In early May, high school athletes throughout the commonwealth of Massachusetts eagerly awaited Governor Charley Baker’s press conference that would send them back to school and onto the fields. Unfortunately, the good news never came, and the Governor mandated that everyone stay at home for the remainder of the school year. With his announcement, hundreds of student athletes were crushed, especially the seniors who were looking forward to putting on their respective high school jersey during the spring season for the very last time. 

The isolation caused by the Covid-19 pandemic looked as though it was going to continue into the summer months and that triggered the American Legion Baseball Program on the National level to cancel its season as well, which in turn had the individual states cancel all local seasons. Once again, the athletes were left without a sport to play.

While the Norwood baseball players were wondering what they were going to do with a summer that is usually filled with nighttime baseball, a small miracle arose. A group of coaches from the District 6 American Legion teams began putting a summer league together. The majority of teams from the district, which includes Norwood, have accepted the offer to join the league. Ashland and Natick, which usually play in District 5, will also join the Massachusetts Independent Baseball League (MIBL) this summer.

“Collectively it will be comprised of seniors whose baseball programs were cancelled this spring coming together to field a team to compete,” Norwood Coach Paul Samargedlis said. “In addition to my legion coaches, I’m going to add Norwood High School Coach Kevin Igoe to my staff as he didn’t get a chance to coach his team this year. I am also naming Teddy Mulvehill, the Norwood Veteran representative as an honorary captain.”

Games are slated to begin on July 6th after the latest phase in Governor Baker’s reopening plan for the state gets underway.  The teams will play four games a week for four weeks giving them a total of 16 overall games. Following the season, the teams will most likely enter into a double elimination tournament. 

The rules and regulations will essentially mirror legion baseball, but it will not be legion baseball as it was cancelled.

“Since the American Legion cancelled the season on a National level, the states did as well,” Samargedlis said. “With that being done, we cannot use anything associated with them including all the funding that we usually get.” We will have to raise money on our own and purchase uniforms.”

The Norwood skipper has been raising money for the season with no charge to the players. He will continue to look for support from the local businesses of Norwood to help their cause. Samargedlis will be ordering shirts with an ‘N’ on them as well as hats with a clover and a ‘N’ representing the Norwood team. 

Samargedlis will be carrying 20 players on his squad with 10 of them being pitchers due to the amount of games that will be played in the shortened season. According to the coach, the extra players are a necessity due to the fact that they’ll be taking part in four games a week as well as the athletes not having a spring season to get ready. He believes the 10 pitchers will get it done, but still wants to be careful and not put his athletes arms in danger. 

While some may believe that this is a legion program, the coach is assuring them it is not. 

“The MIBL has nothing to do with Legion and we will be back to playing Legion ball 100 % next summer,” the skipper said. “It is especially important that we put this together and that the lights go on at Balch (Field in Norwood). The kids as well as the communities need to hear the crack of the bats and the balls hitting the leather. They need baseball.”

As the coaches and the players anxiously await the beginning of the summer season, Samargedlis believes it’s going to be one hell of a product.

“Personally, I think that this league is going to be very competitive with the kids playing top notch baseball,” Samargedlis said. “It’s a much more condensed product that should provide a lot of hitting and runs being scored. These kids want and need to play one last time; it’ll be a good thing.”

Not only will the MIBL be an outlet to those who didn’t get to play during their high school season, it should also be entertaining as well.