The Story of Billy the Bully
Substituting Stories - When Billy Couldn't Face or Tell The Truth
Billy had a reputation of doing secret things to pick on people at school.
- He always blamed others for his own actions and, as some said, his own short comings.
- This time Billy the Bully verbally and physically assaulted a couple kids at school.
- Down to the principal's office once again. It wasn't the first time.
- Mom had to come pick up Billy the Bully. And that wasn't the first time, either.
Mom wanted an explanation.
- Billy: Those kids took my stuff. They stole my homework. I had to defend myself.
- Mom: Billy, you told that to the principal. He said that was not true at all. Stop lying.
- Billy: They called me names They were mean to me. I had to stand strong and hit back.
- Mom: Billy, Come on. The prioncipal said you were calling names and being mean, too. Its only words, Billy. Attacking people is bad. We all sit down together and we work things out together. Stop lying and blaming others.
Frustrated that the first two lies and excuses didn't fly with Mom (she saw through them), it was time for a whopper. Maybe the third time would be a charm.
- Billy: Those other kids were going to steal my lunch. They were going to steal my lunch money, too. Hey, they were even going to steal my gym shoes and new baseball cap. They made me beat them up. Its their fault.
- Mom: How come you never told the principal that story first?
- Mom had enough. She dragged Billy the Bully back to the woodshed.
Funny how things work. Try one false story. That gets debunked. So a new story gets developed. Oopps. That was a weak one. So then it becoims time for the Biggest and Best Story - The Whopper: I had to Do What I Did Because They Gave Me No Choice.
Adults can act the same way. One false story often leads to another. And we have four stopries to deal with! Billy the Bully only had three.
Crosswise Over Zip Codes Killed ALl-Stars
Soft Pedaled By Board Member #3
Does this qualify as half a story on its own? Maybe. But we will treat it as a part of Story #4.
Board Member #3 - The Crosswise Blame
One board member replied, when asked why all-stars was killed - "Because Barron got crosswise with Randy over zip codes." Really now. Crosswise? Seems possibly minor. How did that happen? What would crosswise over zip codes have to do with All-Stars?
- Randy had not spoken to Barron in a year. How did he get crosswise?
- Randy asked Mike to get a proposal. Mike asked Barron. Barron worked diligently to develop such a proposal. That work was concluded on October 18th with an FYI email circulated to a small list of not-contacted coaches mentioning an "idea that was a potential" on the 22nd. Proposal development effort was over and done. Indeed, the "idea" was a "potential" at that time. Why would working to get Randy's proposal cause someone to get crosswise?
- Member #3 - what would a normal person do if someone got crosswise - accidentally or on purpose? That person would call up the crosswise person or initiate contact somehow and ask - Say, what's this thing all about? Is it normal or is it "leadership" to cancel the nation's largest Legion All Star program without checking out the crosswise thing? We don't think so.
Its good to tow the company line. In the end, you just added to the coverup.
Storyline #4 - They were StEALING ouR cHILDREN
A Board Member's Understanding
Mister Unknown Spoke Up - They Were Stealing Our Children
A baseball board member we will call "Mister Unknown" blurted something out at the spring 2025 board meeting that finally led to the telling of our story and our experiences. To paraphrase:
'The Prospect Series guys were going to steal our best Legion players and start their own league to compete with Legion'
Did We Get This Right?
- Barron and Perry were going to use the All-Star platform as Legion talent predators to steal the best Legion players for some new league?
- The Prospect Series guys were going to compete with American Legion Baseball?
- So All-Stars had to be kllled and shut down to protect our best Legion kids against this ominous threat from the guys that were running the only program promoting the top tier of Leagion talent?
- Who told you this story? Its laughable.
What Are You Talking About Mr. Unknown?
Stealing Players? Building a rogue league to compete with Legion? Seriously?
All Stars Was the Only Legion Program To Serve the Top Talent Tier
How ironic to kill All-Stars in the interest of serving top Legion talent with Legion All-Stars being the ONLY program in Minnesota Legion BAseball that was geared to the top tier of talent.
Kill to save?
What convoluted logic is this? It is cooked up crazy without even a dose or hint of reality.
Did You Consider The Reality Of The Calendar?
- Have you ever looked at a calendar?
- All Stars comes in August AFTER the end of the season. Player names are submitted by Legion coaches up to the second week in July wiyth player selections comiking afterwards.
- Have you ever looked at a calendar?
- By mid--July when all-star players are named, Legion teams are already in playoffs or are headed into playoffs . The regular season that you are defending would be over before the "Prospect Series Guys" would even know the names of top players.
- It would be a Calendar Impossibility to create anything for the regular Legion season from the player pool of All-Stars. Such nonsense.
