ALTON - The Metro-East and statewide sporting community saw another season cancelled when it was announced that the Illinois American Legion baseball season was called off on Thursday due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and concerns over it.
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All associated tournaments, including the District 22 playoffs, the Fifth Division tournament and the state tournament, were also cancelled, making Illinois among a number of states, which also includes Missouri, to cancel their seasons. On April 7, the national American Legion cancelled the 2020 regional tournaments and the Legion World Series, held each year in Shelby, N.C., but gave individual states the option to either play or cancel its seasons.
The cancellation of the Legion season affects Alton Post 126, where the team was set to return many key players and was looking forward to a successful season.
With a lot of guys returning, and we picked up some older guys from Alton, Wood River, (Piasa) Southwestern, Gillespie and Staunton, so we were looking to make a pretty good run," Alton Post 126 Senior Legion Manager Doug Booten said.
The Legionnaires were going to field both a junior and senior team this season as well, with a full roster on both. With both the Missouri and Illinois high school seasons cancelled earlier, and now the legion season called off, players who were in their final year of both high school and Legion programs won't have the opportunity to compete in their final seasons.
"it's unfortunate, because you had a lot of kids who lost their senior seasons in high school," Booten said, "and now, they've lost their final year in Legion baseball. It's nobody's fault, it's just the times we live in with the virus. It's just not good."
The senior team roster composes of some of the Riverbend area's best players, including three players from Lewis and Clark Community College --- Ryne Hanslow, Trenton Segarra and Adam Stilts --- along with Alton players John Durrwachter, Owen Macias, Preston Schepers and Tyler Steward, East Alton-Wood River's Kenny Beachum and Gage Booten, Bryce Higganbotham and Blaine Lancaster of Gillespie, Ted Webb from Roxana and Caden Shearlock from Staunton.
The junior team roster has 10 players from Alton High --- Seth Johnson, Caden Laslie, Ashton Schepers, James Stendeback, Nick Rayfield, Miles Windmiller, Jackson Kenney, Graham McAfoos, Connor McCarthy and Garret Billingsley --- along with five players from EAWR --- Nick Kelsay, Lucas Moore, Tyler Robinson, Julian Marshall and Seth Slayden --- along with Roxana's Jon Webb and Luke Parmentier from Civic Memorial.
However, all isn't lost for the Legionnaires. A league is being formed by teams in District 9 and 10 in Missouri which Alton is scheduled to play in.
"I've got to give a shout out to Kent Getsee (the manager of the Washington, Mo., Legion team)." Booten said. "He's the guy who's putting this all together."
The league, which will be known as the COVID-19 League, is set to contain 15 under-19 teams and 14 under-17 teams, and will give teams who's Legion season was cancelled a chance to play. Currently, all games will be played on the Missouri side, which has considerably relaxed its pandemic restrictions, and whether or not games will be played on the Illinois side remains to be seen.
"I don't know if we'll get to play in Illinois or not, because of the Governor's (J.B. Pritzker) restrictions,' Booten said. "But we will be playing a lot in Missouri. As of now, all of our games will be on the road."
Booten and assistant coach Chris Ford are both looking forward to the chance to play, and it's very important for their players to get games under their belts.
"We're just trying to give the guys a chance to play," Booten said, "and hopefully, things will work out.
As always in the case of the pandemic, safety first.
"It's better safe than sorry," Booten said. "We'll take all the precautions we can to keep the kids and the fans as safe as we can."
Without a district, division or state title to compete for this year, along with other Legion baseball honors, the goal for Booten is to try to get as many games as possible in for his team, and there's also a great lesson to be learned in the middle of the crisis as well.
"I'm trying to get as many games as we can; that's our goal," Booten said. "Obviously, for some of the kids, it's their last year, but we'll also have some kids coming back to play Legion next year. And I hope the lesson is to take nothing for granted."
