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Salas to play for Idaho in Arizona Senior Fall Classic
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Posted on Sep 16 2008
CNMI pride Jonathan P. Salas will be part of Team Idaho that will compete in the Arizona Senior Fall Classic Baseball Tournament to be held on Oct. 16-19.
Venue for the games will be at the Peoria Sports Complex in Phoenix.
It would be the first time that the 11-year-old senior at Timberline High School in Boise, Idaho will play in the annual tournament.
The Fall Classic is one of the most highly anticipated high school events for both professional and college scouts.
Salas’ mother, Cathy, who relayed the good news to the Saipan Tribune, said his son is ready to compete.
Baseball Idaho Inc., which manages Team Idaho, said there were over 250 college and major league scouts in attendance last year.
The team said it considers itself extremely fortunate to be one of 48 teams that come from as far as Hawaii to Canada that was invited and as the only team in Idaho, to participate in such an event.
The state with the most number of teams will be California with, 10 while Arizona has nine.
Handling the team are two experienced coaches, Aaron Sutton, assistant coach at Treasure Valley Community College; and Jeff Reifman, assistant Coach at Boise High School and former participant of the Fall Classic.
This marks the 10th consecutive year that Team Idaho is competing in the event.
Salas, whose father is former Saipan Little League Baseball Association president Joe, was a two-time World Series participant before moving to Idaho last year. He continued to play baseball in the mainland and hooked up with Boise Gems, seeing action in two tournaments last season.
He and the Gems competed in the 2008 “AA” American Legion State Tournament, which ran from Aug. 1 to 5 at the Halliwell Park-Bill Derham Field in Pocatello, Idaho.
Salas emerged as the second best hitter of the Gems. He went 46-for-97 at bat for a batting average of .474. The 17-year-old Salas, who played for the Jets in the Saipan Junior League, had the most triples with six. He also made five doubles, one homer, and 22 bases on ball and had eight stolen bases.
He pitched for the Gems only once and was the winning pitcher. He pitched 9.1 innings, walked eight, struck out four, and gave up only six runs. Salas had a 4.62 ERA.
