Wood Bat Classic ready for another run in 2015

Both Cheney and Medical Lake will host pods in the American Legion Wood Bat Classic 2015 as they have for years.

The difference, however, is neither city has a team in American Legion baseball this summer. Their worthiness as hosts is based on the facilities and what each has done in the past. Both have impressed tournament officials.

The 2015 edition takes place Thursday, July 2 through Sunday, July 5 across numerous sites in both Spokane and Kootenai Counties,

"The field mainly, and secondly the parties involved who have helped in the past were willing to help again," Alex Schuerman, AA pod coordinator said. "You need a lot of workers to make these things run."

Those are people like Mike Cagle and Bill Peabody in Cheney and Medical Lake's Kerry Kelly, Schuerman said.

Things will run similarly as in the past except the teams assigned to the Medical Lake pod will have more of a Spokane look and feel. The Medical Lake pod features Chewelah, Shadle Park No. 1, the Spokane 17U Crew, a Great Falls, Mont. team and a yet to be announced team to replace North Thurston which dropped out late.

"Currently we're trying to plug in another team into the Medical Lake pod, but that is becoming difficult in the late stages," Schuerman said. Officials are working at ways around that if a team cannot be found. Remedies include playing one non-counting game to fulfill the five-game guarantee each entrant was given.

With a tournament as big as this - there are 50 AA teams and 32 AAA squads - Schuerman said it's more likely to happen than not.

"This is the third year in a row we've had a 50-teamer," Schuerman said. "We expanded because of the interest, but interest seems to be waning a little this year."

The Cheney pod remains intact with the hosts, the independent Summerhawks playing against Sunnyside, Lewis and Clark No. 1, the Moses Lake Walleyes and the Regina Athletics out of Saskatchewan.

The teams play two days to determine pod champs and those teams go on to play each other Saturday in Cheney. Only the pod winners have a chance to play in the championship, a change from the past.

"In years past we tried a wait and see and that became a real hassle," Schuerman said. "This is prescribed and everyone knows, if you finish fifth you play at 8 a.m. Saturday, whatever; the one-seeds have a chance to advance."

Ten winners will battle it out Saturday. Out of that the five winners will be bracketed by their seeding. Because of having lights, Medical Lake will host a "play-in" game between the No. 4 and No. 5 seeded finalists with the winner advancing to the Sunday championship round.

That Sunday bracket will be played at Ramsey Field in Coeur d'Alene. The AA title game will be decided at 2 p.m.

Paul Delaney can be reached at [email protected].