"Inning by inning."
That's been Barnstable Post 206 American Legion Baseball's motto all season long as it marched through the regular season toward its first-ever Massachusetts State Championship in Worcester two weeks ago.
And it's the same motto the team will take with it this morning as it boards a coach bus en route to the 2012 American Legion Northeast Regionals in Old Orchard Beach, Maine, according to Manager Sean Walsh, now in his 25th year coaching baseball.
"This has been an extraordinarily difficult two-week layoff," Walsh said. "We've done just about everything possible to keep the guys sharp, practicing and playing scrimmages. It's not an easy thing to do on the heels of the waning momentum of winning the state championship."
Each of Barnstable Post 206's 17 players has a summer job, according to Walsh, with each player's work schedule varying greatly.
"Try coordinating practices around 17 different work schedules and then add in the coaching staff's work schedules combined with field availability. It's a virtual nightmare to put together," Walsh said.
It also comes with costs the organization wasn't entirely ready for, according to Walsh, including multi-hour bus trips, field use, umpires, baseballs, water, lights and repairing equipment worn out from a "cuthroat schedule."
"We went from playing and practicing almost every day since the day the high school season ended to practically begging for fields and calling the entire southeast of the state to find opponents," Walsh said. "We came into this season with a completely different approach, financially, and budgeted down to the penny. Some people questioned why we've been out raising money for the squad's expenses. It costs close to $15,000 to get this far - games and uniforms and bats and bags of ice and team meals don't appear magically."
American Legion has 2.4 million members - all veterans - and fields 5,400 baseball teams in 50 states. Barnstable Post 206 is one of just 64 teams that remain in play and only eight of those teams will head to the World Series in North Carolina on August 17. Post 206 will face New Hampshire American Legion State Champion Concord Post 21 on Thursday, Aug. 9 around noon-time.
What makes Post 206's team even more unique is that its 17 players all live within the town of Barnstable with 15 of them attending Barnstable High School. Two players - Will Toffey of Barnstable village and Alec Morrison of Osterville - attend the Salisbury School in Connecticut. Toffey transferred there this year to play ball for his older brother, head coach John Toffey. He has the good fortune to also play for his father, Post 206 Coach Jack Toffey, in the summer these past three seasons.
Walsh added two more coaches to the mix this summer - Andrew Nugnes and David Tierno. Nugnes, the longtime Barnstable High School varsity sailing head coach and an assistant football coach at BHS, has been instrumental, Walsh said, in keeping the dugout light yet focused when need be. Nugnes is also an 8th grade math teacher at BHS and graduated in 1996 from the school. Tierno, a former Red Raider and Post 206 baseball graduate, just wrapped up his sophomore year at St. Joseph's College in Philadelphia, PA.
"It's infinitely easier for Coach Toffey and I to focus on scoring runs and helping players get better when we're not taking turns policing the dugout or trying to keep teenage tempers in check," Walsh said. "Having Coach Nugnes and Tierno there this season was more valuable to our success than some people might think. Whatever people think, it happened. Those two made a major impact on our team spirit, our unity and our passion to win. They know baseball. They know the kids and they know young men and what makes them tick."
Walsh credited a more relaxed atmosphere as being critical to players' individual senses of self-confidence as well. Leadoff hitter Dylan Morris, for example, shattered the team hitting record with a .488 batting average as well as the team record for hits in a season (40), while Alex Pernick broke the team record for RBI with 41 in 25 games. Morris is in his sophomore season with Post 206, while Pernick is one of the team's veterans and the only player who will graduate this year from the program.
"Having fourth-year guys was huge," Walsh said. "Guys who have seen how low we once were and each season stuck with it until they got a taste from the gold cup. They'd had enough watching other teams hoist the hardware."
But capturing titles and planting their collective lips on three-foot tall trophies was never part of any team discussion, huddle or mid-game dugout confab. Each game was taken for its face value. Post 206 followed its credo "one inning at a time," to the final out of the state tournament, a tournament which included two remarkable come-from-behind wins.
"Honestly, I learned to not put the cart before the horse back in 1995 from guys like Jon Sproul and Jaime Dorr and Dan Dumas who played for me back then," Walsh said. "When those guys talked about how they were going to approach the upcoming football season and take it 'quarter by quarter' and then went 11-0 and won the Division 1A Super Bowl... I never forgot that. Never look to far ahead."
Walsh added that this year's players - along with Post 206 American Legion members Tom Holmberg and Jake O'Rourke - spent the past two weekends shaking the cans outside local supermarkets and raised over $2,000 - while individual donations came pouring in via mail to the tune of nearly $3,000.
"The kids have some things they've needed for a long time - like new game pants - I credit a good number of our players with having the belief and value system that enabled them to leave work for a day or so and come help raise the money we needed for some items that should have been in hand already," Walsh said. "I've never been a part of a baseball team you had to try out for and then pay for your own uniform, too. The loyalty to the very core values of Americanism that some of these young men have shown in recent weeks has made a believer once again even of me, the biggest skeptic out there. It makes me even more proud of this group to know that some of them comprehend that they would not have the privelege of playing such a great game in such an organized manner and at such a steeply competitive level if not for the sacrifices laid down before them by the men and women of our Armed Forces. There are unselfish people left in this world and I believe our roster is loaded with them."
The Barnstable Post 206 American Legion Baseball team is comprised of: Terrence Mudie, Denny Beynor, Tim Biliouris, Mark Brodd, Will Toffey, Dan Walsh, Luke Besse, Dylan Morris, Everett Walsh, Alex Pernick, George Bent, Keegan Dellacona, Conor Walsh, Alec Morrison, Dan Holzman, Ryan Litchman and Pete Liimatainen.
Barnstable Post 206 American Legion Baseball was founded in the spring of 1930, according to the Barnstable Patriot archives.