Tracy Press

A Babe Ruth team made up of Tracy High players is headed to the regional tournament.

River Dogs outfielder Bobby Agard practices his swing in the batting cage at Tracy High. Photo by Bob Brownne/Tracy Press.

It turned out to be a good move for the players, who ordinarily would join different teams and travel around the state in search of tournaments where they could play against teams of equal caliber.

But they found some tough competition in the Babe Ruth league, especially now that they’ve taken second place in the Central California 16-18 year-old state tournament, played last week in Modesto.

“We caught fire at the right time,” head coach Ken Perez said.

The team, the Tracy River Dogs, has a 14-5-1 record, with a 15-game regular season that started in May, right after the high school season ended. The River Dogs’ overall record includes one win and three losses against the state champion Modesto team, which took the title July 17 with a 16-2 win against Tracy.

Modesto and Tracy will represent Central California in the Pacific Southwest Regional Tournament, which starts Thursday in Watsonville. Teams from Arizona, Southern California, Monterey Bay, Utah, Nevada and Northern California will also play for a chance to go to the Babe Ruth World Series in Ohio.

Assistant coach Jerry Ortega said the high school’s coaches and many of the players formed a travel team last year to play in tournaments, but this year, they figured a team under the Babe Ruth league would play as many games and wouldn’t be as expensive for the players and their families. It turned out to be a good choice.

“We’ll play 16 to 20 games and go to at least one tournament,” he said.

While travel teams tend to comprise the best players from an area, the Babe Ruth senior teams are as competitive as the hand-picked tournament teams.

“Some of the teams we’ve played in Babe Ruth are better,” said Steven Ramos, the River Dogs’ shortstop. Ramos was also the Bulldogs’ shortstop and the San Joaquin Athletic Association’s MVP for 2008.

He and Tracy High graduates Brett Maddox and Josh Frea are still within the age limit for the Babe Ruth team. Because most of the other players are high school age, it’s one of the younger teams in the league.

“The teams we played this weekend were all 18-year-old teams,” Ortega said.

Incoming Tracy High seniors Bobby Agard, Tyler Silva, Chris Burgess and Eugene Mello are on the team, as are incoming juniors Ricky Diaz, Robert Emerson, Robbie Jackman, Kyle Perez and George Landeros, incoming sophomore Tyler San Filippo and assistant coach Manny Ramos.

Incoming sophomore Jonathan Combs, who played for the Tracy High junior varsity team this year, said that while the River Dogs have faced strong teams and not-so-strong teams, the local group has had a chance to show its talent.

“We have a pretty good chance at regionals,” he said. “We don’t give up. We’ve had to come back in some really good games.”

Tracy moved up through the losers’ bracket in last week’s tournament at Davis Community Park in Modesto. On July 12, the River Dogs lost their first-round game to San Benito, but they won July 14, 18-5, against Ripon. A home run from Ramos in the bottom of the sixth helped Tracy win 9-8 the next day against the Cotton Belt Babe Ruth team from the Fresno area, and July 16, the team won 11-4 in a rematch with San Benito. Even with the 16-2 loss in the finals to Modesto, Tracy qualified for the regional tournament.

The River Dogs will play their first game against Arizona at 5 p.m. Thursday. The regional championship game will be at 5 p.m. Tuesday. Games will be played at Watsonville High School.

The Babe Ruth 16-18 World Series will be Aug. 7 through 15 at the Babe Ruth National Complex in Newark, Ohio.

• To reach Sports Editor Bob Brownne, call 830-4227 or e-mail This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

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