- This just defies the imagination.
Did You Ask: What Happened To Those Other Reasons?
1) Story One: Did you read or get a copy of the Cease & Desist letter? Didn't you know that Story One came first? Not one word about zip codes or some new league. Did you know the story was bogus and false?
2) Story Two: You heard some fellow board members making nasty comments and complaints. We got reports, too. So why wasn't that story of personality conflict good enough for you? Or good enough to put out there in writing?
3) Story Three: Did you read the Secret Story #3 letter that was sent by your leaders to all Post Commanders? The Secret Letter Story claimed that All-Stars was ended because they shared an Idea that was a Potential. The right of free speech aside, does sharing an 'Idea that was a potential' sound like some high crime and misdemeanor?
Mr. Unknown - did you write or review or vote to approve the Secret Letter sent to Post commanders? You signed it. Look at the bottom of the Letter - signed by the board of directors - that means you. Did you approve using your name in advance? What role did you play in these matters?
4) Story Four: Somehow you bought and parroted the ' They Were Stealing Our Best Kids' story. What a whopper! A story that came out three weeks after all-stars was killed for other reasons that what you blurted out. Stealing Our Children, Our Teams, and Stealing Our Coaches came long after a decvision was made! It was never the cause. It was a late-to the-party excuse to wildly exhortt legion posts to deny funding to people that were never coming and for a purpose that only you baseball board people cold cook up with your active imaginations..
Response to Mr. Unknown
- Your statement is Hogwash. Utter hogwash.
- If you believe that the All-Styars guys were stealing your chicldren, well you and your people must have a cabins on fantasy island.
- Its pure Fiction. Its a smoke screen and a coverup story.
- It is totally false and intentionally false. Some might call it a pack of lies.
- The entire story is laughable but then again pretty sad. The boys and Minnesota American Legion baseball suffered a loss for such stupidity.
- You people should know better. You should act better.
- Get you heads out of the sand or wherever they may be positioned.
Five Days Later - Randy Says - Let's Move Forward
Look!
The Secret Story #3 The Idea and The Potential had been developed and delivered by Tim's Wild Email. It is highly unlikely that the Wild Email was concocted without review and approved by baseball 'leadership' including State Director Randy Schaub. We didn't know about them at first.
But Randy and Barron had an email exchange that sounded like to good old days when positive energy and friendship seemed genuine. There was no legitiomate reason anyone should have been at odds. The message of fence mending seemed genuine. Then we got the Secret Letter and Email.
The November 19th Email
Re: Apologies
From Randy Schaub <randypschaub23@gmail.com>
Date Tue 11/19/2024 10:27 AM
To Bruce Barron <barronbruce@outlook.com>
Bruce! Just speaking for myself, I accept your apology, and I hope we can work together to improve Legion baseball here and into the future. You know I valued your ideas and opinions, and the Legion Prospect Series has been a resounding success due to the hard work you and Mike and others have put into it. Thanks for the note!
Randy
How Do You Put The State Director Positions Together?
Five days after sending out the Secret Email and Secret Letter, Director Schaub came forward with a direct communication to Bruce Barron. The email was nice and positive and hopeful. It should have been of course. The two guys had a friendly relatinship previously, or so it seemed.
- The Secret Letter Story was out there to Legion post commandxers November 14th. It was most probably cooked up and vetted for about a week.
- During the entire Story #3 development and delivery effort, the State Director was offering a path to peace with the "Caustc Charade" being played out with Mr. C.
- Five days later, the director sent the email below with the "Let's all get along" sort of hopeful tone.
- One day after that, we received the Secret Letter and the Engstrom/Orson email.
- The new stories that had been kept secret from us shocked us.
- Randy gave us a few too many storylines. They just do not fit together.
- What sort of games were being played?
Storyline #4 - tim's wild Cover email From legion Hq
The Wildest Email We Have Ever Seen - November 14th
Secret Story #3 - The Idea and Potential - was attached to the email we will politely call "Tim's Wild Email".
- Tim's Wild Email provided that 4th story on November 14th - 'They Are Stealing Our Children".
- It was blasted out to all State Legion District commanders and sent on to all post commanderes and adjutants. That would be more than 1,000 people.
- Hey. Mr. Unknown - is Tim's Wild Email where you got your understanding of All-Stars demise? Or did you get it verbally from other board members or from your leaders?
Tim's Wild Email Story #4 told a distinctly different story that the Secret Letter Story.
- Secret Letter Story tried to explain away the cause and justification of killing all-stars two weeks after All-Stars was killed for other claimed reasons.
- But Legion officials and Legion post leaders would have no clue about previous justification stories
- So why not dump your biggest and most inflamatory story on American Legion officials all across the state. In secret.
