American Legion Baseball American Legion 2024 and 2025 State tournaments

[Linkman]

Cherryville has been awarded the NC American Legion State tournament for the next two years.

For the 2024 event, Cherryville will host a week’s worth of events before and during the tournament.

Thursday, July 18: A kickoff celebration in downtown Cherryville will be held from 7-10 p.m. with the Band of Oz providing entertainment.

Friday, July 19: A parade will be held at 4:30 p.m. in Cherryville with N.C. Legion Hall of Fame inductees serving as grand marshals before a 6 p.m. banquet at Cherryville Baptist Church and, finally, a home run derby at Cherryville’s Fraley Field.

Saturday, July 20 to Wednesday, July 24: Double-elimination tournament will be played to determine the state champion.

Cherryville hosting the event in 2024 and 2025 will add to Post 100’s record for numbers of times serving as host; Cherryville previously has hosted the 2005, 2019 and 2021 state tournaments.

 

[BleedBurnsBlue]

I know Cherryville is a powerhouse in baseball but I don't understand why big tournaments are held there. They have no hotels, no restaurants, not a lot of seating, terrible parking. I don't get it.

 

[Linkman]

I know Cherryville is a powerhouse in baseball but I don't understand why big tournaments are held there. They have no hotels, no restaurants, not a lot of seating, terrible parking. I don't get it.

The state legion powers to be were not at all happy with how the state tournament has been run the past two years. Insufficient accommodations for state officials, bad attendance, bad concessions, poor umpiring were some of the issues.

In addition to Cherryville's rich baseball history the biggest reason Cherryville was chosen is that state legion officials have been pleased with how well Cherryville has run state tournaments in recent years (2019 and 2021) as well as the 2023 state junior legion tournament. I don't know where you got the idea about terrible parking. There is plenty of parking in close walking distance (two large church parking lots in addition to the Post 100 legion building parking lot). There are lots of hotels and restaurants close by in Gastonia and Shelby. Obviously Cherryville's ball park doesn't have the seating capacity of a college or minor league park but there is sufficient enough seating for the fans...lots of seating down the right field line.

Something the state officials really like about Cherryville is the close logistics of having a large auditorium for banquets at the First Baptist Church across the street from the ball park as well the Post 100 legion building also right across the street for orientation meetings and meals for the players.

Cherryville is currently in the process of making improvements to Fraley Field all of which will be is place for the 2024 state tournament....a new scoreboard, new outfield fencing, new bating cage, infield tarp, improved areas for the handicapped, and enhanced restroom facilities.

Cherryville is looking forward to giving the legion teams, players, and fans a much better state legion tournament experience this season and improving upon that in 2025. If successful, I expect Cherryville to continue to get big tournaments.

 

[BleedBurnsBlue]

The state legion powers to be were not at all happy with how the state tournament has been run the past two years. Insufficient accommodations for state officials, bad attendance, bad concessions, poor umpiring were some of the issues.

In addition to Cherryville's rich baseball history the biggest reason Cherryville was chosen is that state legion officials have been pleased with how well Cherryville has run state tournaments in recent years (2019 and 2021) as well as the 2023 state junior legion tournament. I don't know where you got the idea about terrible parking. There is plenty of parking in close walking distance (two large church parking lots in addition to the Post 100 legion building parking lot). There are lots of hotels and restaurants close by in Gastonia and Shelby. Obviously Cherryville's ball park doesn't have the seating capacity of a college or minor league park but there is sufficient enough seating for the fans...lots of seating down the right field line.

Something the state officials really like about Cherryville is the close logistics of having a large auditorium for banquets at the First Baptist Church across the street from the ball park as well the Post 100 legion building also right across the street for orientation meetings and meals for the players.

Cherryville is currently in the process of making improvements to Fraley Field all of which will be is place for the 2024 state tournament....a new scoreboard, new outfield fencing, new bating cage, infield tarp, improved areas for the handicapped, and enhanced restroom facilities.

Cherryville is looking forward to giving the legion teams, players, and fans a much better state legion tournament experience this season and improving upon that in 2025. If successful, I expect Cherryville to continue to get big tournaments.

The parking, I can make peace with. But the closest hotel is 20 minutes away. I know they put on a good tournament for what they have, I just don't get it. Another argument is that Cherryville automatically goes to the state tournament the next 2 years. Just like Asheboro hosting the Regional every year, I don't think that's right. Didn't they used to rotate Areas for state tournaments each year? Which area is getting screwed by only having the winner go to the state? I assume one of these next couple years is Area IV's turn, correct?

 

[Linkman]

The parking, I can make peace with. But the closest hotel is 20 minutes away. I know they put on a good tournament for what they have, I just don't get it. Another argument is that Cherryville automatically goes to the state tournament the next 2 years. Just like Asheboro hosting the Regional every year, I don't think that's right. Didn't they used to rotate Areas for state tournaments each year? Which area is getting screwed by only having the winner go to the state? I assume one of these next couple years is Area IV's turn, correct?

Yes, they used to rotate the Areas for the hosting of the state tournament each year. If they were still rotating I think this year would have been Area III and next year would be Area IV. However, it appears that the NC state legion officials now want to go in a different direction (Fuquay Varina the past two years and now Cherryville for two years). I agree that the down side is that one Area will get screwed by having only one winner go to the state. My understanding is that will be determined by luck of the draw this year.

It takes a lot of community support to host a tournament....financial as well as volunteer support, so the hosting team rightly should get an automatic bid. But I do agree that ideally the same team should not be hosting a state or regional tournament every year. However, I believe that legion officials are looking to have more stability in the hosting of state and regional tournaments and that's why they are going in the direction of multi-year contracts for state and regional tournaments.

 

[Skools]

Yes, they used to rotate the Areas for the hosting of the state tournament each year. If they were still rotating I think this year would have been Area III and next year would be Area IV. However, it appears that the NC state legion officials now want to go in a different direction (Fuquay Varina the past two years and now Cherryville for two years). I agree that the down side is that one Area will get screwed by having only one winner go to the state. My understanding is that will be determined by luck of the draw this year.

It takes a lot of community support to host a tournament....financial as well as volunteer support, so the hosting team rightly should get an automatic bid. But I do agree that ideally the same team should not be hosting a state or regional tournament every year. However, I believe that legion officials are looking to have more stability in the hosting of state and regional tournaments and that's why they are going in the direction of multi-year contracts for state and regional tournaments.

Linkman is 100% correct that it takes tons of man power to put on a state tourney like this. Plus you need at your post tons of people to go out and raise money. Is the host team still required to put the teams up in a hotel and feed them?

My understanding for the past couple of years they wanted to continue to rotate sites but nobody really wants to host besides Cherryville and Fuquay. Shelby and Randolph already host the World Series and regional. I also think it is alot less worrisome for the state committee and lets be honest less work for them to give it to someone that has done it before. Less Stress. Plus I think all the improvements being done at fraley field.....you kinda had to give it to them to justify to the city for doing it.

 

[Linkman]

Linkman is 100% correct that it takes tons of man power to put on a state tourney like this. Plus you need at your post tons of people to go out and raise money. Is the host team still required to put the teams up in a hotel and feed them?

My understanding for the past couple of years they wanted to continue to rotate sites but nobody really wants to host besides Cherryville and Fuquay. Shelby and Randolph already host the World Series and regional. I also think it is alot less worrisome for the state committee and lets be honest less work for them to give it to someone that has done it before. Less Stress. Plus I think all the improvements being done at fraley field.....you kinda had to give it to them to justify to the city for doing it.

Yes, the host team is still required to put the teams up in a hotel and feed them for state tournaments.