Kemptville win OASA Sr. Elims
Al Doran
(from Al's Fastball List):
ONTARIO - MEN'S SENIOR ELIMINATIONS - O.A.S.A.
Kemptville Thunder win Ontario Senior Men’s Championship!
The Thunder won the Ontario Championship and the right to represent
the province of Ontario at the Senior Men’s Canadian Championships in
Victoria, August 24 - 31.
Taking 2nd place in the Men’s Elimination tournament, the host team,
Owen Sound Tiremen will also represent Ontario in Victoria in late
August. This will be the second trip to Victoria in as many weeks as
the Tiremen, who won the ISC Area Qualifier in Mississagua at the end
of June, will be in Victoria for the ISC World Tournament on August
8-17.
The Thunder had an impressive 4-1 record, going with 3 wins before
their 1st loss in game 20 to the host team, the Owen Sound Tiremen.
The Tiremen defeated the Kemptville team 9-2 for their fist loss of
the weekend, and forcing the 21st game, the "IF" game.
In the IF game, the Thunder defeated Owen Sound 4-2 in a hard fought
final game. Steve Price pitched for the Thunder this time, a bit of a
surprise considering all his problems adapting to the pitching rules.
The majority of the pitchers in the tournament had already adapted to
the rule enforcement but Price has been pitching in the USA where
apparently its not been called very much, so far.
Price lasted only a few batters in earlier games, leaving the rubber
in total disgust with his inability to pitch legally. Ultimately,
seeing that all the other pitchers have adapted, or are working hard
to adapt, Price gave it a good shot and won the key game for the
Ottawa Valley team from Kemptville.
Brad Underwood pitched for the Tiremen in the final game, with Frank
Cox still struggling with the pitching rule. As mentioned earlier,
Frank had adjusted to ISC Travel League pitching, but the O.A.S.A.
version of what to call is a bit different and that small difference
has been a major problem for a few pitchers. But like the umpires who
are working hard to call illegal pitches with better consistency, Cox
did give his best show to pitching according to the rules.
SENIOR AWARDS:
Best Pitcher: Brad Underwood, Owen Sound; 4-0 record
MVP of Tournament: Brad Underwood (based on winning most game MVPs)
Top Batter: Dave Hoffman of Owen Sound; 11 for 20!
MVP of the final game, Steve Price of Kemptville Thunder.
SENIOR NOTES:
Kemptville Thunder: 4-1
of Eastern Ontario Fastball League
Owen Sound Tiremen 6-2
of the ISC Travel League of E. Canada
Elora Dixon Lumber Kings 3-2
oft he ISC Travel League of E. Canada
Milverton AW Millwrights 3-2
of the ISC Travel League of E. Canada
For those not familiar with this kind of elimination tournament, you
should be aware that many of the teams pick up extra players for this
tournament, on their quest to get to the "Canadians". This weekend,
the winning Kemptville Thunder had a powerful trio on their staff:
Kemptville Thunder:
-Bruce Cassleman, who catches for Broken Bow NE in ISC tournaments.
Bruce used to catch for Darren Zack in his days as a Toronto Gator.
Bruce took last year off from ball, after winning ISC gold in Sioux
City IA and Canadian gold in St. John’s NF in 1995 with the Gators.
Bruce had 9 hits for the Thunder for the tournament. Its great to see
Bruce back in the game.
-Randy Peck of Wakefield PQ also used to catch for Zack when they were
both with the Toronto Gators, and Peck also catches for Zack again in
Tampa Smokers play. Peck and Cassleman rotate between catching and 1B
when with Kemptville Thunder.
-Steve Price toils on the rubber for the Farm Tavern of Madison WI in
ISC tournament play.
The Owen Sound Tiremen had their share of former Toronto Gators on
their team for this tournament as well. 3B Ron White of Sebringville
moved to the Tampa Bay Smokers with Darren Zack this year. 1B Dave
Hoffman moved to the Decatur Pride from the Gators, as did SS Chris
Jones who played for the Tiremen this week. (The Tiremen also have
Rob Grey and Greg Webber as regulars from the Gators on their team).
