The Mentzers felt compelled to act, and one of their initial moves was to bring on Cedar Crest assistant baseball coach Todd Beasley to help them.

 “We thought about it and we asked each other, ‘What do you want to do?,'” said Mentzer of his father. “We talked to Todd Beasley and he said he would help. We had 24 kids sign up. We had a lot of kids who wanted to be a part of it because we had been involved. When you have coaching changes, you have kids getting out. You’re not going to get commitment when coaches are leaving.

 “The were a lot of questions about the program,” added Mentzer. ” ‘Are we going to combine with Richland?’ ‘Are we going to have a Cedar Crest team?’ ‘Are we going to have an Elco team?’ We had a couple of decisions to make. We decided we’ll do it for a year, get some buy-in and go from there. My dad said, ‘We can’t always be the ones keeping the program afloat.’ There have been times this season when we kind of asked ourselves, ‘Why did we do it again?’ You never know what you’re going to get day-to-day. But it’s hard to find people willing to sacrifice the time.”

 So what would’ve happened if the Mentzers and Beasley hadn’t stepped up to the plate?

 “It would’ve folded,” said Mentzer. “It would’ve almost been like the way the Lancaster County league is. I would guess our kids would’ve had to go where they could go, the closest to their homes. If you can’t find a coach, you can’t have a team.”

 Many of the same players who suffered through last summer returned for Myerstown this year. But there has also been a level of new blood injected into the squad.

 While one would hope that the level of commitment to summer baseball has increased, Myerstown has still endured some degree of frustration.

 “I don’t know exactly what it was last year,” said Mentzer. “I’d like to say, ‘Yes’ (that the level of player commitment is higher). But we are still frustrated with the level of commitment. It’s (players not showing up for games) definitely not on a bigger scale than it was last year. We just have more kids out, and I think that counter-balances it a little bit.

 “It’s always a topic of conversation,” Mentzer added. “We told the kids at the beginning of the season, ‘Get us a list of dates you know you’re going to miss.’ Unfortunately, it hasn’t held true. But we did our best at the beginning of the season, having the kids tell us when they were going to be at games.”

 There was a time when American Legion baseball was a priority for Lebanon County student-athletes during the summer months. It is a time that has now passed.

 “I would say probably half of our roster is made up of baseball-first kids,” said Mentzer. “I would say the other half of the kids are something-else first. A good number of our Cedar Crest kids are baseball first, but they also play travel ball. The Elco kids are impact players in other sports. I’m worried about the toll it takes on them physically. It’s hard to keep them fresh all the time.”

 In many ways, this year’s team is a stop-gap measure, a way to get to the future, for the Myerstown program. It is a temporary solution to a permanent problem.

 “I would love to say myself and my dad and Todd will coach again next year,” said Mentzer. “I think we’d have a chance to get everybody back. I don’t know where my life is going to be next year. We’ll talk about it and try to figure it out at the end of the season. For my dad and I, it’s in our blood. It’s definitely a priority now. But we’ll re-evaluate that priority at the end of the season.”

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 2019 Myerstown Schedule