Some things old, some things new as Lexington Legends reboot with Atlantic League

Ben Revere isn’t ready to hang up his cleats just yet, but the former Lexington Catholic High School star is laying the foundation for his next career in baseball.

Revere this season will serve as a hitting coach for the Lexington Legends, who will make their debut in the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball later this month. He played last year for the Legends during the Battle of the Bourbon Trail, an impromptu partnership with the Florence Y’alls that saw the clubs play one another over the course of six weeks following the cancellation of their normal seasons.

The 33-year-old outfielder spent parts of eight seasons on Major League Baseball rosters, batting .284 and racking up 198 RBI and 211 stolen bases. He was most recently a member of the Toronto Blue Jays’ organization and played for their Triple-A affiliate in 2019.

Revere would like to try and get back to the majors but doesn’t plan on suiting up for the Legends this year despite an open invitation to do so.

“It’d be a tight rope for me to be playing right now,” Revere said, citing other obligations.

Instead he’ll get his feet wet in the coaching game. He’ll work under P.J. Phillips, the younger brother of former Cincinnati Reds star Brandon Phillips, who will be in his first full year managing the Legends after taking over that responsibility toward the end of last year.

Revere’s wife was among the people in his life who’ve told him he’d be a good coach, but it wasn’t something he ever envisioned himself doing. Spending the bulk of the last year away from baseball fields and cooped up at home gave him a lot of time to reconsider that stance.

He hopes to impart some wisdom shared by Jim Rollins — a former National League MVP with whom Revere played in Philadelphia — while keeping it top of mind for himself, too.

“By the time I became teammates with him he already had 10 years in the league and he said then, ‘I’m still learning this game day by day,’” Revere said. “So I’m just like, ‘Holy crap.’ Even Mike Trout and all those guys, even though you don’t think so, they’re still learning the game day by day. Baseball’s a learning experience, so I’m just gonna keep learning about it and help these guys out to make ‘em better players.”

College ties

Several Legends roster members played for colleges across the state. Among them are two University Kentucky products in Ben Aklinski and Dustin Beggs. (Another ex-Cat, Tim Peterson, was supposed to join the Legends but has agreed to terms with a yet-to-be-disclosed MLB organization, Legends president and CEO Andy Shea said.)

One Legend, though, is still playing college ball. Dalton Cornett is a senior at Alice Lloyd College, which this weekend will play in the National Christian College Athletic Association Baseball World Series. He’ll be with the Eagles through the completion of that event before joining the Legends, whose season is set to begin May 28 at Long Island, the league’s defending champion.

Cornett played for the Legends last summer — the NCCAA allows players to play one season of professional ball while in college — during the Battle for the Bourbon Trail. He’s eligible for the MLB Draft, set for mid-July.

“I want to learn as much as I can from these veterans, that’s the biggest thing for me, is to get the experience and learn for when my time comes,” said Cornett, who was an All-State player at Knott County Central.

Bye, bye MLB

Despite the best efforts of Shea and other invested parties, the Legends were one of 40 franchises excised from MLB’s minor league system as part of a massive realignment announced in February. After 19 years as a farm team, first for the Houston Astros (Jose Altuve was a Legend) and then the Kansas City Royals, Lexington is without a direct major league affiliation.

Its new league, though, was the first independent baseball organization to become a “professional partner” of MLB, and dozens of its players have already had their contracts purchased by MLB organizations prior to the start of the 2021 playing season; in addition to Peterson, Lexington’s Nick Lovullo has signed with an MLB organization (Miami).

The league is entering its 24th season of play, and according to its website more than 100 of its players have played in the majors. About 40 percent of the league’s players have played at the highest level, too.

There’s a greater value placed on team performance too, says Shea, and local organizations have a lot more say in building groups that get the job done.

“When we were an affiliate of the Royals, we were more or less like a movie theater,” Shea said. “We sold the tickets and made sure it was clean. We’re still doing all of that but now we’re truly in on the baseball side as well. Signing the players, getting them to be here, organizing spring training, all that good stuff. It’s definitely been added work and added stuff to do, but it’s also been a heck of a lot of fun. …

“When we won the South Atlantic League championship (in 2018 and 2019), every single player on our team was gone from Kentucky within 24 hours. That will not be the case when we win the championship here.”

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