Barbee's World: Notes on a hotdog wrapper from Day 1 at Story Field

Story Time – Things I liked... and other observations of the NWAC Baseball Championships at Lower Columbia College

May 22, 2026

David Story Field at Lower Columbia College sat resplendent in the spring sunshine on Wednesday, May 20, during the calm before the storm that is the NWAC Championships. The hometown Red Devils opened the tournament with a loss on Thursday. / Photo courtesy of LCC Baseball

Sam Barbee special to Blast Zone Media / blastzonenews@gmail.com

NWAC Baseball / Commentary

STORY FIELD — This might be my favorite weekend of the year. No, scratch that. It is. The baseball is so good. And it’s been even better this year.

The baseball is never bad. It’s college ball. The pitchers throw hard, the fielders are athletic and smooth, the swings are tight and powerful, the strategy is always well-thought out and the energy is always high.

But it’s risen a level this year. And I think I know why. It’s taken some time for it to trickle down, but I think we’re seeing it now.

It’s the transfer portal. It’s the NIL money at the highest level.

So you’re a Division I college program. You have an opening for a third baseman and you need a pitcher. Are you gonna go find a high schooler that might not be ready right away, that you’d have to develop and train and feed and work him through the transition of being away from home and now having to take college classes?

Or are you gonna go find a 22-year-old who’s already been there, done that and can contribute immediately?

The answer is B. The answer is always B. There’s a lesson in there.

So you’re a high schooler now. You’re good. What looks more attractive as an option right away? Go to a D1 and sit? Or go to a two-year and play?

You already know the answer.

I remember talking to former LCC skipper Eric Lane about this when the paradigm began to change. We mostly talked about guys getting extra years and how that would affect his sophomores. But the corollary to that note is this point: — the levels are stratifying in terms of how old the players are.

Community college is becoming a much more attractive level for 18-year-

olds who are eager for a chance to prove themselves.

And, again, that’s not to say that there haven’t been good players “down here” before. Back when the MLB draft was this time of year guys would regularly sign their pro contracts in the parking lot before getting on the bus after their team was eliminated.

But there still existed this stigma of CC ball. Guys would hold out looking for that elusive four-year offer that never came, thinking they were too good for a community college.

But go watch a random D1 game. They’re all streamed now. Pick a random game and pull up the rosters. Chances are there is at least one guy on each team who transferred from a two-year. And a smaller, but still not insignificant chance, that there’s an NWAC guy on at least one team.

That tells you plenty.

Things I liked

Technology!

In the year of our Lord 2026 it’s an expectation that things are recorded visually and live on the internet. Sure, we can argue the benefits or drawbacks until we can no longer breathe. But there’s no sweeping in that tide at this point.

Such is life.

So we’re gonna do it, and since we are, surely we can gussy it up a bit.

And the NWAC has. At least at the baseball tournament.

If you’ve been watching closely (and I hope you have, because, again, it’s awesome baseball), you might’ve seen not only a score bug at the bottom righthand corner of the screen, but also a little guide up in the top right that tells you who’s pitching, who’s batting (with a number to indicate where they’re hitting!) and, intermittently, pitch type, velocity and location(!).

It did think that change-ups and sometimes curveballs were fastballs, but so it goes. You can’t have everything and be right all the time.

Cool, though. This is good technology that’s getting better.

Upsets!

I’m not sure where to put this. Do I put it in “Things I like” because I’m ostensibly a local guy (More on LCC later…), or do I put it in “Things I don’t like” because I know some Beaks players?

We’ll put it here, because I like upsets — a lot.

It was a weird game for the Roadrunners in their return to Story Field. Linn-Benton played uncharacteristically sloppily, got thrown out at third and at the plate to end two different innings, and still nearly came back to win.

And I don’t want to leave out Wenatchee Valley. Drawing the two-time defending champs in the first round after having to come through the Super and not backing down is really cool. Valley even managed a response after Bryant Starr hit a homer in the bottom of the first. First tournament win since 2006. Pretty meaningful. Pretty cool.

The Powah!

I always see how long it takes for someone to run it out of Story Field. It’s always a while. It’s usually well into the weekend before someone catches it right on the barrel and sends it to the right spot and the weather has to be perfect and the wind has to cooperate and the pitcher probably has to be throwing pretty hard, etc., etc.

Not yesterday!

It was hot Thursday. Temperature got beyond comfortably into the 80s. Got a little sweaty, actually. And the tournament’s first game saw a homer with Everett’s Davis Downer taking the honors by putting one onto the roof of the little shed right next to the big barn.

Because they’re using the Trackman this weekend, the LCC coaching staff got to settle a longstanding open question: How far is the shed from home plate? Turns out, about 378 feet. And we owe our thanks for that newfound bit of knowledge to Downer.

