N.D. Babe Ruth Baseball defends forcing Park River to forfeit mid-game at state tournament

PARK RIVER — North Dakota Babe Ruth baseball is defending it’s decision to force a team from the northeast part of the state to forfeit a game midway through its second game of the tournament.

Some called it cheating, but the Park River baseball team says teams have been doing it for years without controversy.

The Park River Gold Babe Ruth baseball team cruised to victory in its first game of the tournament by winning 20-4. They were up 2-1 in a pitcher’s duel in the second game when it was brought to an abrupt halt.

“We were told we are cheating,” said assistant coach Brett Omdahl.

The Park River Gold team was told they would have to forfeit the game.

“I feel like it was a poor time to make an example out of a program,” Omdahl said.

“It’s a tough situation, it’s heartbreaking, but at the same time you have to do what is right,” said Larry Grondahl who is an assistant commissioner for North Dakota Babe Ruth Baseball.

For the state tournament, teams can have 15 players on their roster.

The Park River Gold team qualified with 12 players. So they added three players from the Park River Black team whose season was over. Tournament officials approved the roster prior to the start of it.

“It’s not like anybody was trying to pull the wool over anybody’s eyes, we thought what was being done was OK and was acceptable,” explained Jesse Irvine, president of North Valley Baseball.

He approved the roster additions for Park River, who hosted the state tournament last year.

Despite the roster rule being in place for decades, Irvine called it “common practice” and in the best interest of the kids and development of their respective programs.

“I know three teams supplemented their roster with kids from other teams within their own programs,” he said of last year’s tournament.

“That rule has been in effect in Class B for 25 years minimum. We haven’t allowed that for a long time. If it was allowed in Park River last year, someone missed the boat on it. It was never brought to our attention,” Grondahl said.

Park River was forced to forfeit the game and was placed into the elimination bracket where they won one game and lost another.

“By the rule, they should have been done totally, but we didn’t want to penalize the kids with no involvement in it,” Grondahl said.

This topic is expected to come up at the fall meeting.

“We really got to tune in a little bit with some of the stuff and make sure, especially teams who have two teams in a district tournament,” said Grondahl.

“If I was to go back two weeks, I’d do the same exact thing, I thought the idea is once you get to the state tournament you want the best players that have qualified in the state of North Dakota to be playing,” said Irvine.

The commissioners don’t want this controversy to overshadow the fact Kindred won the North Dakota Babe Ruth championship 12-6 over LaMoure. The Vikings finished the season 28-1.

Matt Henson is an Emmy award-winning reporter/photographer/editor for WDAY. Prior to joining WDAY in 2019, Matt was the main anchor at WDAZ in Grand Forks for four years.