THE ADULT 50+ Warriors team completed its ninth season. In the front row are Sal Perrone, Mike Abbott, Les Epstein, Joey Russo, Bob Gard and Joe Moscato. In the second row are Tim Omen, Jeff Wardwell, Joe Silveira, George Porter and Brian Doyle.
WAKEFIELD — The 2015 baseball season will be the 10th season since the New England Legends Baseball League (NELBL) started. The league started in 2006 as a New Hampshire Baseball League (NHBL 50+) Legends Division. It was started to give NHBL 40+ adult baseball wooden bat league older players a chance to continue playing.
The Warrior team was involved in the founding of the league and is an outgrowth of Wakefield Sunday morning baseball. The majority of the Warriors’ team will have played together for 10 years. The team has a winning tradition of being in the championship game many of the years. Players who started playing in their 50s and 60s are now in their 60s and 70s.
To compete for the 2015 championship, the Warrior team now needs to add players in the 50s age bracket. The biggest need is for 50-year-old pitchers to match the other the teams. Adults interested in playing should contact Joe Silveira at 781-245-0746.
The NELBL requires players to be 50 years of age in the year that they are playing. The league continues to grow as more players become of age (there were four teams in 2006, five teams in 2007, six teams in 2008, seven teams in 2010, eight teams in 2011 and nine teams planned for 2015).
Adult baseball rules are modified to make the games competitive allowing older players to play with younger players and to avoid injury. The no stealing rule and pitchers being limited to five innings per game are the major deviations from Major League rules. Games are nine innings. All players play at least three innings in the field and get their turn at bat.
Home games are played at 4 p.m. at Walsh Field in Wakefield as well as away games in Tyngsboro; Concord, N.H., and Bedford, N.H. The regular season and playoff game schedule is played on Saturdays from May through August. The playoff format breaks an eight team league into two divisions that plays a three game round robin to determine the two teams that will vie for the championship.
Besides enjoying the ability to play baseball with your teammates, the social environment of getting to know other players is an additional benefit.
The Warriors ended the 2014 season with a record of four wins, seven losses and three ties.
The season started with the Warriors having a 4-1-1 record. The Warriors have always been an excellent hitting team and solid pitching team which vies for the championship. This year Wakefield’s lack of depth caught up to it.
Key core players that have provided this capability started missing games due injuries and other commitments. Injured players included Tommy Crusco, who batted .667 for two games before being injured; Rich Marcucella, who was one of Wakefield’s leading pitchers and batters, was gone for the the season; Rick Archambault, who played only five games due to injury, and Jeff Wardwell, a leading hitter was able to play only eight games.
Key 300+ players Brian Doyle, Mike Abbott, George Porter and Tim Omen couldn’t hold the fort the rest of the season. The team batting average dropped 50 points and 2.6 runs per game (from .341 scoring 7.5 runs per nine innings in 2013 to .291 scoring 4.9).
Wakefield’s 2013 pitching staff of Abbott, Marcucella and Doyle had to rely on Abbott, Silveira and Sal Perrone to fill in for 2014.
Team awards for Warrior players in the 2014 season were: Brian Doyle won MVP award for his outstanding hitting and leadership; Joe Silveira, the Cy Young pitching award; Sal Perrone, Golden Glove fielding award (who anchored the outfield defense with his center field play) and Bob Gard received the Sportsman Award.
The Warriors had a fifth place finish. Final league standing records were: first place – N.H. Mets 13-1, second place – N.H. Grays 10-3-1, third place – N.H. Diamond Aces 7-5-2, fourth place – Lowell Millers 8-6, fifth place – Warriors 4-7-3, sixth place – N.H. Brewers 5-9, seventh place – Granite 5-9, and eighth place – N.H. Nationals 1-13.
The Warrior results were: a 7-5 win over the Granite, a 5-1 win over Brewers, a 9-7 win over the Nationals, a 12-1 loss to the Mets, a 6-6 tie with the Grays in 13 innings, a 10-6 win over the Nationals, a 7-6 loss to the Granite, a 6-5 loss to the Brewers, a 10-2 loss to the Mets, a 9-1 loss to the Grays, a 6-5 loss to the Millers, an 18-2 loss to the Millers, a 9-5 playoff loss to the Millers, a 5-1 playoff win against the Nationals and 12-3 playoff loss to the Mets.
At the end of the season the league held a baseball marathon at Holman Stadium in Nashua, N.H., a minor league park, which mixes the players from the various teams into two teams. The three day event scheduled four nine inning games from Friday to Sunday with a season ending banquet at the field. The weather was excellent this year with temperatures ranging from 70s to 80s. The marathon builds camaraderie between players in the league through the shared experience of playing baseball together and introduces new players to the league. The proceeds are given to a charity of choice.
The Warrior team got its start from its 9 a.m. Sunday baseball pick up games which are continuing at any available field. The Warriors usually start the pick up games in May and end when snow covers the ground.
