Published: July 18, 2008 01:55 am            

COLUMN: Fairmont Post 17 caught in a numbers game

FAIRMONT — Marty Morgan doesn’t mince words when talking about Fairmont’s American Legion baseball squad.

“It’s been a struggle,” the team’s second-year coach said Wednesday night after a tough-to-swallow 14-1 loss at home to Morgantown.

While Post 17 has struggled in a literal sense — the team was well below the .500 mark (10-18) going into yesterday’s game at Preston — Morgan’s comment was based upon something other than a losing record or lack of ability.

Oh, there’s talent here.

Mike Ice was the North Central Athletic Conference pitcher of the year at West Fairmont, while teammate Joey Buonaiuto was the league’s co-MVP. Add to that East Fairmont’s Seth Quirk, North Marion’s A.J. Hoffman and several other top Marion County high school players, and there’s little reason to think Fairmont can’t compete when playing with a full deck of cards.

Unfortunately for Post 17, the pile always seems to come up short.

The team has 16 players on its roster, but only a dozen or so regularly attend games. Wednesday night, it had just two reserves available on the bench.

Such limitations have taken the biggest toll on the pitching staff, which used five pitchers Wednesday and only got an inning out of Ice, a innings-eating workhorse during the Polar Bears’ memorable state playoff run.

“If you’ve got enough arms, you can play all the time,” Morgan said. “You run out of pitching, it’s no fun at all.”

Amazingly, the smallish numbers are an improvement over June, when the three-week high school athletic practice period forced Morgan to “call up” numerous players from Fairmont’s junior Legion team. And if they weren’t putting time into another sport, others were on family vacations or working summer jobs.

“It’s been better in July, though. A lot more stable,” Morgan said.

Not that any of this is a surprise.

While teams such as Morgantown — the defending state champions — field a team of 18 and require regular participation throughout the summer months, many go the Fairmont route, relying with what they have on a given night.

“I understand it’s summer. I understand kids are going to do other things,” Morgan said. “A lot of my kids work. You go here and there, do this and that.

“It’s tough to put a team together.”

E-mail Nick Cammuso at ncammuso@timeswv.com.

        

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