JUST READ THE EMAIL BELOW
Subject: Fwd: Message from State Baseball Director
All
Please read and pass on the below email and info from State Legion Baseball Director Randy Schaub.
Paul Orson
District Adjutant
---------- Original Message ----------
From: tengstrom@mnlegion.org
Date: 11/14/2024 10:42 AM CST
Subject: Message from State Baseball Director
Post Commanders and Adjutants,
Attached is an important message from State Baseball Director Randy Schaub. We ask all posts to not donate your hard-earned funds to a separate 501c3 organization called MN Legion Prospect Series. Its website has been scrubbed of the American Legion name and emblem, and it calls itself Minnesota All Star Prospect Series now; however, it’s official state business filing still says MN Legion Prospect Series.
This outside organization attempted and may still be attempting to start another youth baseball league using the Legion name and emblem without national or department permissions.
Most of the funding for this organization in the past was from Minnesota American Legion Baseball and metro posts, and that was OK because it ran a great once-a-year, three-day event with our blessing.
Now, it is has gone rogue and is trying to launch its own full-fledged youth baseball league with our name and branding. We wanted all posts across the state to be aware of this phony competitor who wants to steal teams, your coaches and your players.
Please continue to support the one and the best Minnesota American Legion Baseball. Please inform your officers and gambling managers.
From Tom Engstrom's Official Minnesota American Legion Email Account
Story #4 - Just off the hook False
The Email Seemed Like Crazy Town
Wait! How did we get here?
- It started off with a presentation, a request fo all-star support, a report deayling some issues, a sharing of ideas and a request for dialogue and communications.
- The ever gracious state director followed up with the previous state diorector and asked for a proposal for one of the "good ideas of Barron".
- On September 25th an apparent ban on direct communications was imposed.
- November 1st All Stars was killed. with several different explanations and stories being advanced by "leadership".
- Each story seemed to build in complexity and claim. All stories put out there by Randy and his other "leaders"blamed the all-star founders.
- Our review of the stories is that they are false and misleading lacking in fact or verification.
- Just like Billy the Bully, the stories kept building and changing.
HOLD ON TO YOUR HATS!
Make Room For Tim Engstrom's Wild Email and His Secret Story #4
We read the story contained in Tim Engstrom's Secret Wild Email.
Wow! Engstrom actually put these things in writing!
- This outside organization attempted and may still be attempting to start another youth baseball league using the Legion name and emblem without national or department permissions.
- "We wanted all posts across the state to be aware of this phony competitor who wants to steal teams, your coaches and your players."
- Most of the funding for this organization in the past was from Minnesota American Legion Baseball and metro posts, and that was OK because it ran a great once-a-year, three-day event with our blessing.
Excuse Me
- Who was going to start a new league?
- Who was starting some new league and use Legion identity and logos? Huh? What?
- Who was a phony competitor?
- What phony was coming to your town to steal your players and steal your coaches?
- Who was coming to steal your dollars?
- Protect yourselves and your hard earned money!
- Tim Engstrom and the "We" to the rescue!
Whew! Such an emotional plea and rendition. It was an emergency! Like some flash flood warning. It was the tornado siren and doppler radar rolled into one!
Not one shred of truth. Not one shred.
Call It As We See It
We will call it as we see it - One preposterous pack of lies.
But today it makes a funny read. But kind of sad, too.
Who thinks like that?
Who dreams such fantasies?
Question for Randy and Miller and Raymo:
- Did you believe this load of crap?
- Were you so far down in some rabbit hole that this conspiracy theory became your reality?
- Were you that scared the the all-star guys were going to go it alone - and do so at their advanced ages? Wow.
- You spent eight weeks locked away from communications with us, by your choice.
- Perhaps your tiny inner circle became an echo chamber of increasinbgly crazier stories and intrigue.
- Or did you just use the crazy story out of political guile to better sell your actions to your board members - Like Mr. Unknown.
What Roll Did The Schaub Regime Have In Tim's Wild Email Story?
Its a two part story, isnt it.
Don't you wonder why either or both stories 3 and 4 were developed?
- We think its called - Fear.
- The "Leaders" had taken action and their first stories were just inadequate. They didn;t want to tell their real treasons.
- Then they took the actions and got scared that the All-Star guys would run the show without them.
- And that made them crazier.
- We have no doubt that Tim Engstrom was up to his eyes in all of the discussions and activity before and after killing all-stars.
- We have no doubt that story lines ands drafts of communications were circulated among the four officers.
- We have no doubt they all agreed and approved every word and letter and story.
- Is it acceptable to the Minnesota American Legion for its baseball officers and its own communications director (an employee) to create and spread false stories?
