CHICO — With Father’s Day approaching, the annual Chico Nuts American Legion baseball team’s Father’s Day Classic has become somewhat of a tradition in Chico. For a 24th year, the Nuts will be hosting a tournament beginning Thursday, with the championship being held Sunday.
The tournament is back for a second consecutive year after being canceled in 2020 due to the pandemic, and will be played at both Doryland Field in Chico as well as Pleasant Valley High School.
The tournament will feature 10 different teams from California and Nevada, including the Nuts, the Siskiyous Spirits, Yuba City Stripers, NorCal Nationals, Diablo Valley Oaks, Northwest Royals, Atwater Yams, Reno Knights, California Rays and Santa Rosa Crushers. In the past, teams have come from as far as from Oregon, Idaho, Washington and Alaska.
The Diablo Valley Oaks team is what was formerly the West Coast Kings, who won the Chico Nuts Father’s Day Tournament in 2021.
“When I started it we wanted to develop a premier tournament where teams from Northern California, but also outside of the area can come,” said Director of the Nuts organization Tom Stevens. “We wanted that premier tournament to have our players measure themselves against, but also just to showcase our program and what a great baseball community Chico has.”
Stevens said the relationship that has grown between different organizations such as the Reno Knights, who have been coming to Chico’s tournament for all 24 years now, is a special one.
This year’s Chico Nuts 19-U program features 11 players who play or have played at Pleasant Valley, two players who play or have played at Chico High, one player from Durham, one from Orland, one from Corning, one from Willows, one from Gridley and two players who play for Butte College.
Chico Nuts head coach Brian Thomas, who is in his 17th season at the helm for the Nuts, said that the Father’s Day Classic is about the community more than anything. Seeing fans who have supported the team for a plethora of years and seeing familiar faces at the Nuts’ home park is what it is all about to him.
Stevens said the tournament is a lot of work, but it is fun and he believes the community enjoys coming and seeing the age group’s talent and showcasing good baseball. Stevens pointed to one of his favorite memories each tournament, when each year while setting up championship banners early Thursday morning on the first day of the tournament he takes photos of the banners and sends a group chat to all of the alumni players.
“I just remind them it’s the Father’s Day Tournament and I’m thinking of them. Go Nuts,” Stevens says. “I love getting all the responses about how much they loved this tournament, how hard it was, how challenging it was and how it was all about our program. That part of it is worth it.”
Stevens said when he started the tournament 24 years ago he wanted it to be on Father’s Day weekend to honor the relationship between baseball players and their fathers.
“I think a lot of young men, not just in our program but period, have a great connection between baseball and their dad,” Stevens said. “I know that I have a son who played in the program and no matter throughout him growing up we always could talk about baseball. My idea was it was just a great celebration of that relationship. Players and sons and dads and what that means, so that’s something we really try to emphasize on Sunday when we play actually on Father’s Day.”
Veteran Nuts player Dusty Vella has grown up in the Chico Nuts organization and seen his brother BJ Vella, now with the Boston Red Sox organization, play in tournaments growing up. Dusty Vella said the competitive tournaments always fuel the players, but his team’s main goal is to get to a national championship in North Carolina.
The Nuts begin play at 3 p.m. Thursday at Doryland Field against the Northwest Royals, a team based out of McQueen High School in Reno, NV. The Nuts will then play at 5:30 p.m. Friday at Doryland against the Yuba City Stripers, before playing a doubleheader at 12:30 p.m. and 3 p.m. Saturday at Doryland against the Siskiyous Spirits and the California Rays.
A full schedule of games can be found by visiting: https://bit.ly/3HrxGko
