Bob Greco, head coach of the Westside American Legion baseball program, has announced today that the Westside Legion program will participate in a statewide initiative to promote high school and Legion baseball.  The statewide effort will be coordinated by BaseballNebraska, Inc., an Omaha-based non-profit organization which publishes a popular high school baseball website known as BaseballNebraska.com.  BaseballNebraska, Inc. is creating a network of inter-connected team websites, to be known as the BaseballNebraska Network, for each of the nearly 300 American Legion baseball teams in Nebraska.   Information entered by individual teams participating in the network, such as schedules, rosters and scores, will be available on that team's website and will also be collated with information from other teams on the Network's main siteto show relative standings among the teams.

 

"This is a real information breakthrough for Nebraska high school-age baseball," commented coach Greco.  "BaseballNebraska is creating a statewide network of team websites that will feed information into a central location where it will be readily accessible to readers across the state.  Then, if readers want more information about a particular team, they can just click on a link on the main site to go to the local team level.  This is a giant leap for high school baseball to have an integrated information network like this."

 

The network will utilize a multi-team website platform known as the Vicid Website Management system, owned and operated by LeagueUSA, Inc.  Charlie Mandt, a co-founder of LeagueUSA, referred to the statewide rollout as both "unprecedented" and "a very good fit for our Vicid product."   He noted that "this size of network is well within the technical capabilities of our system, and the end-users at the team level should find this to be a very user-friendly product.  We're totally committed to supporting what BaseballNebraska is doing."

 

BaseballNebraska, Inc. Executive Director Jack Mayfield commented that "having the support of coaches like Bob Greco is needed to make this network a reality.  Coach Greco is one of Nebraska's most successful and respected coaches.  Having Westside as one of the early supporters of this system gives us a tremendous boost."

The 2010 American Legion season will be BaseballNebraska's fifth season publishing a website to promote Nebraska's Legion and high school baseball programs.  Although not directly affiliated with the Nebraska Department of American Legion, BaseballNebraska has enjoyed strong suppor from the state's Legion baseball leadership.  "What BaseballNebraska is doing supports our mission of providing opportunities for kids to play baseball in their communities and will help us keep our participation numbers up," noted Don Kiviniemi, Jr., chairman of the Athletic Committee which oversees American Legion baseball in Nebraska.  "We're all for it."

 

Mayfield's goal is to have at least 200 of the state's approximately 300 Legion teams participating in the BaseballNebraska Network for the 2010 season.  "Considering that we've been working with about 100 teams for the past several years, I think that's a realistic goal," he added.  According to Mayfield, the cost for participating teams for the 2010 season will be $50 each, which includes a one-year license for their team website.  "A website for $50 a year is a great deal for a team, plus they get the added advantage of being part of an integrated network.  We're trying to make it very easy for teams to say "yes" to this opportunity.   At this point, it's really up to the teams whether this thing will fly or not. Hopefully, if we build it, they will come. "