Jim Swanson has Mason, Ohio marked on his smartphone map.
As head coach, he plans to have a B.C. select team of 12- and 13-year-old baseball players dialed in there to try to defend the championship title at the Continental Amateur Baseball Association Under-12 World Series, which goes July 3-8.
Last year's B.C. team, the only Canadian team entered, dominated the CABA World Series in Sylvania, Ohio, going 8-0 in the tournament to become the first Canadian team to win the title. Swanson's assistant coaches, Don Hass and John Braaten, both of Richmond, served as assistants for the Selects last year.
The selection process begins May 4 in Victoria and Nanaimo and May 5 in Richmond and Aldergrove. A third tryout will be held in Kamloops on May 11. Swanson says a handful of Prince George players have a legitimate shot at making the Selects and anticipates as many as 10 from north central B.C. will travel to Kamloops.
"I could see three or four kids from Prince George making it, and I could see zero, it's really a strong group," said Swanson. "It's how they perform on that day when the pressure is on. I expect to have about 40 kids in Kamloops for the evaluations.
"I'm tickled to have the chance to do it."
The cost to try out is $20 per player.
Swanson's coaching resume includes last year's Baseball Senior Championship in which he helped the Prince George Westcana Electric Axemen capture the national title at Citizen Field. He's a former general manager of the Grand Forks (N.D.) Varmints of the Prairie League of Professional Baseball and the current chair of the World Baseball Challenge tournament. He's also coached adult teams in the Grand Forks (B.C.) International tournament. A few weeks ago, Swanson was a guest coach in the Toronto Blue Jays Honda Super Camp in Prince George.
Unlike the Little League World Series, a club tournament which garners international television coverage, the CABA World Series is made up of the best players from a particular region. Peewee players will run 70-foot basepaths (it's 60 feet in Little League) and will pitch from mounds 48 feet away from the plate (Little League rules specify 46 feet).
"[The calibre of the teams is] actually better than the Little League provincial championship because there's twice as many kids playing B.C. Minor Baseball as opposed to Little League," said Swanson.
