Aug. 3—Most baseball fans dream of visiting Cooperstown, N.Y., home of the Baseball Hall of Fame.
The coaches, parents and supporters of the Palouse Cougars 12U baseball team made that dream a reality for 12 kids from the Palouse when they sent them to baseball’s sacred grounds during Hall of Fame weekend for the Cooperstown Dreams Park baseball tournament July 24-28.
What followed were come-from-behind victories, a miraculous game-saving play, whiffle ball in the barracks with kids from across the country and memories that will last a lifetime.
“It’s just the most fun, greatest experience these boys will ever have,” said Nick Holmes, head coach of the Palouse Cougars 12U team. “They play teams from all over the country. They get to live in the barracks for a week together on site, and it’s like Disneyland for 12-year-old boys that love baseball.”
The Cooperstown Dreams tournaments are a series of 12U travel ball tournaments that take place throughout the summer on 22 baseball fields in Cooperstown.
The Cougars made sure to sign up for the tournament that coincided with the Baseball Hall of Fame induction ceremony, July 27.
Getting to Cooperstown
In March, the Cougars’ 12U coaches were not sure if their team would even win a tournament, Holmes said.
Six months later, the Cougars won four events, including the Missoula Zootown Classic, Spokane River City Rumble and two Palouse Summer Series.
The path to a 35-8-2 season started in the batting cages during a frigid Palouse winter.
The Cougars weren’t just sharpening their swings, though. They began to develop a shared sense of selflessness.
“We’re almost starting at this point of ‘How do we break this cycle of kids being selfish?’ And so it was a slow process,” Holmes said. “Having individual conversations and kind of calling these things out individually, and letting these kids know that that’s not the way. The way is to do whatever it takes for your team.”
As the team began to develop, so too did plans for a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Cameron Lovinger, father of Cougars catcher Cody Lovinger, wanted him to experience what his eldest son, Grant, had experienced with the Latah Generals of Moscow, two years ago — a Cooperstown Dreams Park baseball tournament.
“He still talks about that trip all the time,” Cameron Lovinger said of his oldest son. “He’s like, ‘Hey, dad, remember that game in Cooperstown, remember that time it got rained out, and we played late at night.’
“It’s been two years, and he still remembers how much fun he had and his teammates and everything that he did there.”
Josh Bray, the Palouse Cougars’ baseball director, was immediately on board with the idea and offered to support Holmes and his staff at every stage of the trip, something that Holmes said he was grateful for.
They received support from local businesses across the Palouse and held a dinner and auction at the Colfax Golf and Country Club that raised more than $6,000 for the trip, Bray said.
Bray said he wanted this opportunity for the kids in the program to experience a higher level of competition. It paid off as the Cougars went 5-3 in Cooperstown.
“I felt this 12U team had a great chance to make a run and do it on a national level,” Bray said. “Nick (Holmes) has been a great addition to the program and that makes it easy to support as well.”
Cameron Lovinger said he has appreciated the makeup of the Cougars’ coaching staff, which includes blue-collar guys from throughout the Palouse.
“There’s just positive energy all the time,” Cameron Lovinger said. “No one takes it too serious. No one takes it too personal when they make a mistake. It’s a definite team.”
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Four members of the team — Troy Gamble, Owen Wells, Cody Lovinger and Cash Holmes — have played together since their 9U days with the Latah Generals of Moscow.
Nick Holmes said that Wells, Cash Holmes and Gamble pitched the most innings for the team and that Lovinger caught the most frames.
‘Disneyland for baseball fans’
The Cougars took some time to visit the Hall of Fame while in Cooperstown and got the chance to see plenty of living legends, such as Ken Griffey Jr., walking around town.
The trip was especially a treat for the parents who had grown up as Mariners fans, with Seattle legend Ichiro Suzuki joining the Hall this year.
The team had planned to watch the induction ceremony live; however, rain delayed their Sunday morning game, forcing the Cougars to play during the ceremony.
Even so, Lovinger said the team had a blast sleeping in the barracks with the hundreds of other kids from throughout the country, trading pins and playing whiffle ball in their downtime.
The Cougars also got to participate in an opening ceremony with the 103 other teams and see Gamble represent them in the “Road Runner” competition, which saw one player from each team round the bases.
With a time of 12.86 seconds, Gamble was the second-fastest 12-year-old in Cooperstown that weekend.
‘To see the smile on his face’
Lovinger said that the Cougars arrived in Cooperstown riding a 20-game win streak and perhaps feeling the pressure of wanting to win the whole thing against a talented field, where some teams had 6-foot tall 12-year-olds.
The Cougars won their first three games, including a pair of one-run wins on July 26.
Then they lost two games the next day and were “a little shellshocked,” Lovinger said.
However, the No. 46-seeded Cougars were far from done playing baseball, beating a team from central Massachusetts by 12 runs and upsetting the No. 19 seed from New York by one run.
“And you could see the smiles again,” Lovinger said. “And it was just fun being there without the pressure of having to win the whole thing, and that’s when they ended up playing their best.”
His son Cody Lovinger’s best came when he fielded a dropped strike three from pitcher Wells and gunned the ball to first into the glove of one of his best friends, Jack Sanford, for the final out of the Cougars’ 7-6 win over the Poughkeepsie Lightning (N.Y.).
“Two kids that have played a lot of baseball together,” Cameron Lovinger said. “(They) could read each other and knew that they would make the play in the end.”
Nick Holmes said that his son, Cash, is usually stoic. However, everyone was smiling after experiencing the elation of three comebacks.
“To see the smile on his face and his teammates’ faces after we had not one, not two, but three come-from-behind victories was probably one of the most special memories I’ll ever have as a father and coach,” Holmes said. “Seeing him and also the rest of his teammates, like, the joy of coming from behind and beating teams that you had no business playing with six months ago, and now you’re finding a way.
“That was our motto all year: ‘Find a way.'”
The Cougars found a way to Cooperstown.
And they’re probably still smiling about it.
Taylor can be reached at 208-848-2268, staylor@lmtribune.com, or on X or Instagram @Sam_C_Taylor.