Chatham Diamonds in dispute over travel team policy

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A two-time provincial champion Chatham Diamonds team is locked in a boardroom battle as tough as any it’s faced on the field.

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Head coach Paul Brown wants to keep the 15-and-under (15U) team intact next season at the 16U level and continue playing a schedule against elite AAA opponents.

However, the Chatham Minor Baseball Association (CMBA) doesn’t offer a travel team between the 15U and 18U levels, and executives don’t want to make an exception for this group of players.

“They want my good kids to make their midget (18U) team stronger and all the rest of my kids would be done,” Brown said.

Fielding a 16U team could spell the end of the 18U team next season and “in the near future,” the CMBA executive members wrote in an open letter on the CMBA website.

“CMBA has historically fielded 18U teams … comprised of three age groups and each year the organization struggles to find enough players to field a competitive 18U team, even with the three-year age composition,” the executive wrote. “The fact of the matter is that players historically at these ages identify other priorities and the numbers begin to dwindle after 14U and 15U.”

There will likely not be enough 17U and 18U players to fill a roster on their own next year, the executive wrote.

“Not having an 18U team next year would surely spell the end of the baseball careers in Chatham for those nine or so 2005/2006-aged players and the executive feels strongly that no one group of players is more important than any other.”

The executive continued: “Not having an 18U team next season would furthermore jeopardize the possibility that the players coming behind the 2007 age group would have a team to play on when they are done playing 14U and 15U baseball.”

Many players on the 15U Diamonds are in their sixth year together, Brown said. They won Baseball Ontario provincial championships in 2021 at the 14U AA level and in 2019 at 12U A.

“I’ve got kids that can play college baseball if they continue with the same coaching staff,” Brown said.

But, he added, many wouldn’t make the Diamonds 18U team next season.

“They only want a few of my guys,” he said.

Brown dismissed the idea of his other players joining the CMBA house league next season.

“House league for kids that would be playing AAA and winning?” he said.

Blenheim Minor Baseball president Dan Farrow, who has a son on the 15U Diamonds, has offered to field a 16U AAA team next season under his organization’s banner. However, each Diamonds player would need a release from the CMBA, which denied the blanket request.

Brown is ready to appeal to the Western Counties Baseball Association and Baseball Ontario – the regional and provincial governing bodies, respectively. If those appeals are denied, then families will form their own independent 16U team and play a AAA schedule mostly in Michigan next season, he said.

“At the end of the day, my kids are going to stay together,” Brown said.

The 15U Diamonds have a 33-9-1 record. Approximately half of their games were against AAA teams.

“We’re being held hostage with no place to go,” Brown said.

The CMBA executive disagrees, writing the release denial “in no way denies any of those players any opportunity to continue playing baseball, contrary to what is being perpetuated on social media. They have options that they are fully aware of.”

The 15U Diamonds’ final home game will be at 7 p.m. Friday at Fergie Jenkins Field at Rotary Park against the Windsor 16U Hawks.

“The executive of CMBA has nothing but pride and admiration for the way in which the 2007 group of players have performed over the last number of years,” the executive wrote.