New Life for American Legion Baseball in Manchester

A heavy rain can be a welcome friend during the baseball season. It breaks up the daily grind, gives the spray n’ wash an extra day to do its thing and allows players (and coaches) to watch Stepbrothers for the way-too-many-ieth time.

On Sunday, the infield skin at was host to several small ponds and the outfield was wet and slow after a thorough beating from a late afternoon storm. But that didn’t stop Jay Moran and the reincarnated Manchester American Legion program from practicing.

Laundry - along with Will Farrell and John C. Reilly – would have to wait.

With opening night 48 hours away, uniforms were assigned while pitchers took turns with bullpen sessions and outfielders tracked down fly balls. Moran and his staff reviewed signs and talked about moving runners, manufacturing runs and playing fundamental defense.

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Typical baseball stuff, but not typical of the Manchester Legion programs from recent years where moral was low and players scarce. Both teams - junior and senior division - failed to complete their seasons last summer and were on the verge of extinction.

“You have to give credit to Don Diehl and Ed Slegeski for having a vision to really bring the program back,” Moran said over the steady beat of baseballs popping into gloves. “They took a program that forfeited last summer and said they were going to bring it back.”

Moran is the recognizable face of the program. He is Manchester’s Deputy Mayor, the athletic director at the University of Bridgeport and a guy about town, but knows he is a puzzle piece in the restoration process.

“The two guys at the top started working hard so we just followed their lead,” Moran said of Diehl and Slegeski who have been working diligently behind the scenes since last fall when they took over the wobbly program as president and general manager respectively. “That example is going to trickle down to us as coaches and then down to the players that we take this serious.”

Slegeski was the founder and GM of the New England Collegiate Baseball League’s (NECBL) Manchester Silkworms for ten seasons and had a pretty good idea of what it would take to reestablish the program.

“Both teams forfeited out last year so we had to make it attractive for the kids to come back,” Slegeski said. “In fall baseball we laid that foundation of being here early, being here on time and we got to the playoffs. We took that and built this layer on top of it. We took all those things we learned on the college level and brought it down to this level.”

Slegeski improved communication with a data driven website that included an email subsystem and secured a winter workout space for the team with the help of Manchester High athletic director Lindsey Boutilier.

“We struggled until mid-January,” Slegeski said. “We were convinced we were only going to have one team. But as the numbers grew we had enough for two teams. We have 36 kids right now.”

The new regime has a modest goal of playing out the complete schedule without a forfeit and feels both teams have the ingredients to finish with .500 records or better. The senior team got things rolling with a convincing on the road Tuesday behind winning pitcher David Grande (5 innings, 2 runs) and lefty Bryton Ferris, who picked up the save with two shutout innings.

The home opener is Friday (June 6) night at Northwest Park at 7 p.m. with a ceremony honoring the memories of Kevin Walsh, John Dowd and Cliff Thompson starting at 6:30 p.m. 

“Talent-wise, I think we have depth at every position,” Moran said. “The number one concern with every program is pitching. We have arms – whether or not we have pitchers; that will be determined in the next few weeks.”

On the eve of the season opener, Moran is comfortable leaning against a screen in that baseball coach-way as he talked about playing a smaller, old time traditional style of baseball with wood bats. He is having fun and that attitude is trickling in both directions.

“We might not win every game,” Moran said with his everyday smile. “We will win gracefully and come back from losses just like in the real world."

"And we are going to wear the Manchester across our chest and be proud and we aren’t going to forfeit out, I can tell you that," he added.