With the high school baseball season wrapped up and finished until next spring, the top players in the state are transitioning directly into their next season.

    The American Legion Baseball League season kicked off this past weekend, and the local American Legion Walter L. Fox Post No. 2 team opened on a positive note.

    In a doubleheader against VFW 3420, Fox Post picked up two wins, 17-4 and 9-1, June 6, and followed that up with a 10-0 win over the Post 6 Patriots, June 8.

    This year’s squad is made up of players from Dover, Caesar Rodney and Polytech high schools, as well as Saint Thomas More Preparatory. Players range in age from 15 to 19 years old.

    Fox Post 2 was unable to win the league’s state title last year, but manager Zach Carter said with a surplus of strong pitching on this year’s roster he’s hopeful for a different outcome.

    “I think overall our strong point should be pitching,” Carter said. “I have about seven good arms between the players coming back and the new players.

    “We also have some team speed, but it’s up in the air what kind of hitting team we’ll be. That’ll be one of the things we’ll be working on.”

    Third baseman Joey Babuca, a graduate of Caesar Rodney High School who will play baseball for Delaware State University next year, said he’s hopeful for this year’s team based on the pitching.

    Winning rests so much on the strength of a team’s pitching staff, Babuca said, and everything else falls in behind that.

    “Baseball is all about the pitching,” he said. “Whoever has the best pitchers will win. We have good enough players to score some runs, and the pitching can keep the runs off the board for us.”

    The Fox Post 2 schedule is a busy one, as the team plays an average of four games per week. However, the team does not have practices as often as a high school team would.

    Since most legion ball players are the top baseball performers from their respective high schools, Carter said extensive practicing is not required.

    “We don’t practice a whole lot once we start,” he said. “We’ll get to games early and do work, like in the cage though.”

    Babuca, who is entering his fourth season playing for Fox Post 2, said transitioning from the high school season to legion ball is not hard.

    However, he added, once the summer season begins it is necessary for players to elevate their play, as the competition is tougher in the legion on a more consistent basis.

    “Playing with the legion, there are college kids that are playing all types of Division I and Division II baseball already,” Babuca said. “It’s the best competition in Delaware.”

    He added that by competing against such good players his own game has improved substantially over the past three years.

    “The better the players you play with, the better you’re going to get,” Babuca said.

    On top of that, he said playing with all the players he competes so hard against during the high school season is a nice change of pace.

    “It’s like playing Little League again,” Babuca said. “It’s just a bunch of friends that after the high school season get to play baseball together again.”

    For more information on the Fox Post 2 schedule, visit www.delegion.org/baseball.

Email Brian Citino at brian.citino@doverpost.com