By Jack Healey
The State American Legion Baseball Tournament continues today at Colchester with three games on tap including Rutland vs. Colchester at 10 AM.
SD Ireland is in the best position to win the championship as it doesn’t have to play today and has two shots to win one game tomorrow. Rutland and Colchester have to win four straight games and Brattleboro has to win three straight games to win the championship. Yes I would say SD Ireland is in the driver’s seat.
I don’t know how well the tournament has been run at Colchester and Essex, but it sure ran smoothly when it was held at Castleton. It ran pretty well at White River two years ago too. The best run tournament ever was in 1984 at St. Peter’s Field in Rutland. The host team was Proctor Post 6. That tournament was run with complete transparency and it went off without a hitch.You will never guess who the tournament director was. I will say it does help when there are no rain delays.
The 66th annual Shrine Maple Sugar Bowl game is this Saturday at Castleton university. Despite the skeptics the game is still very special!
Many people feel that the greatest game in Shrine history was Vermont’s come from behind victory in 1973. New Hampshire was leading 21-9 with less than four minutes to go, but Vermont came back to win it. Montpelier’s Rex Martin threw a touchdown pass to MSJ’s Robbie Gilligan to tie the game with 5 seconds left and then Greg Sprout of Essex kicked the winning extra point. Middlebury’s Rod Bicknell,the former golf pro at Neshobe, had a key interception to set up the winning drive. Yes the Shrine Game is still special and it always will be!
By the way today is Robbie Gilligan’s 64th birthday! Happy Birthday Robbie!