Eagles team drops from Stan Musial league
By Ken Powers Contributing Writer

Marlborough - The winter was the worst. Night after night in December and January Andre Laliberte would awake in the middle of the night and pace the floor wondering what to do.

"I know people will roll their eyes when they read this, but my wife can attest to it, making this decision was beginning to physically aff ect me," Laliberte said.

Laliberte's dilemma was a tough one, and one that he alone could make - fold the Marlborough Eagles Stan Musial Baseball team, a team he helped create 19 summers ago, or cobble together a roster and give it one more go.

In the end the decision was simple, but hardly easy. Laliberte, a pitcher as well as the team manager, decided Feb. 1 that the Eagles - for the sake of safety and competition and dignity - needed to attempt to soar no more.

"I gave myself until Feb. 1 to make a decision and I was deliberating right up until the end," Laliberte said. "Going back and forth, weighing the pros and cons. But in the end I think I knew, deep down, that we wouldn't be able to field a competitive team this year, and just fielding a team would probably be difficult."

Laliberte said the biggest reason he was forced to fold the team was the fact that he was losing players through natural attrition and was unable to find replacements.

Stan Musial Baseball is a national association begun in 1935 in Battle Creek, Mich. It is open to players 19 years and older. Traditionally teams are composed of college players home for the summer who are too old to play American Legion or Senior Babe Ruth baseball and too young to play in over-30 leagues.

Players traditionally play through their college years and maybe for a year or two after that before their priorities shift, frequently to things that don't include summer baseball, priorities which include family and careers.

"We were losing players through attrition, but we weren't getting any new players," Laliberte said. "The bulk of our players over the years have come from Marlborough High, and for various reasons we haven't had a former Marlborough High player join us since 2002."

Laliberte said the reasons he was given by guys deciding not to play were varied, but individually they all made sense. The bottom line however, was the Eagles were losing players and not replacing them.

"It was the usual stuff , jobs and families, and for some it was just time to move on," Laliberte said. "But others, they just decided not to play summer baseball. And these were kids still playing in college. I had a college coach call me and ask what it would take for them to get one of their players on my team. I'd tell them, 'Just have the kid show up at this time on this day and he's on the team.' But the kid never showed."