San Diego team to return to MCYSA tournament for third time

Mark Wilson has traveled all over the world with his San Diego 15U baseball team, and one particular picture from a trip draws his attention as he talks on his cell phone in the garage of his home in Murrieta, California.

Hanging on a wall is an enlarged photograph [about eight inches by 20 inches] of his 2021 San Diego team. The players are standing in a cornfield in Crystal Lake, a la “Field of Dreams,” with “Illinois Dream Team” printed below it.

“My parents made it up,” Wilson said as he talked about his team’s upcoming trip to Crystal Lake, where the McHenry County Youth Sports Association will host its 32nd international baseball championships (11U, 13U, 15U) starting Friday. The tournament, which features two sessions, started in 1993 and has taken place every year except 2020, when it was canceled because of COVID-19.

Wilson, 67, is in his 26th year with U.S. World Baseball San Diego. He recently retired as pitching coach from California State University San Marcos, where he also served as recruiting coordinator for the NCAA Division II program.

Wilson first brought his San Diego team to Crystal Lake in 2021, when COVID-19 prevented it from traveling out of the country. The team returned the following year for the tournament, and this year will be the team’s first appearance in the tourney since 2022.

San Diego missed last year’s tournament, as it also plays in the World Boys Baseball Tournament every year, and cohosted the 2024 event with Hawaii. Wilson has taken his teams to Japan (six times), Italy, Brazil, Korea, Mexico and Australia.

Crystal Lake may not sound as exotic as those destinations, but Wilson has the utmost respect for the MYCSA tournament, board president John Streit and executive tournament director Dan Malone.

“Dan, John and I hit it off right from the very beginning [in 2021],” Wilson said. “[The tournament] is very well run. Dan and John do an awesome job. They don’t promise anything that they can’t do.”

“It’s all very smooth, and it’s pretty much first rate.”

—  Mark Wilson, U.S. World Baseball San Diego 15U coach

Wilson has fond memories of the opening and closing ceremonies in 2021 and 2022 as well as the opening night fireworks exhibition. He also remembers the MYCSA treating the San Diego players and their parents to a Chicago Dogs minor league ballgame in Rosemont.

Wilson, a former pitcher, even got to throw out the ceremonial first pitch.

“It’s all very smooth, and it’s pretty much first rate,” Wilson said of the tournament.

Malone thinks another attraction for out-of-state or international teams is themed nights, such as Armed Forces Night.

“I think teams, once they go through it, realize and appreciate the effort that we put in to provide a good experience,” Malone said, “even though it’s little Crystal Lake in the middle of northwestern Illinois.”

In 2021, travel restrictions due to the pandemic had Wilson’s San Diego team looking for alternatives. That’s when the MCYSA tournament got on his radar.

“They reached out to us, and they were just the best,” Streit said. “The coaches were great, they had a real solid team, and the parents were just the best guests.”

At tournament’s end, Streit said, the San Diego players donated their turf shoes to the team from Puerto Rico. When the players and parents headed back to California, however, they forgot to pack up many lawn chairs and pop-up tents that they had bought while in town.

“We said, ‘If you guys are coming back next year, we’ll make sure that we hang onto these,’ ” Streit said. “We stashed them in our storage unit and, sure enough, when they came back the next year [in 2022], we had them for them. They got a kick out of that.”

The good behavior of the parents and players is no coincidence, Wilson said.

“My talk before I select my boys to the parents is, ‘You guys are being scrutinized too,’ ” said Wilson, who is bringing 16 players and three other coaches to Crystal Lake.

This year’s MYCSA tournament will include international teams from Japan (U15), Brazil (U15 and U13) and Ontario, Canada (U13). The fact that the tourney is able to attract international teams to Crystal Lake is a testament to its reputation and how it’s run.

“We focus on treating the teams like a valuable customer,” Malone said. “I’ve been in the travel world for 25 years, and I try to incorporate all the different features of different tournaments that I’ve been to over the years.”

MCYSA doesn’t charge a gate fee, and there is no time limit on games. If extra innings are required to determine the winner of the game, that’s what will happen.

“Teams appreciate that,” Malone said. “I still coach today, and our girls softball tournaments have an hour-and-15-minute time limit [on games]. You can’t play a whole game in an hour and 15 minutes. If you’re going to get on the road for eight hours, or fly halfway across the country, do you want to go to a tournament that has four games with even an hour-and-half time limit? I don’t. So we don’t do any of that.”