GREENVILLE – Greenville American Legion Post 140 honored US Military Veterans prior to its July 5th matchup with visiting Muncie Post 19, a game won by the visitors 6-2.
The Greenville Honor Guard presented the Colors, fired a three round volley and played Taps prior to Rod Saylor, a US Marine Corps Veteran who served two tours in Vietnam three out the game’s opening pitch.
“We really wanted to find a way to honor the Veterans,” said Post 140 head coach Chad Henry. “We wear the Post 140 on our chest, we play Legion Baseball but I feel like there are situations we could probably try to do a little better, try to educate our youth on doing that.”
“To have them out there doing those things, have a live Anthem out there on the field, playing taps and shooting the rifles, that’s incredible stuff for those kids to be a part of,” Henry added. “Absolutely glad we could share that with them.”
The Greenville Honor Guard included: Rod Saylor, US Marine Corps (Vietnam) 1968-1971; Ron Riegle, US Air Force, 1970-1974; Keith Denman, US Navy, 1975-2005; Andy Melbo, US Army (Vietnam) 1968-1971; Larry Rammel, US Air Force, 1966-1972; Ken Wombold, US Army, 1965-1971; Gaylen Blosser, US Army (Vietnam) 1968-1970.
All Veterans in the stands for the game were invited to the field during the opening ceremonies to be recognized for their service to America.
Umpiring the game was Dave McCartney, US Marines Corps Veteran Dave and US Army Veteran Bad Allen.
Post 140 starting catcher and 2023 Arcanum graduate Aiden Psczulkoski will be leaving soon for VMI (Virginia Military Insitute), a military academy and upon graduation will be commissioned as a US Air Force Officer with plans for a military career.
“Having a kid like Aiden here with his opportunity that he’s created going through service next year, I felt like it was a good opportunity to show these kids a little bit of the tradition, the kind of things we grew up watching,” Coach Henry stated.
Each player and coach wore a new uniform jersey with the name and rank of family member or friend on the back of the jersey making for an American Legion Post 140 special night at Greenville Sater Heights Park.
Carson Henry, an incoming GHS senior played the National Anthem on his saxophone. Henry is the son of Post 140 head coach Chad Henry and Lauren Henry.
The teams played to a 2-2 score after one inning of action before Muncie would take advantage of several Post 140 miscues to post a single run in the top of the third to lead 3-2.
Muncie added three-runs in the top of the fourth to lead 6-2 where the score would stand after seven-innings of play.
“We had a lot of failure out there on the defensive end,” Henry stated. “We didn’t make sure we are failing forward. Kids aren’t going to be perfect making plays, grown men that get paid to do this aren’t perfect but when we do something we want to make sure we’re going about it the right way.”
“I think the kids are confident in what they’re doing but sometimes they get down on themselves and baseball is a metaphor for life, you’re going to fail and you have to come back from it,” Coach Henry concluded.
