By Michael Letendre

The Bristol American Legion Baseball team – the current Zone 1 leader – did not get invited to the Regional Qualifier this year.

That means that if the best team in Zone 1 actually wins its division, which Bristol is on pace to do, it won’t have a chance to qualify for the Northeast Regional Tournament.

However, the program is still on pace to be a major contender in the state tournament bracket and winning the Connecticut championship isn’t a bad consolation prize.

But the Regional Qualifier math in qualification for the tournament is a bit perplexing.

First off, you have to be a NASA rocket scientist to figure out how the two squads from Zone 1 – one tied with Bristol on July 22, the day the selections were made – and the other one which was a full game behind Post 2, qualified over the locals.

And that meant first place Meriden (11-4 at the time) and West Hartford (10-5) both ended up getting the green light for the special tournament while Bristol (11-4) ended up with door number three.

If you ever watched that game show ‘Let’s Make a Deal,’ you know what door number three leads to (usually it was a real life donkey pulling a cart or something silly along those lines).

But Bristol has an excellent shot at winning the zone and then moving on to the state tournament where anything can happen.

It’s just disappointing that Bristol won’t make up part of the Regional Qualifier.

After a 1-3 start, the Bristol program has gone 11-1 in Zone 1 action and is now 12-4 – a game in front of second place Meriden (11-5) and a game-and-a-half over West Hartford (10-5).

The zone leader in all five divisions earned a slot in the Regional Qualifier and were ranked according by record.

Top seeded Waterford led the group while Madison was the runner-up, ranked second in the Regional Qualifier.

RCP earned the third seed, Fairfield took fourth while Meriden was fifth to complete the seeding of the zone leaders.

Wallingford was the best second place team out of the bunch and earned the sixth seed.

The rest of the group included second place finishers NCL (No. 7), Greenwich (No. 8), West Hartford (No. 9), and Norwich (No. 10).

The first games were held on Saturday as No. 7 NCL defeated No. 10 Norwich by a 3-0 final while No. 8 Greenwich spun No. 9 West Hartford, 7-4, in single elimination play.

Games continued today with all eight teams in action – entering a double-elimination format.

Games will continue to be held at the higher seed until July 29 when Muzzy Field will host the semifinals and final round of the qualifier.

Tomfoolery

As of July 22, No. 10 Norwich was 11-7 while Bristol held an 11-4 ledger.

How did all those team leapfrog Bristol?

The world may never know…