‘World’ of Joe D baseball at a crossroads

As the Joe DiMaggio League winds down its 50th anniversary season — the Joe D World Series opens Thursday at the Veterans Home of California-Yountville — the once mighty epicenter of Bay Area summer baseball has fallen on hard times. Strained by the demands of travel ball teams which have become a bastion for the elite baseball talent across the nation, Joe D teams are struggling to draw not just top talent, but in many cases enough players and coaches to merely field teams.

With teams folding becoming an annual occurrence, Joe D saw two more teams drop out at the beginning of this season. Both Napa Valley and San Carlos folded, with San Carlos’ absence causing the two Peninsula divisions — formerly North and South — to consolidate into one seven-team Peninsula Division.

Now, as the league has dwindled down to three divisions, the mere future of Joe D baseball is doubt.

“We go a year at a time now,” Joe D vice president Carlos Roman said. “Fifty years is great. … We’re hopeful this can go on because I think it’s a good place for high school kids to play.”

Roman has been involved with the Joe DiMaggio League nearly since its inception. The league was founded by Tom Lara and Carl Vallero in 1967 as a way for high school players to continue playing through the summer. Roman began his three-year playing career in the league for South San Francisco in 1972 then returned to coach in 1977.

In Roman’s first year as a coach, his South San Francisco team had five players on roster that would go on to get drafted by major league teams, including pitcher Rich Bordi who went on to play in the Major Leagues for nine seasons.

Now, it’s rare to even see projectable college talent across a Joe DiMaggio roster. River City Outlaws manager Doug Hughes — a Pacifica native who graduated from Terra Nova in 1987 and played Pacifica Joe D for three years — also played alongside two future minor league prospects in Chris Morrow and John Tomasello.

Now, on a River City team that has captured the North Bay Division title in three of the past four seasons, how many future pro players does Hughes have on roster?

“Zero,” Hughes said. “I have two guys that are going to start at a J.C., and that’s it.”

Like many coaches invested in Joe D baseball even during the modern travel-ball era, Hughes is connected through the league by generations of baseball tradition. His father Mike used to manage the Pacifica Joe D team, where Hughes began his coaching career as an assistant and was there from 1992-2007.

Hughes has since relocated to the Sacramento area, where he founded the Outlaws as a travel team when his oldest son was 10. In 2009, however, the team joined the Joe D League, where he has seen his two younger sons play. His youngest boy Devin is currently an infielder for the Outlaws. Hughes’ brother David is also a coach for River City.

“Just because I’ve been a part of it so long, I don’t want to see it go away,” Hughes said. “Every one of my kids played for this league. My brothers played for this team. My dad has coached for a long time in this league. I don’t want to see it go away.”

The allure of travel ball is getting tough to pass up for players who want to be seen by college and pro scouts on a regular basis.

Teams like GamePrep Baseball Academy — founded by Sacred Heart Prep manager Anthony Granato — travel to regional showcases throughout the summer. While the eight-team Joe D World Series is taking place, GamePrep will be competing in the Under Armour Southwest Championships with 85 other teams from the western United States.

The number of teams in Joe D — a no-profit organization — used to be in the ballpark with that type of for-profit travel-ball showcase. But not anymore.

“There had to be upwards of 50 teams,” Hughes said. “What’s hurting this league now is travel ball, that’s what hurting our league. … They tell kids, ‘we can get you drafted, we can get you here.’ And 99 percent of the time it’s not going to happen.”

Current Pacifica Gamecocks manager Bryan Powers has found an interesting counterbalance to the travel-ball phenomenon.

In his third year at the helm of the Gamecocks, Powers has returned the team to prominence. Entering the Joe D World Series — with a Friday opener against South San Francisco — Pacifica looks to repeat as champions after capturing the World Series title last year. He also played for two championship teams in 2004 and ’06.

This year, Powers touts another packed roster, with many returning players from last year’s title-winning team, including Friday’s Game 1 starting pitcher Ray Falk, who is coming off his freshman season at Skyline College.

The youngest player on Pacifica’s roster, though, is slugger Elijah Ricks. Coming off his freshman season at St. Francis-Mountain View, Ricks made the unconventional choice to skip travel ball this summer and stay close to home to play against older competition. He previously played for the prestigious Zoots Baseball travel team for three years.

“I think he’s gotten a ton of at-bats,” Powers said of Ricks’ summer season. “He’s gotten an opportunity to play every day in center field or shortstop, and he’s gotten a chance to play against college pitchers.”

Ricks was a huge get for Pacifica this season, but is unlikely to set a trend. Powers said Ricks will likely return to the travel-ball circuit next summer. Powers, though, is committed to staying the course to keep Joe D relevant among local athletes.

“The people who have been involved in DiMaggio for a long time, we don’t want this league to die,” Powers said. “It’s been around for 50 years. So hopefully we can get the teams like San Carlos, other teams that have dropped off and get them rejuvenated.”