Rod's Ramblings of Tuesday

The State American Legion baseball tournament begins tomorrow and I predict that Sioux Falls West will win the thing again. They seem to have the pitching depth it will take and they hit the ball pretty well. Watertown has some good pitchers and some good hitters, but not enough. Spearfish is only 2 deep in starting pitching and from the number 5 spot on down in the batting order the hitting tails off. I don't know much about Vermillion but I would say they could win a game or two, probably only one if that. And they are the Class B team. Mitchell has a fairly decent hitting team but it is inconsistent and again pitching depth will cost them. Brookings can hit with the best of them but their lack of pitching depth will cost them in the end. But they may be able to bop the ball around better than any of them. Rapid City Post 320, well, they will find a way to lose, they always do and Brandon Rainford is only allowed to pitch 5 innings or so at the most as he comes back from Tommy John surgery. Not to mention they don't hit consistently and will make some bonehead play or two along the way that will cost them. Then there is Post 22 and all of their defensive problems up the middle. They do not have the pitching depth that they have had in past years either, but they are the home team and they will benefit from close calls by the impartial umpiring crew that somewhere along the tourney will have a call that should benefit the team that Post 22 is playing but instead won't get called and thus beneift Post 22. It happens every year. We can rest assured that this tournament will be the most media freindly tournament with Pierre's own Tyler Merriam the media relations director. If he stays around in South Dakota, the American Legion baseball commissioners should find a way to make him the full time person in that capacity. By the way, whoever wins the tournament, the ole travel bills should be as low as can be. The Central Plains Region is in Excelsior, Minnesota located near the Twin Cities and the national tournament is in Fargo.