Big Baseball Weekend Plenty Of Players Will Be Filling The Fields For The Fourth Of July Tournament
Shadle Park’s Al K. Jackson Field, Whitworth College, Gonzaga University and Seafirst Stadium will be busy this weekend.
They are locations for AAA baseball games during Spokane’s annual American Legion Fourth of July tournament that begins this morning and concludes on Sunday.
The tournament is the biggest weekend of baseball for the Spokane League.
A total of 24 teams, 12 each in AAA and AA divisions, will play in games that begin at 8 a.m. today and end with Sunday’s 2 p.m. championships. Each team will play five games in a two-division round-robin format.
One AAA division includes the South Side’s Browne Mountain Bandits, plus the Spokane North Stars, Great Falls Stallions, Vancouver Royals, Prairie Cardinals from Post Falls and El Segundo, Calif.
The other division includes the Spokane Blue Devils, Spokane Royals, Valley Cannons, Northco Angels from Vancouver, Wash., Billings Royals and Coeur d’Alene Lumbermen.
Division winners play for the title at Seafirst Stadium.
Seven Spokane League AA teams will be joined by three Bellevue teams, the Yakima Valley Peppers and Enumclaw.
The round-robin portion of the tournament will be at Central Valley High School with the championship at Al K. Jackson Field.
The teams in one division are Spokane Federal Credit Union from Cheney, Spokane teams B&C Telephone, Granny’s Buffet and Strike Zone, plus Bellevue Honda and Enumclaw.
Teams in the other division include the Deer Park Eagles, Spokane Olympic Sports, Spokane Athletic Supply, Bellevue Legion, Bellevue Blue Sox and Yakima.
Friday at 8:30 a.m. at both Central Valley and Shadle Park, the Legion will host a fund-raising breakfast.
Bandits still cruising
Three wins last week kept the Bandits apace with the Blue Devils atop Spokane’s AAA Legion league.
The Bandits had four wins last week, three of them over the North Stars 14-13 on Wednesday, 12-3 and 10-5. Additionally, the team spanked the Royals 17-5 as part of a Bandit twin bill last Wednesday.
During the team’s win over the North Stars, the Bandits did all their scoring in three innings and Josh Sheffield from Freeman had three hits, two of them home runs. One was a third-inning grand slam that put the team ahead 4-3.
Sheffield had six hits for the week and Chris Schuchart of Ferris added five more, including from among the 48 banged out by Bandit team members.
The Bandits share the AAA lead with the Blue Devils who had 29 hits during two wins over the North Stars.
, DataTimes MEMO: Changed in North Side Voice