A big change in Wyoming American Legion Baseball (WALB) this season has combined the Double A and Single A levels into the Senior Legion.
It's 23 teams in two divisions that will ultimately compete for the top spots in the 2026 State Championships.
It’s a huge shakeup for the organization that has drawndrawn criticism and complaints criticism and complaints from some coaches and parents, and nobody’s more aware of that than the WALB’s board of directors.
The group has heard plenty of feedback from parents and coaches since the Senior Legion was announced in December, then started playing this spring.
“I want to say we’ve had hundreds, maybe even thousands, of communications between text, calls, and emails about this,” said Rocky Rondinelle, WALB’s assistant state commissioner. “There are some people who are upset about it, and that's understandable, because this is a big change.”
Nevertheless, the board said it's confident the Senior Legion is what’s best for the players, the teams, and baseball in Wyoming.
“This has been discussed for several years,” WALB state commissioner Jason Huggins told Cowboy State Daily. “This year, we're going to get the top eight teams at the Division 1 state tournament, and the next eight best teams at the Division 2 state tournament.
"We want to make all state tournaments as competitive as possible, and (the Senior Legion) accomplishes that.”
Double A And Single A
For years, WALB has had two divisions of baseball teams made up of high school seniors.
At the start of the 2026 season, all 23 teams are still in two divisions but on the same playing field for the top seeds in Wyoming's two annual tournaments.
In years past, the Double A division consisted of a rotating number of larger teams from communities that have historically included Cheyenne, Casper, Gillette, Laramie, Rock Springs, and Sheridan.
The much larger Single A division was composed of smaller teams from those and other smaller communities.
Rondinelle said the decision to combine Double A and Single A “got hot and heavy” within the last three years.
Among the many reasons for making the change was an effort to prevent the state tournaments from becoming “a lopsided affair,” said Rondinelle.
“There's usually at least two to three teams in the Double A level that don't really compete very well at that level,” he said. “I ran the Rock Springs program for 10 years, and we played Double A forever because we had the fourth-highest 10-12 enrollment in the state.”
Many of the metrics used for WALB come from the Wyoming High School Activities Association (WHSAA).
Enrollment in local schools, in particular, is a critical factor in determining which teams and players qualify for American Legion Baseball regional and national tournaments.
Huggins said filling out WALB’s Double A division has been a challenge for years. It needed eight teams for the Double A tournament, but there were many seasons when the division had only six or seven teams.
Meanwhile, WALB teams that used to be Double A, such as those in Cody and Cheyenne, were relegated to Single A as enrollment fluctuated. Placement in either division was based on the number of students, not the quality of the team and its players.
“We asked the Cheyenne Hawks to move up to Double A for three years,” he said. “Some teams didn't want to move up. Others refused to move up.
"This year was an opportunity to either bring the next team up or create this singular senior division conference.”
A League Of Their Own
One thing Huggins and Rondinelle emphasized is how little "the big change” affects the schedules and seasons of WALB teams.
“We're still having two state tournaments, just like we would have in the past,” Rondinelle said. “Instead of the Double A and Single A tournaments, we're having Division 1 and Division 2 tournaments.”
The Division 1 tournament will consist of the top eight teams of the WALB’s season. The Division 2 tournament will include the next top eight teams.
The primary difference is that every team in Wyoming can earn one of the top eight spots in the Division 1 tournament.
“We are going to get the best eight teams at each division tournament,” Huggins said. “That's better for the kids and better for baseball, especially for a state that doesn't have high school baseball.”
That, said Huggins and Rondinelle, is bringing WALB to the same level as other states, where a single senior conference has been standard for a long time.
“Everybody else in the country has moved to this,” Huggins said. “It has become more difficult for a Wyoming team to win (regional and national tournaments) because we're not doing what the rest of the country is doing. We need to keep up.”
That said, there are still two conferences in WALB’s new Senior Legion. The Northern and Southern conferences will still play their regional peers, just as they have in seasons past.
Huggins shared the 2026 schedule of the Cody Cubs, a team that previously played in Double A and Single A, as an example of what's the same and what's different.
This year’s schedule was almost the same as last year’s, but with fewer in-conference matchups.
Most WALB teams attend tournaments in neighboring states to give their players more experience. Huggins said the transition to the Senior Legion won't impact that.
“They only have to play 14 games in conference, which is actually less than they had to last season,” he said. “They can play whoever and wherever they want with the rest of their schedule.
"Arguably, it creates more opportunity to go to out-of-state tournaments because there are fewer conference games.”
Change Is Hard
Baend Buus is a board member and baseball director for WALB. He’s also been talking to parents, coaches, and WALB supporters since Senior Legion was announced.
“We’ve had conversations with people around the state for months,” he said. “People are always going to react very quickly, and they immediately reacted when we announced this change. It was that gut instinct.”
