer,” Mueller said.
A quick final appeal to national Legion officials was denied.
“The kids were really disappointed. We had a shot to win state,” Mueller said. “The disappointing thing is that we asked Paul early in the process whether we needed release forms from Post 320 and he said, no, and we ended up hanging our hat on that. We turned around and came home.”
Rapid City 320 head coach Jim Brandt was extremely surprised to hear of the Rock Springs expulsion from the Wyoming state tournament.
“I knew that our coach (Joe Mueller) moved there and I know that a couple of kids played for him, but other than that I didn’t know anything about it before now,” he said. “All I know is that they were good kids and good players and just probably just saw an opportunity where they felt they could better themselves.”
Eastridge, did not respond to inquires about this story, and national chairman Jim Quinlan was unavailable for comment.
The opinions above are from readers of rapidcityjournal.com and in no way represent the views of the Rapid City Journal or Lee Enterprises.
Rapidcityjournal.com provides this community forum for readers to exchange ideas and opinions on the news of the day. Passionate views, pointed criticism and critical thinking are welcome. Name-calling, crude language and personal abuse are not welcome. Moderators will monitor comments with an eye toward maintaining a high level of civility in this forum. Our comment policy explains the rules of the road for registered commenters.
If you don't see your comment, perhaps...
Terms of Use | Privacy Policy