P-15's win via forfeit

Sumter advances after Greenville fails to bring necessary number of players for Sunday's game

BY EDDIE LITAKER Special To The Sumter Item

The Sumter P-15's quest for a 15th American Legion Baseball state championship lived on for at least one more day without one pitch being thrown.

At 8:25 a.m. Sunday morning, members of the American Legion baseball state committee determined that Greenville Post 3 would have to forfeit its scheduled 9 a.m. elimination game to Sumter due to the fact that the Warbirds did not have 12 players available to play against the P-15's.

When asked for comment, state director Legree Oswald would only say, "The rule book is specific. It says you have to have 12 at the state tournament and that's all we're going to comment on."

The rule being upheld here is as follows:

"During league and state playoff games, only four (4) team coaches, designated adult supervisors or managers, eighteen (18) players in uniform, team scorer and not more than two (2) bat persons (properly supervised) shall be allowed to the player's bench. The minimum number of players is nine (9) through the regular season and playoffs. State tournament requires a minimum of 12 players."

Greenville, the upper state No. 4 seed, had 12 players available for its opening tournament game, a 12-1 Saturday afternoon loss to lower state top seed Florence. However, two Post 3 players left the team Saturday night and appeals from Greenville to have the rule waived were unsuccessful.

Sumter Post 15 athletic director Bill Lyons stressed that this was a national American Legion baseball rule being upheld by the state committee and not a ruling made by the local committee to benefit the tournament's host team.

"Sumter is not getting the breaks," Lyons said. "This is a rule in the rule book for state and national that you must have 12 players for the state tournament. They had 10 players, so whether we played the game or not, they still lost. The state baseball director made the decision, not Post 15. That (ruling) was made with the state committee and the coach of Greenville."

Lyons said Sumter head coach Steve Campbell was also called into the meeting involving local and state committee members on hand Sunday morning at Riley Park. Once the ruling was announced, Lyons said Sumter declined the option to play the game with the outcome already determined.

"We could have played the game," Lyons said, "but what's the point? Greenville wanted to play the game, but there's no point in playing the game because they lost anyway. It's a forfeit, whether we play it or not. What's the point in playing it or using our pitching when it doesn't matter?

"This is not an advantage for Sumter. It is Greenville's fault for not bringing enough players to the tournament to play. They can't blame this on Post 15. It's not our fault. We brought our team to the park this morning ready to play ball only to find out that they didn't have enough players. It's Greenville's fault for letting the players go home that they had here yesterday."

Lyons said that allowing an exception to the rules in Greenville's favor here would set a bad precedent in future similar incidences.

"If you make an exception now and let them play with 10 players," Lyons said, "what's going to happen next year if a team shows up with 10 players? All they've got to do is say that's the way you did it last year."

While disappointed in the wasted time and effort taken to prepare for a game that eventually would not take place, Campbell supported the state committee's ruling.

"The state committee had a decision that they had to make and they made the decision, and they made the right decision," Campbell said. "The decision they made had nothing to do with P-15 baseball."

Campbell had his team assembled at the park at 7:30 a.m. to begin game preparations and did not share any information with P-15 players about the possibility of a forfeit.

"We were notified there may be a possibility, so I didn't communicate that to my team because I wanted to get ready for the ball game," Campbell said. "So we kept going and kept going and kept going in our pregame preparations. At about 8:15, I was asked to come up front to participate in a meeting and I was informed of what the situation was and what the decision was going to be and I said, 'OK, that's fine.' If you've got a rule book, you've got to maintain the integrity of your rule book. If you don't, things happen.

"I'm not sure that the committee didn't have affirmation of exactly what was going on until the time that they talked to me. You can't make a decision like that based off of hearsay or rumor. You've got to have facts, and I feel for Greenville for ending their season on this kind of note, for the guys who WERE here and ready to play ball. They couldn't help what happened as well, but nonetheless these guys have a tough job to do, they made the right call, they made a tough decision and I'll stay with their decision."

Sumter is next scheduled to take the field at 3 p.m. Monday against the loser of the Sunday evening game between Camden and Chapin/Newberry.

"They were keyed up," Campbell said of the P-15's. "They were ready to go this morning. When you have a loss like we had last night, you're ready to get back out on the field and show your fans that, hey, that's not who we are."