Buus emphasized that the establishment of the Senior Legion was a decision made by the entire WALB board after months of intense discussion. It wasn’t an initiative pushed by any one individual or group.
“This wasn’t a knee-jerk decision,” he said. “I've been on the state board longer than Rocky and Jason, and we've had these conversations for years. It was just never the right time.
"If we continued to have a conversation about when the right time was going to be, it never would have been the right time. We had the hard conversations, fixed the problems, and rolled it out.”
Asked why has the change been such an emotional talking point for so many, Buus put it bluntly.
“I think it comes from the fact that the change is hard,” he said. “Change is tough. Change is horrible. That’s how most people react.
"I supervise an office of nine attorneys in Cheyenne, and it doesn't matter what we do. Even if somebody just changes an office, everything gets thrown off.”
That said, Buus is excited about the WALB’s Senior Legion. For him, it’ll create a better experience by increasing competition.
“It provides every team with the opportunity to get wins and potentially be in the Division 1 tournament,” he said. “They can develop teams and players that are really, really good, and go take a shot that could get them to the American Legion World Series.”
Buus added that the change has probably been most difficult for teams that were usually at or just inside or outside the top of the Double A and Single A tournaments.
They might feel they’re at a disadvantage by losing or becoming “easy wins” for other teams, he said.
“Some teams don’t want to take the risk of losing more games,” he said. “It's been really easy to be at the top of a division and beat up on people at state tournaments or be a middle-of-the-road team and take your run at a title game every few years. Those teams might not be a top seed going into state tournaments.”
As the father of a WALB player, Buus said he understands the intensity of these emotions. Now that the 2026 season is underway, he expects temperaments to gradually change for the better.
Everyone’s A Contender
One common criticism of the WALB’s Senior Legion is that smaller teams with great players will get trounced by bigger teams, effectively shutting them out of the Division 1 tournament.
Ryan Brown, a former youth baseball coach in Cody and Powell (not with American Legion), said the teams he coached “wouldn’t have a chance” under the new set-up.
He said it’s like telling a 1A football team in Shoshoni that it has to compete against Sheridan’s 4A team.
“Smaller communities don’t have a chance (and can) not compete against those bigger teams,” Brown said.
Huggins rejected that criticism.
“We want our coaches and our kids to have confidence in themselves, and we want them to coach that way,” he said. “If a coach is out there saying that you can't compete, we've got to change that mindset. You can do these things. You can compete against anybody out there.”
Rondinelle believes the Senior Legion will give more players more exposure to coaches and recruiters looking to build college baseball teams. Upping the caliber of the competition and the tournament comes with more prestige and attention.
“A few years ago, there was a group of kids who were all getting recruited by Division 1 schools to go play college baseball after playing in Cheyenne,” he said. “They were getting phone calls from guys watching in the stands who are friends with Division 1 coaches and called them to say which players they should look at.”
Rondinelle believes the WALB’s Division 1 tournament will attract more eyes from college recruiters because it’s more likely to be worth their time.
They’ll come to the tournament knowing that the seniors on the field are among Wyoming’s top-tier baseball players.
Since any team could potentially end up in that tournament, any player could get a life-changing call that’ll lead to a college scholarship and the next step in an athletic career, whether that’s college baseball or a path to the Major Leagues.
“Coaches will start finding out the Wyoming Division 1 tournament is the eight best teams in the state, and they’ll be watching in the stands,” Buus said. “It doesn't matter if Torrington is the eighth seed in that tournament.
"College coaches are going to be watching from the stands, and if a great Torrington kid shows up, he's going to get a few phone calls.”
Just Play Ball
The WALB’s 2026 season started in the first week of April. Despite several months of phone calls and emails with concerns about the change, Huggins said this is already shaping up to be one of the best seasons in recent years.
“We have 57 teams this year,” he said. “We’re usually around 50, so we’ve added seven teams. We have more teams that have already registered, completed applications, and paid their dues than we've ever had.”
There are 23 teams competing in the Senior Legion. So far, so good, Buus and Huggins said.
Coaches, parents, and players seem to be taking the changes in stride now that the season’s started, which is the outcome the WALB board was hoping for, they said.
“At the end of the day, what we care about most is the kids and giving them the best opportunities,” Buus said. “We hope that now parents, coaches, and players around the state are fully informed on what this looks like, it's going to improve competition.
"We think that’s the best thing for the players and WALB.”
Rondinelle said the feedback he’s received from most coaches has been positive support, even excitement, at the prospect of giving their players more competition.
For anyone skeptical or critical of the change, he had a simple request.
“Let's play ball and see what happens,” he said. “I truly believe that once this thing is going, everybody's going to love it. Maybe I'm wrong, but we won’t know until we play this season.
"So, let’s play ball. Let’s go out there and see what happens."
Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.
