Attachment to Legion Baseball can last a lifetime

It's hard to believe, after all the planning of the past two-and-a-half years, that the 2008 American Legion baseball season is nearly upon us.Shelby Post 82 kicks off what will certainly be a memorable year in a tournament at Easley, S.C., this Friday and Saturday.

After all the fundraising activities, ballpark construction and hours of meetings related to the World Series and Southeast Regional tournaments that will land here in August, we may be tempted to forget that the real focus of it all has to do with pitching, throwing, hitting and catching a baseball.
I was reminded of that Monday evening as I sat in one of the box seats at Keeter Stadium and Veterans Field and watched the Post 82 players go through workouts with Coach Mike Grayson and staff. The fundamental aspect of the sport brings so many of us back to the game every year ... regardless of age. The connection to the game and the others who played it, can stay with us a lifetime.

The www.legionworldseries.com Web site The Star has produced has also brought that notion back to the forefront.
For the last few months we've been asking local baseball fans to send us their pictures and memories of their involvement with American Legion baseball.That's been a special pleasure for me, someone who considers himself a child of the sport. Having been around the ballpark on summer nights following my dad's Legion teams in Kannapolis and Concord in the 1960s, I feel that attachment to the game as well.

Also, having been in school with a number of the players from Concord who battled Shelby in a memorable 1974 playoff series cemented that relationship.

Of course, my job has allowed me to cover American Legion baseball on a regular basis. The momentum we (collectively) have generated with the tournaments we've had in the past seven years here has added to the energy.
Because of that, it's been especially fun to look through the scrapbook of former Crest High and Post 82 player Kevin Hawkins (circa 1985), or to handle the pictures that longtime local radio announcer Glenn Wall has bequeathed to me. Going through old Star photo files and having folks like Brenda Dixon e-mail others to me is a treat.

I've gotten a kick out of reading some of the old newspaper clippings that folks have dropped by about local players when Frank Ballenger and Ken Dingler covered the Post 82 games, as well as yours truly in the early 1980s as I was just getting into the business.

So dig out those scrapbooks and keep those photos coming. You'd be surprised how many people would get the same enjoyment out of them that I have.