- What ethicakl standards are expected?
Their Two Part Harmony
- How we decided to kill all-stars - The Justification claim contained in Secret Story #3 -T'he Idea That Was A Potential' - it was the backstory contrived as the foundation for the Wild Story.
- What we are afraid of now - The Wild Story may have represented their unfounded fears at the time. Its an utter fabrication as they must have known. It is their attempt to deal with the aftermath of their rash actions. They perhaps had to explain themselve internally better than they had to that point. And theyjust had to act to assuage their fears. They had to mount a pre-emptive strike - against an imaginary foe - to prevent the enemy from getting the minor dollars they wouldn't need.
Bottom Line
Tim's Secret Email Story - They Are Stealing Our Children, while laughingly false, perhaps sheds some sad light on what had taken place within the baseball board and expecially the guys that call themselves leaders. Their stories got bigger and stranger.
- In the absence of communication - imaginations run wild.
- In the absence of leadership - its Lord of the Rings time.
- In the absence of understanding - truth is replaced with ever changing falsehoods .
- Leadership gopt what they wanted. Or it would have been different.
Legion baseball is supposed to teach kids values and Americanism. No cvoach could succeed running a baseball team with the cold shoulder of sillence and ever changing stopries. No coach would keep a kid on the team if he behaved as what we have observed with the "leaders".
Yeah we got angry and should have kept our cool better.
But the behavior of Legion baseball's top brass was just wild.
But the strategy seemed successful - Board members bought into it. What we call crazy town they think was reality. And who knows what post commanders thought.
As former state baseball director Mike Perry will tell you -
Its been a board strategy all along. Do what you want. Say what you want. Even lie if you want. Np one will care. If they do care, no one will speak up. If they do speak up, they will not act. If they try to act, no one will will listen or join them. So we/they just get away with it - with any and every thing.
How About That New League? Get On the Bus - With Us!
Bruce & Mike's Excellent Adventure
oS let's go play in the imaginary world described in Tim's Wild Email. Yes, that crosswise world that Mr. Unknown mentionedbought int.
What shouyld we call the new league? Its gotta be something we can use to misrepresent us so we can take advantage of the Legion name. How about "Legion Midwest" or "Legion Of Summer Excitement". Too long? OK. "Legion of Top Players and Top Coaches". Oh yeah!
Let's get poout there and buiuld us a league. Let's get us some players and teams and great cvoaches. And better yet, let's go get us some of that hard earned Legion post money!
Getting It On The Road
So off we go on the Big Bus! Let's get us some travelin' music. Come on Willie! PLAY
Vrrooom.
Mike - Hey. Where should we go first?
Bruce - Hey. Let's go to this big west suburb. That's close.
B - Hey. Coach! Get on the Big Bus with us. Come play with the Most Excellent new league. Bring your Most Excellent players, too.
M- Hey Most Excellent Coach. How about we hit your Legion post and get us some Excellent funds!
Coach - Awesome! Let's go!
M - What an Excellent start. Where next?
B - Hey don't we know some guys in this northwest sorta suburb? Good guys. Good players.
M - Excellent Idea. Let's go.
Vrrooom
Riding with the New Recruiting Song - Coming to Take Me Away
B - Hey. Coach! Get on the Big Bus with us. Come play with the Most Excellent new league. Bring your Most Excellent players, too.
M- Hey Most Excellent Coach. How about we hit your Legion post and get us some Excellent funds!
Coach - Awesome! Let's go!
B - Sweet! Let's head outstate an grab some Most Excellent teams and players and cash.
M - Hey do you have your Excellent blood pressure medications? Remember last fall they changed and you didn't sleep for five weeks!
B - Thanks. Stop nagging.
Vrrooom
Let's roll! Wake Me Up. Made it to an outstate town.
B - Hey. Coach! Get on the Big Bus with us. Come play with the Most Excellent new league. Bring your Most Excellent players, too.
M- Hey Most Excellent Coach. How about we hit your Legion post and get us some Excellent funds!
Coach - Awesome! Let's go!
Ok. Lots of interest in doing more and better tyhings with baseball.
B - Geez Most Excellent Mike. This is a lot of work. We have a big all-star summer to manage.
M - Come on. If you won't do it for Slick, then do it for Brandon. If not Brandon do it for Mr. Unknown. Or your buddy Member #3.
B - Oh I don't know. Do you have a lot going on, too?
M - Well how about do it for Randy? I always get you with that one. Whaddya think? No?
B - Well not Randy - again.
M - Well do it for Tim!
B - Well, maybe. We don't want him to come across as The Most Excellent you know what.
Let's Just Go Home. Its getting Late. Almost Midnight, right Gladys?
Excxellent Idea!
