3 Legion players to forfeit eligibility

On Wednesday evening at Ward Field in Standish, Skowhegan’s American Legion team will see its Zone 1 Tournament aspirations take a severe jolt.

Three of Skowhegan’s best players, ace righthander Jared Cochran, standout catcher Kregg Jarvais and slugging third baseman Chris Morris, will play a twinight doubleheader for Al Livingston’s Maine Pastime baseball team against a visiting Legion team from Minnetonka, Minn. Playing that game will cost the trio their Legion eligibility for Skowhegan this summer.

Cochran, Jarvais and Morris are among several Legion players playing for Maine Pastime who are caught in a dilemma.

State American Legion Baseball Director Lionel Koss explained that rule 7C in the American Legion rules and Form 2, which is a players’ agreement contract, state that if a Legion player plays for another team on the same night his Legion team is scheduled to play, that player forfeits his Legion eligibility for the summer.

Koss said they must enforce this exclusivity rule because it isn’t fair to players who get cut or those reserves who show up religiously.

“And if you have 15 on your roster, you let four play in another league and a couple more get hurt, now you have to forfeit,” said Koss.

Koss added that Legion players can play for other teams on nights they don’t have Legion games.

Cochran and Jarvais said Maine Pastime’s 38-game schedule, including a recent tournament in Hawaii and attractive upcoming tournaments in Keene, N.H., and Fort Wayne, Ind., is significantly more competitive than their Skowhegan Legion schedule.

“I can see both sides,” said Jarvais, who will attend the University of Maine on a baseball scholarship. “But I’ve made a commitment to Maine Pastime. I’ve got to look out for number one and playing for them will give me the best chance to get better.”

“I just want to play as much baseball as I can,” said Cochran. “The more you play, the better you’re going to get.”

Skowhegan coach Doug McEwen and Manager Don Finley are disturbed by the ruling.

“Kids go off to basketball camps and hockey camps and all these other places and they miss Legion games,” said Finley. “You would think you’d want these kids in Maine to play as much baseball as possible. If the coach doesn’t have a problem with these kids leaving to play for other teams, I don’t see why the administrators are having a problem with it.”

“When they’re gone, it’ll give three other kids an opportunity to play for us,” said McEwen. “I asked our players about the situation and they were all fine with it.”

McEwen added that playing for Maine Pastime will give the three players an opportunity to showcase their talents in different places.

Livingston said he is distraught about the situation. He doesn’t want to cost the Skowhegan players an opportunity to play for their Legion team.

“My whole goal was to give kids who really love baseball the opportunity to experience some special things and play better competition,” said Livingston, a former six-year Legion coach who will also take his team to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. “I would have been perfectly content to take a team to Hawaii and then wait all summer and take players who didn’t make the state Legion tournament to Indiana. But when the Legion told me the kids who went to Hawaii and played (on Legion game days) wouldn’t be eligible, I felt I owed it to those kids to put together a summer schedule since they wouldn’t be eligible to play Legion,” added Livingston.