The Vancouver Cardinals just missed out on playing in the championship game of their special tournament Monday afternoon.
Instead, the title game in the Curt Daniels Baseball Tournament came down to two Seattle-based tournament teams.
The Boys of Summer beat the Cardinals 6-5 with a two-out, two-run, walk-off home run in the semifinals Monday afternoon. Then Boys of Summer beat Taylor Baseball 21-6 in the championship game.
The Cardinals have never won the tournament named for the team’s founder. But coach Ben McGrew said the team will be back next year to try it again.
“I grew up going to Cardinals games and watching him coach,” McGrew said of Daniels, a legendary figure in Clark County baseball history. “His family is like a second family to me.”
The McGrew family lived across the street from the Daniels family.
Now, all these years later, McGrew is coaching Daniels’ team.
“To run this tournament, with the notoriety it’s received around the Northwest, is awesome. It’s done Curt right.”
Daniels, who coached at Columbia River and Hudson’s Bay and also founded the Cardinals in 1983, died in 2003 after a bout with cancer. The field at Propstra Stadium is named after him.
This was the 10th Curt Daniels tournament, featuring many of the top tournament teams from the Northwest.
This year, 12 teams competed, with the final four taking place Monday.
Boys of Summer players garnered two tournament awards, as Pierre LeDorze was named offensive MVP and Zach Usselman was defensive MVP.
