By Aaron
Cozzens
iHigh.com Correspondent
Attention division-one college baseball coaches and
professional scouts: Seattle Washington’s Chaffey Baseball
Club has the players you’re looking for. The highly successful
summer team is comprised of a talented pool of high-school
players from the Seattle area and supplies both college and
professional teams with skilled players every year.
Chaffey is celebrating its twenty-year anniversary this
year and boasts an amazingly successful track record. Led by
coach Jim Stewart for the past eleven years, Chaffey has grown
to become a nationally recognized team competing all over the
United States in addition to traveling to Europe several times
as well.
The team, which is sponsored by Chaffey Construction and
its owner Herb Chaffey, is also in Seattle’s history books
playing the first ever game at the Mariners' brand new stadium
Safeco Field. Chaffey’s home field is at the University of
Washington’s home field.
Both UW and Washington State University are two common
landing pads for Chaffey players. During the 2000 season at
WSU, the Cougar roster featured nine players with Chaffey
roots. The talented list includes Zach Bode (Issaquah WA),
Steve Curran (Bellevue WA), Ryan Smith (Port Orchard WA),
Tyson Thompson (Bothell WA), Jeron “Bookie” Gates (Seattle
WA), Sean Donlin (Redmond WA), Wes Falkenborg (Redmond WA),
Job Baeder (Renton WA ), and Kevin Harasimowicz (Redmond WA).
Thompson, Baeder, Gates, Donlin and Falkenborg are still
active players at WSU. Falkenborg’s older brother Brian is
another Chaffey product who was drafted into the Baltimore
Oriole’s farm system. Since 1992, a total of thirteen Chaffey
players have received scholarships to Washington State
University.
University of Washington head baseball coach Ken Knutsen
also recruits heavily from the extremely successful summer
team. A total of fifteen Chaffey graduates have donned Husky
uniforms since 1992.
67 Chaffey players have received scholarships or been
drafted in the past eight years, an average of over eight
players per year. With such amazing results and heavy
recruiting it is easy to see why Chaffey continues it’s
tremendous success and constant influx of great high-school
players.
Former Chaffey first-baseman and WSU designated hitter
Steve Curran is currently an assistant coach and credits the
program’s tradition for it’s ability to get new talent and
retain it’s successful players. “The program has gotten to a
point where it just sells itself. Younger players who are
college-bound look at Chaffey as a spring-board to the next
level.”
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