Gone are the days of longtime Butler County American Legion baseball managers.

Dess Schnur, Bob Steiner and Tom Schneider combined for more than 50 years of managerial experience at East Butler, Mars and Zelienople only a few years ago.

They have since retired or moved on. Now the East Butler and Mars programs are gone as well.

The trimmed BCAL baseball circuit begins play this week with only seven teams. The league’s had as many as 12 in the past.

“Lack of any adult leadership in some areas have cost us teams this year,” Butler City manager Jerry Piroch said.

“We still have a balanced and very competitive league. Just about anybody can go out and grab this thing.”

Piroch has been running the Butler City program for eight years and is the longest tenured skipper in the circuit. Butch Master is in his sixth year at Meridian.

The rest of the managers are new to the circuit. Mike Jewart at West Sunbury, Brian Hortert at Center Township and Pat Sarnese at Saxonburg are first-year managers. Nick Eppinger at Zelienople and Mark O’Connor at Cranberry are in their second year.

Piroch has picked up a few players from East Butler and Jewart is bringing a few Karns City kids into his program.

“This is a good thing for the strength of our league,” Master said. “We still have the same territories. We’re just more condensed now.

“Every team should have three good pitchers and at least six guys able to pitch.”

Sarnese, president of the Saxonburg Area Baseball Association, echoed sentiments about the competitive balance in the league.

“The teams left standing are solid programs that have been around for a while,” he said. “The kids keep coming back.

“I’ve got a roster of 18 players and I’ve been working with some of those kids since they were 5 or 6 years old.”

Center Township won the BCAL regular season title last year and defeated playoff champion Meridian in the best-of-three series for the right to represent the league in regional play.

That best-of-three series has been done away this year. The league will play an 18-game regular season schedule — playing the other teams three times each — and a double-elimination tournament will follow.

The two teams reaching the tourney finals will head to the regional in Saegertown July 15.

“That best of three taxed everybody’s pitching too much,” Master said. “This way, our teams can be more competitive in the region.”

Jewart pointed out that the BCAL still has more kids playing Legion baseball than most counties.

“In other places, Legion teams are basically all-star teams,” he said. “We give kids the opportunity to play baseball and keep growing the sport.

“We’ve lost some kids to hockey over the past number of years. Hopefully, with the Pirates doing a little better, kids will get interested in baseball again.”

West Sunbury has 12 players on its roster right now and Jewart expects that number to grow to 16. That district has three Pony League teams — two in North Washington, one in West Sunbury.

“Our numbers are healthy at the age 13-14 level,” Jewart said. “We just have to weather the storm for a couple of years.”

Center Township has 13 players “and I feel like they’re all interchangeable,” Hortert said. “I’m excited about the collection of kids we’ve got.”

Hortert has been coaching younger levels of baseball in Center Township for 10 years.

“A lot of these kids have followed me up here,” he said. “This will be a competitive league. It was competitive when I played in it back in 1980 and that’s never changed.”

Master agreed.

“West Sunbury is young, but the other six are right there with each other,” he said. “This should be fun.”