How American Legion baseball has vanished in Polk County, central Florida

There was a time when Bill Bullock was right in the thick of things when it comes to coaching baseball at the high school level in Polk County. But these days Bullock is coaching his grandson’s youth team, even in the heart of the American Legion summer season.

For 25 years, Bullock was the Central Florida Director of American Legion. And while doing his due diligence in grandfather duties, he sometimes hearkens back to when American Legion was thriving in Polk County — and across Central Florida.

But that isn’t the case today.

Lake Region High School hosted the Legion State Tournament for two decades under Bullock’s watch. As that ended in 2015, the landscape was already shifting.

AAU baseball, and travel baseball, really began to take off, including the growth of a new organization called Perfect Game, which took away from Legion baseball.

Camp:Winter Haven's American Legion team gives back to community

At the time, many Legion programs had A and B teams, and some a C team. Different posts selected players from different schools to sponsor. But there was a cap on who could and couldn’t play, based on location.

The A team was comprised of upperclassmen and could be from two to three schools, depending on enrollment, while the B team was primarily returning high school varsity players without graduating seniors. There were even separate A and B state tournaments.

Polk County baseball legend David Saliba ran the Winter Haven American Legion team during its height. But as travel ball began to take over, local American Legion posts pulled back to only B teams. Bullock created an emphasis on C teams to combat the onslaught, teams made up of junior varsity players and low-level incoming players. This was the case for every single school in Polk County, Tampa, and Orlando.

Eventually, travel ball teams recruited all the top players, putting college coaches right in the thick of things. Now, they could see hundreds of high-level players at once. Now, the C teams are 13U to 18U travel teams.

“That kind of started cutting down the number of guys that you could get on the legion teams and really started shutting down,” Bullock said.

To try and counteract those player losses, American Legion hosted camps for players to learn the fundamentals and the system, which carried over into fall ball.

Travel ball is also changing the spring high school season. Bullock said he has seen players transfer schools based on the location of their travel ball coach. Even though that’s technically restricted by the FHSAA, players team up on the same squad and dominate, while some smaller schools can’t field junior varsity teams because of a lack of players.

“I remember when I was a little kid, looking through the fence and I couldn’t wait until I was old enough to play. Those were just great ideals. Now it’s just a lot more individual oriented,” Bullock said.

Lakeland Christian's Matt Diaz touches on travel ball experience

Current Lakeland Christian baseball coach Matt Diaz, a Lakeland native who went on to play Major League Baseball for five teams, is the father of a travel ball son, Nathan Diaz, who plays for Top Tier American — a Tampa Bay team, ranked No. 1 in Florida.

He said travel ball is much more convenient for college coaches and scouts.

“It just became a resources issue for the colleges, which have now stretched the resources for the families. So, it makes sense for the colleges, but for the families, it stinks,” Diaz said.

Diaz is an alum of the American Legion system from his seventh and eighth grade years in the mid-1990s. Back when he was playing on teams for Post 4, the focus was on team building and fundamentals, and he was able to stay local and play amongst peers. Diaz would be the first to tell anyone that American Legion was imperative in his development as a future MLB player.

That was then. Now, he is in the middle of the travel ball takeover. In a recent Top Tier tournament in Georgia, there are over 450 teams from across the nation in nine different age groups.

His son, Nathan, played against a top 20 team in the nation with more than 50 college recruiters at the event.

“If I’m a college, instead of having to go to Polk County, Florida, and then up to rural Georgia and then up to the Northeast, I can go to one complex in rural Georgia in the middle of the summer and watch all these kids come through one time, and not have to spend the mileage, and the money and time away from my family if I’m a college recruiter,” Diaz said.

Diaz notes both leagues are important

While that is convenient for the college game, it puts a stress on the families who would have to invest and travel: the rest of the Diaz' family stays in Florida while father and son travel.

And as a coach with Lakeland Christian, Diaz encourages his players to compete in travel ball.

It’s a decision with both positives and negatives.

“You’re showcasing your abilities (for travel ball) but when you come to high school, my job is to get you ready to play a team brand of baseball,” Diaz said.

Travel ball and showcase leagues are a platform to display individual abilities; there isn’t a lot of bunting, moving runners over and exceptional defensive plays, despite his son learning some small ball tactics currently.

Although Diaz doesn’t favor the brand of baseball travel ball exhibits, he admits it is helpful when it comes to highlighting players who are behind proven college recruits.

That is the situation with his son, who was an all-county honorable mention selection this spring. But he wasn’t getting a full season of at-bats as a sophomore, so travel ball is allowing him to grow as a player with college recruiting eyes on him.

“I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing. It’s just a different thing,” Diaz said. “It really allows these coaches to have a life than when I was coming out of high school where they would have to spend the summer trying to find every baseball game they could possibly see.”