On an overcast Sunday afternoon in Mexico City, a collection of American Association stars wearing the uniforms of the Kane County Cougars broke a 1-1 tie with a six-run sixth inning to vanquish the Diablos Rojos de Mexico 7-3 and win the 2026 Baseball Challenge League Americas championship.

It was an impressive feat: the Diablos Rojos had run absolutely roughshod over the Mexican League (LMB) in back-to-back championship seasons and on Saturday night had put up a staggering 36 runs to punch their ticket to the final. Also, while they didn’t possess star power such as Robinson Cano or Trevor Bauer as they had in recent years, Mexico still had formidable ex-big leaguers Jon Singleton, Rio Ruiz, and Maikel Franco in their lineup and quality ex-MLB arms James Kaprellian and Shane Greene on the staff, including Kaprellian starting twice against the Cougars.

Nonetheless, just as they started the tournament on Tuesday, the Cougars ended the week with a win over the host squad, denying Mexico a second straight title. In the process, they join the 2023 Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks as AA squads who have won the BCL Americas title, which now wraps up its third edition.

From a few different sources

Several members of the 2025 Cougars championship squad played a key role throughout the week. Cougars ace Konnor Ash allowed one run and fanned seven over 4.2 strong innings on Sunday, while reigning Miles Wolff Cup Finals MVP Claudio Finol clobbered a 478-foot two-run home run. Todd Lott stroked two hits and Jake Gozzo got the final three outs to close the tournament.

For all of the great work in his 12 years roaming the Indy ball landscape, veteran Josh Allen saved one of his best weeks for this tournament, being named tournament MVP after going 8-for-16 with five extra-base hits and a 1.663 OPS for the week.

Plenty of other ringers from around the AA chipped in, though. Dillon Thomas (Fargo-Moorhead) kicked off the scoring on Sunday with a home run and added an RBI single later. Elvis Peralta (Gary SouthShore) and Josh Rehwaldt (Sioux Falls) each had RBI hits in the decisive sixth frame. Max Murphy (Winnipeg) stroked 10 hits (and two homers) in the series, second-most of all players, and Juan Fernandez (Fargo-Moorhead) had two hits on Sunday. None of those players have played a regular-season game for Kane County or ever been signed there.

Perhaps most odd of all, out of the bullpen, former MLB reliever Art Warren earned the win for the Cougars on Sunday. Why is it especially odd? He is currently unsigned (as far as we know) and has never played in the American Association, making him a complete outlier of the group.

To be fair, the Frankenstein nature of the rosters has been a theme of all three AA entrants into the BCL Americas tournament. Timing is going to play a part, with the Indy ball season still over a month away and training camps weeks from opening, making this an awkward time of the year where some players aren’t quite in gameday form, or aren’t ready to step away from an offseason job yet (because we all still gotta pay the bills). Certain guys may have reservations about playing south of the border in any circumstance (not to mention if travel issues arise for any reason). Trying to find 25 guys who are ready and willing to go can be a bit challenging.

It certainly didn’t help that Kane County only had 17 players signed for 2026 when the tournament opened (11 were on the roster to Mexico City).

Where does this go from here?

To the credit of American Association commissioner Joshua Schaub, the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC), and other organizers, the goal is definitely to push the profile of the tournament as big as possible.

At the pre-tournament press conference last week, plans were laid for a European version to start next year, with an Asian version to launch in either 2027 or ’28, with this year’s inclusion of CTBC Brothers, from Taiwan, being the first step in that direction. Talks also took place with South Korea, but the World Baseball Classic (understandably) took precedence this season. Organizers certainly would like to bring Japan into the fold. Venezuela had to withdraw due to political tensions, so sorting that out is also a goal for organizers.

The plans are ambitious and if executed in a manner somewhat resembling the timeline and scale as presented, there is an opportunity for some legitimate exposure on the global baseball stage (yes, less than the WBC, but more than now) for the American Association and its players.

The article above also mentioned over $200,000 in prize money being awarded this year. How much will make it back to the American Association (and how much of that goes towards the travel bill) is unknown, but Indy ball players can always use another paycheck, so a solid bonus for a week abroad is a tangible benefit that hopefully also grows larger in future editions.

Given the timings of seasons (including winter ball and short turnaround times making 2023’s fall tournament unlikely to be repeated), finding an optimal time of year for a tournament may be an elusive task, in part leading to the AA All-Star team collection we have now. Would it be more interesting to send the Miles Wolff Cup champions to Mexico intact? Perhaps, but at the same time, the beefed-up squad may have been the difference in pushing the Cougars past the Diablos Rojos (who defeated Kane County in a romp to the ’25 BCL title).

At the end of the day, the AA contingent will fly home with a trophy in their possession, a little prize money in their pockets, and a few more highlights on the reel. A chunk of them will reconvene in Geneva, Illinois when the Cougars open spring training in a few weeks in search of a third straight Miles Wolff Cup. Others will scatter off to other team camps in coming weeks.

The non-Cougar crew will try to wrangle the Cup away from Kane County this summer, but perhaps they’ll all be back together in Mexico playing for another trophy next spring.

And you know what? That would be alright if they did.

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