League Fills Void For Jones He Sat Bench While At Ferris, Developed After Joining EV Team

T he dream has always been there.

As a child it seemed so easy, so natural. If he had a bat, a ball, a glove and a few friends, Elliott Jones could be a baseball player.

It was only as he grew older that Jones realized there was more to it.

Being a baseball player meant surviving roster cuts, donning a uniform and having someone tell him when he would or wouldn’t play.

Fortunately for Jones, things changed when Spokane’s 18-and-over baseball league formed last year.

Until that time, Jones usually got no closer to playing in a game than his usual spot on the bench.

As a member of the 1992 and 1993 Ferris varsity baseball squads, Jones served as a backup shortstop/second baseman on a team that sent seven players on to the collegiate and minorleague ranks.

“I was upset that I didn’t play,” Jones said. “It was just a horrible feeling that all my friends were going somewhere and that I wasn’t.”

Things got even worse for Jones in the summer following his senior year when the Ferrisassociated American Legion team cut him.

“I didn’t see myself playing any more,” Jones said. “I thought that was it; I’d never play this game again.”

Fortunately for Jones, however, he was allowed to join the East Valley-sponsored American Legion team after some intense lobbying.

“East Valley was a Double-A school, so they didn’t have much experience,” Jones said. “I just went in there and said this is what we’ve got to do to win, and took a leadership role right off the bat. I felt I could do as good a job as anyone out there, and I ended up proving it.”

Jones batted .350 for an East Valley team that finished in the league’s upper division. What’s more, he was selected to play in the American Legion’s All-Star Game and received co-MVP honors.

Bolstered by his dramatic reversal of fortune, Jones enrolled at Big Bend Community College and played fall baseball in 1993.

Once again, though, things took a turn for the worse as Jones was forced to leave school because of financial problems. Upon returning home, he enrolled at the Community Colleges of Spokane, but failed to make the school’s baseball team.

Facing the all-too-familiar possibility of dropping out of baseball, Jones joined the 18-and-over league in the summer of 1994.

“The league was promoted as being for guys who are too old to play Legion and not old enough to play the senior league,” Jones said. “Teams don’t cut anyone, and they want everybody to play. It sounded like a great opportunity, so I joined.”

Jones found the league to be a perfect match for his situation. Players of all skill levels were encouraged to try out, and the level of competition resembles that which he dreamed of facing in high school and college.

“I think every team in our league has a few guys who have played junior college ball, and even a couple have played Division I,” he said. “In high school I faced Darin Blood (a 1995 draft pick of the San Francisco Giants out of Gonzaga University) and there are guys here who can pitch just as good as he can.

“It’s a really competitive league, but it’s not just about winning. It’s like, ‘Gosh, I’m still playing.’ I’m this old and nobody thought I could play at this age, but I am.”

The 20-year-old hasn’t given up on his aspirations of playing in college or in the pros, and now he has something to keep those fantasys alive.

“I would like to show that I can play college ball,” Jones said. “I’d like to prove it to myself as well as to everybody that said, ‘You’re too small’ or ‘We’ve got these types of players and you just don’t fit.”’

No matter what, as long as he has a bat, a ball, a glove and a few friends, Elliott Jones will continue to play baseball.

“I’ve been doing it for so long that it’s a part of my life,” Jones said. “Without this league, I would not be playing. It definitely fills a void.”