Edmonds CC has reputation as launching pad for baseball careers

By Chris Trujillo

Herald Writer

EDMONDS – For most, playing Division I baseball would’ve been enough, but not for Josh Cram.

The former Meadowdale High School baseball standout needed something bigger than Portland State and more prestigious than the Big Sky Conference.

Cram wanted a perennial top 20 collegiate baseball team -the kind that fills a stadium 5,000-deep night in and night out. Cram wanted the bright lights and eventually a Major League Baseball contract.

Cram got both. First he played a season at Clemson, South Carolina, for the then No. 19-ranked Tigers of the Atlantic Coast Conference. Then he signed with the San Francisco Giants.

However, he needed to take an unusual step backward before getting to the baseball-crazed South.

He left Portland State, where played after his senior year in high school, and went home for a year. He knew his best shot at a primetime D-I baseball team was on the diamond at Edmonds Community College.

Renowned for its rich baseball tradition stretching back 22 years and including four Northwest Athletic Association of Community Colleges baseball championship titles, EdCC is no secret when it comes to fast-tracking players to bigger and better places.

He made the best of his showcasing season at EdCC. As a right-handed pitcher, Cram led EdCC to one of its many division titles and from that time on, his career has taken off like one of his blistering fastballs. His brief stay in South Carolina was also noteworthy. He led Clemson with 24 appearances and finished fifth in the ACC with five saves. He then signed a six-year contract with the San Francisco Giants and is now playing for their Class A team, Hagerstown, which just started a 130-game season in the South Atlantic League.

“Edmonds Community College has always had a dominating program,” Cram said. “You can ask any scout around here and they’ll tell you that Edmonds has the best program in the Northwest. I had opportunities all around and I chose Edmonds because of its tradition.”

EdCC third-year coach Donnie Marbut, who has won the NWAACC Coach of the Year award two years running, and longtime friend and co-coach Tighe Dickinson, have sent 15 of the team’s last 18 outgoing players to either Division I or II college programs or into professional baseball. This season’s group already has two players drafted by Major League Baseball teams, and a few more already signed to play Division I baseball next season.

“This great tradition started before I got here,” Marbut said. “I just want to make sure I keep it going. In fact, I came here for the tradition; I came here to keep it alive.”

In doing so, Marbut has turned the EdCC program into a baseball academy of sorts. He runs his team harder than most D-I teams, according to former players. Six a.m. practices, endless running and little room for mistakes: it’s not just baseball it’s the future, Marbut eloquently puts it.

“There’s no doubt,” Cram said. “We were expected to win. That meant we had to practice to win, and practice hard, Mondays, Wednesdays and Friday’s we would run for hours. I would literally get sick each time, it was that hard. It was much harder at EdCC than at Clemson. But it got me ready and here I am living my dream, and now playing pro ball.”

The Tritons, who have lost their last two games will try to bounce back in the North Division this weekend with a doubleheader against EvCC today at Everett Memorial Stadium beginning at 1 p.m. Back-to-back loses to Bellevue CC dropped EdCC to 8-4 in the North Division. The Trojans, conversely, have won four straight conference games and evened their record at 6-6 and will travel to Edmonds on Sunday to complete the weekend three-game series.

Some of Marbut’s former players who have moved to D-I or D-II universities include: Lynnwood High School’s Ryan Sittauer, San Francisco University; Cascade’s Nick Snow, Cal-Poly San Luis Obispo, and Cory Acklus, Albertson University; Edmonds-Woodway’s Taylor Johnson and Alan Cartwright, Southern Colorado University; Joe Curran, Fort Hays State University; Kamiak’s Michael McCallmon and Jackson’s Cole Craig, South Alabama University, and Meadowdale’s Courtney Hall, Clemson University.