BANGOR, Maine — When the Coffee News Comrades of Bangor represented Maine in last August’s American Legion Northeast Regional baseball tournament, they were the only team in the field that drew players from a single high school.
And while coach Dave Morris’ club went 2-2 at that regional, some Legion baseball organizers in the state believe Maine’s tradition of often sending largely single-school state champions to that tournament makes it hard for the Pine Tree State to be competitive regularly at that level.
“We were the youngest team there last year, and we were the only team to come from one high school,” said Morris, whose team is now be called the Coffee News Comrades, as that local weekly advertising publication is sponsoring the team.
“The team we lost to from Milford, Massachusetts, drew from what would be like Bangor, Brewer, Hampden and Old Town up here, four big schools,” Morris added.
Signs of change to address that reality have started to become evident, particularly with some consolidation of Senior Legion teams in southern Maine to be complemented by the entrenchment of a Junior Legion program for younger Legion-eligible players.
In more sparsely populated regions of Maine, Junior Legion baseball has been slower to take hold, in part because of the presence of more established franchises for that 14-16 age group such as Junior/Senior League and Babe Ruth programs.
Of 21 Junior Legion teams in the state this year, just four — Coffee News, Fairfield, Skowhegan and Winslow — are based north of Augusta.
But Senior Legion consolidation has taken a different direction in eastern and central Maine this year with the dissolution of the former Zone 2 from the Waterville-Augusta area.
That has reduced the number of zones statewide from five to four, including the northernmost Zone 1 that will begin its regular season at 10 a.m. Sunday with a five-game, daylong extravaganza involving all of its teams at Husson University in Bangor.
Zone 1, which had just seven teams last summer, will field 10 teams this year with the addition of former Zone 2 programs Post 51 (Messalonskee-Lawrence) of Oakland, Midcoast of Rockland and Madison-Skowhegan.
Three other former Zone 2 teams, Augusta, Gardiner and Franklin County of Farmington, have transferred to the new 12-team Zone 2 — the former Zone 3 that primarily encompases Western Maine and the Bath-Brunswick area.
The eight-team Portland-area zone is now Zone 3 rather than Zone 4, with the eight-team York County zone renamed Zone 4 instead of Zone 5.
The top two teams from each zone tournament will advance directly to this year’s state tournament scheduled for July 29-Aug. 2 at the Wainwright Complex in South Portland.
Under the previous five-zone format, runners-up from the four zones not hosting the state tournament in a given year had to win a play-in game to advance to states.
“We’re getting back to what people would know as the traditional format for Legion baseball that was around forever in the state of Maine,” said Zone 1 commissioner Dave Paul.
Zone 1 officials have welcomed the additional three teams to its ranks amid the statewide consolidation, given that it reverses a recent trend of depletion within the zone from as many as 11 teams to seven the past few years.
“The response we’ve gotten in particular from Rockland and Post 51 in Oakland has all been real positive,” said Paul. “They’re excited to come up this way and be part of Zone 1.
“I think it makes for better and healthier competition and better games with a few more good teams. I think it’s going to be a good summer.”
Zone 1 now consists of Coffee News, Brewer, Motor City of Bangor, Penquis of Dover-Foxcroft, the Acadians of Blue Hill, R.H. Foster’s-Hampden, Waldo County, Post 51, Madison-Skowhegan and Midcoast.
Post 51 will play its home games at Thomas College in Waterville, while Madison-Skowhegan will be based at Madison Area Memorial High School and Midcoast-Rockland will have home games at Camden Hills Regional High School in Rockport.
Morris believes the deeper Zone 1 field will make it more challenging for Coffee News to defend its title but will leave the zone’s representatives better prepared for the state tournament.
“It’s definitely going to make the zone that much more competitive,” he said. “Two of the three teams coming in have won the zone championship in Zone 2. I told our kids coming into this city that before you’d have to beat Brewer or Motor City or Hampden or some of the other teams to win our zone, but now you’ve got to beat two other teams that have been in the same position to win their zone before.
“I know Messalonskee in the last four years has been in contention and Madison-Skowhegan has been tough as well, and if the Rockland team gets the right kids playing from its schools they’re going to be tough, too.”
Each Zone 1 team will play an 18-game regular-season schedule that concludes July 20. Teams will play nine-inning single games on Sundays and Wednesdays and seven-inning contests on Monday and Friday. All postseason games are nine innings.
“I think our zone, whether we’re the best teams in the state or not, are going to be better prepared for the zone tournament and the state tournament by playing those nine-inning games,” said Morris.
The top six teams will advance to the Zone 1 tournament July 22-26 at Husson University.
“It’s a healthy zone with the defending state champions and a lot of kids playing from teams that were in the Eastern Maine [high school] championships this week,” said Paul. “I think we’re in pretty good shape.”
