The Chesapeake Post 280 team that won the Senior American Legion Baseball national championship will get to make its trip to the major league World Series after all.
Post 280 manager Larry Bowles learned Thursday afternoon his coaches and players will be guests at Game 4 on Tuesday, when the Los Angeles Dodgers host the Toronto Blue Jays in Dodger Stadium. Bowles said the MLB Commissioner’s Office gave the news to Steven Cloud, National Program Director of American Legion Baseball, ending a grueling three-day saga for Post 280 players, coaches and parents.
On Tuesday, Bowles learned from James. S Baca, National Executive Director of The American Legion, that Post 280 would not be going to a World Series Game as MLB guests because of complications with international travel to Toronto. Post 280 would’ve been the first national champion in 100 years of Senior American Legion Baseball (ages 19 and under) denied the honor of an invitation.
Post 280 beat the Texas state champion from the Houston area 5-0 in the championship game on Aug. 19 in Shelby, North Carolina, in a game televised on ESPNU. The Post 280 Seals, as they are known, followed Midlothian (in 1985) as only the second team from Virginia to win the American Legion Baseball World Series.
In his earlier email to Bowles, Baca cited numerous logistical and regulatory challenges presented by Toronto’s international location that made attendance by Post 280 “unfeasible”:
Passport requirements for all players, coaches, and accompanying staff.
Notarized parental consent documentation for minors traveling without both parents.
Customs and entry compliance for minors and team travel groups entering Canada.
Baca also wrote in his early email to Bowles that Legion and MLB concluded during discussions that “postseason restrictions, limited ticket allocations and travel logistics” made attending a game in Los Angeles unviable.
The Post 280 contingent was crestfallen. All 18 players are on college rosters this fall and many, like University of Richmond outfielder Reid Downs from Virginia Beach, had received permission from their coaches to skip fall practices or games to attend the World Series.
“They considered our trip to the (MLB) World Series that important,” Downs said Wednesday night. “Going to the World Series is something a baseball player like me dreams of, especially when you know you earned it.
“To hear so suddenly we can’t go anymore was heartbreaking.”
In his email reply to Baca, Bowles wrote, “For them to receive no recognition, and no one making a decision to find an alternative solution is severely disheartening.
“I am simply asking for someone to work towards some recourse of action that would make it so this single group of young men are not deprived of something they worked hard to earn, while others have been, and will continue to be rewarded.”
But a change of heart came Thursday, after The Virginian-Pilot and Daily Press published a story online recounting the saga and following an outcry on social media.
Bowles and Post 280 faithful had contacted multiple media outlets and convinced Heather McKeating, Director of Community Relations for the Norfolk Tides, to speak to her professional baseball contacts on their behalf.
Bowles said that on Thursday one of two people who had contacted the Los Angles Dodgers for Post 280 actually spoke with manager Dave Roberts. Whether or not all of the activity turned the tide, Bowles heard Thursday afternoon from Cloud that the MLB Commissioner’s Office had approved their attendance at Tuesday’s World Series game at Dodger Stadium.
“I could not possibly be any more happy for our players to get honored with this once-in-a-lifetime dream opportunity,” he said. “I’m also extremely grateful to see so many in our 757 community create such a huge groundswell of support.
“I feel like we won the American Legion Baseball championship all over again.”
Marty O’Brien, mjobrien@dailypress.com
