High-profile commission

Lest anyone get the wrong idea, Mike Padden points out, he does not run the Spokane American Legion Baseball operation.

As a former Spokane County District Court judge and former legislator – a higher-profile resume than most – Padden admits it’s a common misperception.

“Right now I’m a commissioner,” he said. “Before that, for two years, I was president. The president is in charge of the day-to-day stuff. I’ve been helping the current president with that because I’ve done it before. But really, we have three commissioners and a good, big board of directors that run the thing.

“I did agree to take on some extra stuff, like running the annual Fourth of July tournament. But everybody works really hard. We have the biggest Legion programs in the state and one of the Top 10 in the nation as far as ize goes.”

Baseball, like Padden’s work in the legislature and judicial system, is one of those areas where everyone has their own idea over how things should be run.

“Oh, yes,” he laughed. “Everyone thinks he can coach. Most of the people running things, though, are volunteers. You have to remember that. Some of these board members, people who have been members of the board for years, don’t even have kids in the program anymore. They do it because they love the game and they love helping kids.”

The Spokane Legion program fields five Class AAA, 22 Class AA and 18 Class A baseball teams in an area that stretches as far north as Trail, B.C.

“The last number of years we’ve been 44-45-46 teams,” Padden said. “We’re always trying to get new teams. I’d always hoped that we would get up to 50, but we’ve never gotten there – although we could. We try to work very closely with (area) high school coaches and as they come and go, things change a little bit. They’re all a little bit different. Some are very involved with their summer teams. They may not coach, but they help supervise and oversee the program.

“And then you have lesser involvement from some.”

In recent years the Spokane Legion has recruited some of the top area coaches to the program, paying coaches for the five AAA teams: the Patriots, Cannons, Bandits, Northstars and Blue Devils.

“We have some tremendous coaches – we really do,” Padden said. “Not just at the senior level. That’s our elite deal and those coaches are paid by Legion. There are other coaches who are paid, but that’s part of their individual organization.

“We have some really outstanding coaches. Not just good baseball people but just good people.”

Padden’s work with the annual Fourth of July tournament, the Spokane-Coeur d’Alene Wood Bat Classic has turned that tourney into an event. This year’s tournament featured 18 AAA teams and another 30 AA squads. The Legion program in Kailua, Hawaii, sent both an AAA and AA team – winning the AA tournament.

“That was one of those things that just worked out well,” Padden said. “They like to bring their teams to the mainland every year and we got in touch with them. They really enjoyed their time here and I think they’ll probably be back.

“That tournament has gotten huge. But we have other tournaments during the year that individual teams will put on as a way to raise a little money. One of the things that we really encourage for them to do is to put money back into their fields and keep improving there.”

Fields are one area where Padden would like to see expansion.

“We can always use more baseball fields in the area,” he said. “Especially a few more lighted fields. The Tri-Cities have six lighted Little League fields – it’s hard to compete with that. They may not be up yet, but Colfax is about to add a lighted field, so Whitman County will have three lighted fields.”

Besides A.K. Jackson Field, the only lighted fields available for Spokane Legion games are at Gonzaga University and Avista Stadium.

“We don’t use Gonzaga or Avista that much because they cost a lot of money to rent,” Padden said. “We have just three lighted fields in Spokane and we can only really use one of them.”

The latest event Padden and the board of directors have on their list of things to do is to begin planning for the 2010 American Legion World Series, which will be played at Avista Stadium.

“We tried to bring it here once before, in 2005,” Padden said. “We went back with a good deal of local support. We have a strong organization ourselves, but we had the backing of the Spokane Sports Commission and the Spokane Indians Baseball Club and some other community support. That really helps when you go after something like this.

“We’ll have a lot of people coming in for that and we hope to sell a lot of tickets for it. We’re still hoping to have the state tournaments here in 2010, too, so that we can have the whole thing right here.”

This year’s state A tournament was held at University High School and the AAA took place in Tacoma, both last weekend.