Then Bryant Starr ran one out just into the party deck (Party Deck? Is it capitalized? Editor’s Note: Yes. But, is it still a party?) in the day’s very next contest. That was the first round-tripper of his life, according to a couple teammates. So that’s cool.

Then Lane hit two out in its 12-2 rout of Spokane in Game 3. Peyton Tyner went big boy big fly left-on-left into the parking lot in right field. It hit the concrete, and we know that because you see how high the bounce was. Then, later, Nolan Donavin sent one into the setting sun to provide insult to injury.

And, finally, Dylan Jacobs of Edmonds asked his grandmother to get out the rye bread and mustard by sending one midway up the trees in left field in an after dark special against the hometown Red Devils.

In addition, there have been 13 doubles already. Lane had 15 hits. Everett had 14. The offense is usually pretty quiet and requires teams to squeeze runs out of the towel.

Not Thursday.

Edmonds Dugout!

If you want to see a bunch of young folks having the time of their lives, stand close to a good team’s dugout during a game. It’s amazing.

There’s a conversation inside baseball about behavior. We saw some of thatin the softball tournament, and it’s a real thing.

I appreciate the restraint that’s been shown so far by the participants at Story Field. Teams are loud and more than a little annoying, but that’s how it’s supposed to be.

It’s supposed to be constant. That’s why it’s annoying. Ceaseless. Never ending. An uninterrupted slew of voices. It wears on you. It doesn’t have to be malicious.

And it’s so much fun. I love it.

Real Wood Bats!

I have another theory for why we’ve seen more offense so far. The weather could be one factor. The quality of player could be another. But could there be more?

I don’t think so much of myself as to believe my columns make it everywhere. I’d like to think so, but I’m realistic. I work for a pokey little outlet in a saturated market. And people don’t tend to read so much anymore these days.

But, last year I lamented the lack of wood bats in an ostensibly wood bat league. They were “unbreakable” metal-lined composite bats.

This year, however, I’m seeing a lot more actual wood bats.

They sound like wood bats. They behave like wood bats. When you catch it on a wooden barrel, it goes. You can backspin it, as evidenced by Thursday’s offensive surge.

Not everyone has switched over. Some still stick with the other ones. But I like the developing trend back to the basics.

Things I Didn’t Like

It took a while to get my hot dog but I mistimed it. So, it’s my fault. I disliked nothing.

Except… Edmonds uniforms

I was standing next to a guy who does graphic design for a living and when Edmonds was being announced we couldn’t believe what we were seeing.

Little. Tiny. Numbers. Microscopic.

The Tritons have some big dudes. Very large humans. And the numbers look comically small on their backs. You can’t read them from a distance. The point of uniforms is to make things clear from a distance.

The very fact that uniforms have numbers on them is so fans could know where guys batted. That’s why single-digit numbers on pitchers is always remarked upon by

announcers. The lowest number a pitcher could have in the original incarnation of jersey numbers was 10. Then the Yankees didn’t want to hand a few back out because of obvious reasons, and so guys started wearing numbers based on choice.

But all that is moot if you can’t read them. I just know they pulled them from the box and sighed. A decision was made by someone for reasons I’m sure they thought were good ones, and now I’m writing about them.

Interminability

I used to love late nights. It’s such a good time to write. Nothing is happening except movies and highlights. Everyone you know is asleep and won’t offer distractions in whatever form they might come. There is calmness in being alone with only your keyboard and the ideas you’re trying to accurately describe.

But I’ve gotten older. I’m now called unc by the young folk, which I understand to be insulting. I’m not sure how it is, but alas, it is.

I no longer enjoy being up this late. It’s 11:13 p.m. as I write this and this baseball game is still in the eighth inning. The double-edged sword of a clock-less sport.

Remember when that World Series game went like 18 innings? I started watching that game at the office, covered a football game, came back and wrote my story and took all the calls, and watched the end of the game at a watering hole. I loved that.

I gotta get to bed. I’m old now.

(Editor’s Note: I’m even older than Sam and fell asleep reading bed time stories to my children before the game was over. Thank you for supporting our family-owned news outlet. We like local sports!)

Day 1 Scoreboard

Everett 11, Pierce 5
Wenatchee Valley 6, Linn-Benton 5
Lane 12, Spokane 2
Edmonds 4, Lower Columbia 2

About The Author: Sam Barbee is a freelance sports reporter and a former member of The Daily News sports desk. Barbee, was once a southpaw pitcher for the R.A. Long Lumberjacks, is now an assistant baseball coach with Heritage High School in the spring and JBD Athletics in the summer.