The San Luis Obispo Blues have been around since 1946 and consistently rank in the top 20 nationally among summer collegiate league baseball teams. The Blues finished fourth in the California Collegiate League this year and earned a berth to the NBC World Series.
Jefferson P. Nolan
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On Aug. 7, the San Luis Obispo Blues summer league baseball team concluded its 2013 campaign after losing two of its four games in the NBC (National Baseball Congress) World Series in Wichita, Kan.
After the team fell to the Hutchinson Monarchs, the Blues went on to defeat both the Casa Grande Cotton Kings and the VC Diamond Dawgs before dropping its final game of the season to the Wellington Heat.
The Blues began the summer winning their first seven games. The team continued its streak to 17-1 before dropping 5-4, 6-5 double-header losses to the MLB Academy Barons.
A member of the California Collegiate League, the non-profit Blues’ organization prides itself to be a member of one of the top collegiate leagues in the United States.
This past season, the group qualified to compete in Wichita with their deadliest hitter, Michael Pritchard (an outfielder out of the University of Nebraska), leading the California Collegiate League this summer after hitting .386 with a .478 on-base percentage. Pritchard also led the league in stolen bases (18).
But the success of the San Luis Obispo amateur league team didn’t happen overnight.
The inception of the Blues began in 1946 when Sandy Leguina gathered together a group of WWII veterans who wanted to get back into the national pastime. Forenamed the “Merchants,” the team was renamed as the “Blues” within the first few weeks as the team traveled around California, playing various semi-pro and wood bat-league games.
The Blues have been consistently ranked among the top 20 teams nationally — from a platform of more than 260 teams. There are 38 players currently playing professional baseball who have once fashioned a Blues uniform.
In addition to the team’s relation to Major League Baseball, strong ties have also been made between the Blues and the Cal Poly baseball team. Head coach Chal Fanning played at Cal Poly under the instruction of the Mustangs’ current coach, Larry Lee. Fanning played for Lee at Cuesta College and went on to serve as his assistant for one season at Cal Poly.
“My senior year at Cal Poly was a great year for us, we finished third and went to the (Division II College) World Series,” Fanning said. “I just knew then that I wanted to go into baseball. So I got into coaching.”
After his solitary year coaching at Cal Poly, Fanning served as an assistant coach at the University of Missouri for six years.
The majority of players that come to the Blues, Fanning says, come from contacts he made when he was a Division I assistant coach.
“Ninety-five to 98 percent of our roster is Division I athletes from some good schools and good programs,” Fanning said. “The caliber of play is very high. It’s good baseball night in and night out.”
In addition to Fanning’s relationship with the Mustangs, Cal Poly’s senior third baseman Jimmy Allen committed to the summer team when he decided not to accept a minor league contract offer from the Boston Red Sox.
But as Allen can attest, the setting in San Luis Obispo may stay the same, but the experience is much different.
“It’s just different because you’re playing with and against people from all over the country,” Allen said. “When you get to a team for the first time, you don’t know anybody. You become friends with them, and that in itself is an experience … to play with people you’ve never met before.”
Among those Allen met this summer included Trevor Fitts, a pitcher out of Mississippi State who just returned from competing in the College World Series.
“Pitching in front of all those people … it was just incredible,” Fitts said of playing in Omaha. “We got to do something most people only dream about. Everything just fell into place for us, and we got a chance to go.”
By the end of the summer, Blues pitcher Drake Owenby finished second in the league standings after recording a 1.01 ERA in 26 innings pitched. The lefty from the University of Tennessee also recorded the most saves in the league (8) and finished fourth in recorded strikeouts (50).
The Blues finished its season with a 38-19 overall record, falling into third place in the California Collegiate League final league standings behind first place Los Angeles Brewers and the San Barbara Foresters.
The Blues finished second in the North Division standings.