Club teams from the Northwest to play at Columbia River HS, Concordia University
VANCOUVER — Before he was the coach at Hudson’s Bay High School, long before the field at Propstra Stadium was named after him, Curt Daniels was the baseball coach at Columbia River High School.
This year, with Curt Daniels Field under renovation, part of the Curt Daniels Invitational baseball tournament will be played at Columbia River.
The Vancouver Cardinals, a team that was co-founded by Daniels, and the Vancouver Mavericks will represent Clark County.
The six-day tournament features 12 high school club baseball teams and will be played at CRHS and Concordia University in Portland. The action starts on Independence Day with the Cardinals facing the Portland Baseball Club at 12:30 p.m. at Columbia River HS. The Mavericks will follow that game and take on Narrows Baseball Club at 3 p.m. at Columbia River.
The other eight squads will begin the tournament Thursday with three games at each location. On Friday and Saturday, each site will host four games, then three games on each field Sunday.
The top two teams from each division will reach Championship Monday at Columbia River High School. Semifinals will be at 10 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. and the title game set for 3 p.m.
Daniels led Columbia River to a state title in 1984 and then was the head coach at Bay. He became a fixture of summer baseball and a major league scout later in his career. Daniels died in 2003 after a battle with cancer.
“It’s a way to keep Curt’s name current in Northwest baseball circles,” Ben McGrew, the tournament director, said last year. “It’s a way to carry on his legacy so people know how big of a baseball icon in the the Northwest that he was.”
For this year, the tournament will be played at Columbia River, where that legacy had its origins.
