After winning its first state championship in a half century and repeating as district champs, Fort Cumberland may not be able to defend its title.
If you ask me, that’s not right.
The state American Legion board is making the champion of our Mountain District play the runner-up of the Western Maryland District in a one-game playoff to make states.
For reference, the Western Maryland District is made up of teams from Boonsboro, Funkstown, Damascus, Frederick, Mount Airy, Brunswick and Sykesville.
The Mountain District is just Fort Cumberland and Garrett County.
The reasoning by the decision makers is that it’s not fair for a two-team district to have an automatic bid when a seven-team district like the Western Maryland one can also only send one squad.
(Well, it’s now a six-team district after one of the teams, allegedly, canceled its season after a coach directed a homophobic slur at an opposing player).
So now Fort Cumberland, the defending state champion and 2022 state runner-up, will have a one-game, winner-take-all contest on Monday, July 22, for the right to defend their championship.
According to the state, Fort Cumberland didn’t earn that right by besting Garrett County in a 10-game series.
This isn’t the first time this format has been used.
Garrett County was forced to wage play-in games in 2007 and ‘08 after the district was reduced to two teams when Frostburg stopped fielding one.
In 2007, Garrett County outlasted Damascus, 6-5, in a 10-inning thriller in Mount Airy.
The following year, Garrett County defeated Silver Spring, 4-1, in a nine-inning game to make a return trip to states.
Even if you win, just playing in the game puts you in the hole because you have to throw your No. 1 pitcher with the season on the line.
In Garrett’s case, the 2008 team was one of Phil Carr’s best ever winning 23 regular-season games, and Player of the Year Matt Sisler threw all nine innings against Silver Spring — meaning he wasn’t available in the state opener.
Expectedly, Garrett drew the state tournament favorite Gaithersburg in its first game and lost 10-9 with its ace unable to pitch.
Garrett also lost its first game in 2007, again, with its No. 1 arm unable to throw against the other team’s top pitcher.
The first game of a double-elimination tournament is the most important, and the winner of the play-in game is at a significant disadvantage.
With just four days rest this year between the state tournament on July 26 and the play-in game, history will likely repeat itself.
“Both times we had to throw our aces to get in,” Garrett County manager Phil Carr recounted after a game this summer. “They have the (play-in) game on a Tuesday, and then start (states) on a Friday. Why can’t you have the game Sunday or Monday to at least give you another day?”
The belief is that with just two teams in the Mountain District, it would be possible for an undeserving champion that doesn’t belong at states to advance that far, while better teams from other districts are left home.
That makes the timing of a play-in game being reintroduced this year curious to say the least.
Since 2020, no other district has performed as well as the Mountain District at states.
There’s no room for debate.
Over the last three state tournaments, the district has three title game appearances — the only district with more than one — won a state title and has an 11-5 overall tournament record that is by far the best mark of any district.
The so-called stronger Western Maryland District has had twice as many teams at the last three tournaments (sending its district champ and another team as the host), and just one has made it to the title game. Frederick won the 2022 championship on its home field.
In head-to-head matchups, the Mountain is 4-2 against Western Maryland at states over that time.
In the 2021 state tournament in Funkstown, Garrett County advanced to its first state championship game in history and ended with a 3-2 record after falling to St. Mary’s.
Garrett County knocked out Frederick, 18-13, in the semis.
The following year at McCurdy Field, Fort Cumberland won its way to the title game, losing 11-6 to Frederick to finish the tourney with a 3-2 record.
Post 13 beat Funkstown, 3-1, in their opener.
Last summer, Fort Cumberland brought the Mountain District a title for the first time since Farrady Post 24 did so in 1991. Post 13 beat Cecil, 7-6, for the championship and went 5-1 during the tourney.
Of note, Fort Cumberland blasted Western Maryland District champion Boonsboro, 10-0, in its state opener and defeated host Frederick, 9-7, in the winners bracket.
If the goal is to put the best eight baseball teams on the field at the state tournament, then why make a change?
Instead, the state would rather risk losing a championship contender to a fluky one-game playoff to appease the Western Maryland District.
The powers that be tried to avoid a play-in game over the Winter, proposing to consolidate the districts and sending Washington County’s representatives to the Mountain District.
It’s a coincidence, surely, that those teams, Boonsboro and Funkstown, are in first and second place in that district with a combined 25-5 league record.
The Mountain District opposed a merger because of travel. A kid who lives in Oakland would have to drive two hours and 125 miles to Boonsboro for a weeknight game, a farcical concept for a team in the same league.
Any coach during the summer could attest that player attendance is already an issue, even for local games, with jobs and other responsibilities.
That transitions into my final gripe with the play-in game, a “neutral site” is always a road game for our teams up here.
We’ve seen it in high school state games and it’s nothing knew, but that doesn’t make it right.
Fort Cumberland will have to travel 77 miles to Smithsburg for the play-in game on Monday, and Funkstown (its likely opponent) will only have to drive nine miles.
The “neutral sites” imposed by state organizations are always east of Sideling Hill.
You would think the team that actually won its district would have the more favorable travel arrangement.
But that would be too logical, and logic isn’t a factor in the equation.
Logic would have prevented a scenario in which the defending state champion would be sent home by a single baseball game.
Logic also would have prevented an expectation for the Mountain District, hailing from a region that loses population every year, to add additional Legion teams beyond the two it has now.
There used to be a Frostburg team because Westmar and Beall used to exist, producing two sets of baseball players to pick an All-Star team from.
Before that, Valley, Bruce, Beall and Mount Savage all fielded squads at the same time.
The state really expects there to be an All-Star team just of kids from Mountain Ridge, a Class 1A public high school?
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why the district reduced to two teams in 2007 — the year Mountain Ridge opened and schools consolidated.
None of it is fair, but it’s reality.
Instead of viewing the play-in game as a punishment, view it as an opportunity to once again prove that this region can compete.
Eventually, somebody downstate might realize it too.