Just as some of the top young baseball players in Eastern Maine finished their quests for high school championships comes their busiest stretch of the year to date.
The high-density American Legion Zone 1 baseball regular season, which involves 21 games in 30 days, kicked off Monday, with each team slated for five games this week.
Zone 1 consists of eight clubs, down from 10 a year ago with Waldo County and Midcoast (Rockland area) not competing this summer, according to longtime Zone 1 commissioner Dave Paul.
Post 51 of Oakland, which draws players from Waterville, Winslow, Lawrence of Fairfield and Messalonskee of Oakland, is the defending Zone 1 tournament champion.
But all eyes will be on the Bangor Coffee News Comrades. Coach Dave Morris’ club not only is the two-time American Legion state champion but also includes the bulk of the Bangor High School roster that last Saturday won its third consecutive Class A state title.
The Comrades were the lone remaining undefeated team in the zone at 3-0 through Wednesday’s play. Bangor was scheduled to face 2-1 Post 51 at Colby College in Waterville on Thursday.
Other Zone 1 teams are the Brewer Falcons, R.H. Foster of Hampden, the Acadians (Blue Hill-Mount Desert Island area), Skowhegan-Madison, Motor City of Bangor and the Penquis Navigators of Dover-Foxcroft.
One change in the rules this summer will allow starters to re-enter games after being removed for a pinch runner or pinch hitter. The Legion ranks had in recent years followed the Major League Baseball rule that does not allow re-entry.
Each team will play the other teams in the zone three times apiece, with 14 nine-inning games and seven seven-inning contests comprising the 21-game schedule. Weekday games begin at 5 p.m. with Saturday games at 11 a.m.
All eight teams will gather at the new artificially turfed Coombs Field at Colby for a four-game day on Saturday, July 9. That will begin with Bangor Coffee News against Brewer at 10 a.m., followed by R.H. Foster against Penquis at 1 p.m., Post 51 against the Acadians at 4 p.m. and Skowhegan-Madison against Motor City of Bangor at 7.
Paul said that date replaces the four-game day traditionally held on the Sunday immediately after the high school state finals at Husson University in Bangor. The Winkin Complex on the Husson campus wasn’t available for that event this year because its artificial turf is being replaced.
The regular season concludes Wednesday, July 20, with the six-team Zone 1 tournament beginning at Husson the next day with two play-in games, followed by the double-elimination phase of the event July 22 and 23 with an if-necessary game slated for Sunday, July 24.
The top two teams in the zone tourney advance to the eight-team state American Legion tournament that begins July 28 at the Capitol Area Recreation Association Fields in Augusta.
Continued consolidation of American Legion baseball programs in the southern part of the state in an effort to provide strong representatives for the state and Northeast Regional tournaments has left just 31 Senior AL teams statewide, with nine teams in Zone 2 (central and western Maine), six in Zone 3 (Portland area) and eight in Zone 4 (York County).
But that consolidation trend is not likely to continue after this year, according to new state American Legion baseball director Daniel St. Pierre of Auburn, who hopes to draw more players to the longstanding summer program.
“I don’t care if we never send a team to Shelby, North Carolina [site of the American Legion national tournament]. I want kids to play ball,” he said.
There also are 22 Junior American Legion teams around the state for younger players. Bangor, which won the 2014 Junior Legion state championship and also fielded a team last summer, will not have an entry in that division this year.
“We found it to be too conflicting for all with Senior League,” Morris said in an email.
DeLaite playing in futures league
One area baseball standout who isn’t playing for the Bangor Coffee News Comrades American Legion team this summer is 2016 Gatorade Maine high school player of the year Trevor DeLaite.
The left-handed pitcher, bound for the University of Maine in the fall, is playing for the Seacoast Mavericks of the Futures Collegiate Baseball League, a 10-team, wooden-bat league that stretches from New Hampshire to Connecticut.
DeLaite joined the Portsmouth, New Hampshire-based team Tuesday, just after pitching Bangor High School to its third straight Class A state championship on Saturday with a complete-game shutout as the Rams defeated Falmouth 5-0.
DeLaite, also a finalist for Maine’s Mr. Baseball award that will be announced Friday, went 9-1 for Bangor this spring, bringing his four-year varsity record for coach Jeff Fahey’s club to 24-2.
He also went 21-1 during his American Legion career while helping coach Dave Morris’ Coffee News team win back-to-back state championships in 2014 and 2015 — the program’s first state Legion titles since 1979.
DeLaite is one of five Mainers on the Seacoast Mavericks’ roster. Others are pitcher Luke Fernandes of Eliot, who will be a senior at Boston College this fall; pitcher Mitchell Powers of South Portland, a rising sophomore at Southern New Hampshire University; pitcher Connor Russell of Cumberland, an incoming sophomore at Bates College in Lewiston; and first baseman Jake Lebel of South Berwick, who will be a freshman at the New York Institute of Technology.