(Toronto Gator owner Jack Fireman was in attendance part of the
weekend, scouting players for his ’98 team. Jack has indicated an
interest in recruiting talented junior players to move up to a quality
senior team for next year. Jack will definitely be in Oshawa for the
Junior Canadians this week.)
Had the Scarborough Thunder progressed to Sunday night play, we may
have seen Todd Martin of the Smokers on the mound, but they were
eliminated before Martin was available for action with them. We may
yet see Martin as a pick-up by Owen Sound or Kemptville for the
Canadians in Victoria. Winning first in this weekend’s tournament,
the Kemptville team will have first pick of the additional players
that can be added to their rosters.
Two teams that made it almost all the way this holiday Monday, the
Elora Dixon Lumber Kings and the Milverton AW Millwrights, do not use
pick ups, they came with the same teams we see week in and week out in
ISC Travel League play. All the teams in the tournament deserve a big
Congratulations for their fine performances, but I single out Elora
and Milverton for their performances over the weekend, which took them
to the finals this beautiful holiday Monday.
This was the first year for Elora in the ISC Travel League of Eastern
Canada, and they held their own, but placed last in the standings, so
their performance over this weekend was nothing short of phenomenal.
One of the reasons for this was the hard work of ace pitcher Dan
Thompson. Dan had earlier had many problems with the pitching rules,
but he persisted, working with helpful umpires, and came to this
tournament fully prepared to pitch legally, which he did for the most
part and did not loose his cool when he got called for the illegal
pitch. Many commented on the progress made by Dan. He has come a
very long way.
This tournament was blessed with great weather which helped bring out
large crowds of fastball fans. Even though no one on the Tiremen crew
can take credit for the weather, there are many who share in the
success of the tournament. The Tiremen are a class act and its
impressive to see them in action, from the grounds keeping to the
score keeping, from the announcing to the 50-50 sales. The Tiremen
get great support from the local Canadian Tire store but they work
very hard to make up the funds needed to support a quality team like
this by all kinds of fund raising activities. The Tiremen organization
is truly a community-based group.
The local media fully support the Tiremen. Several reporters where on
hand for most of the weekend. Bill Walker of the Owen Sound Sun Times
wrote a great supplement to their sports paper for distribution to the
fans. This insert took a lot of work and will be shared around the
park for some time to come.
Rogers Cable TV carried the last 3 games of the tournament, with
Kitchener native Dave McLelland doing the colour work for the 2nd week
in a row.
Working with the Tiremen organization to make the tournament a
success, the O.A.S.A. conveanors did a great job to keep things
rolling along. This is the premier O.A.S.A. event of the year and
they did a first class job of it. Representatives were on hand all
weekend to work with the players, fans, umpires, etc. on many issues
and were busier than ever this year due to the time needed to explain
the pitching rules to everyone.
As Tireman Jim Cameron said at the end of the day on Monday, "…you can
be sure everyone in Owen Sound (fans) can now explain the illegal
pitch…".
One could tell that much progress is being made on the pitching when
you constantly hear one fan snap back at another "would you prefer to
let the pitcher jump up 3 feet from the plate" in response to cat
calls on illegal pitches. Fewer and fewer complaints were heard from
the audience as the umpires did their jobs and for the most part the
pitchers work towards pitching legally.
Was the umpiring consistent? In my opinion, NO it was not. But it was
a lot better than seen in some other tournaments this year. It was
not as consistent as what we saw in the same park the weekend before
in Owen Sound when the ISC League Championship Playoffs were held.
But, the umpires used last week by the ISC have had a full season
under their belts and have been helping each other come to a consensus
on what is legal and what is not. This weekend’s tournament had a
much larger contingent of umpires and it was clear some of them had
not had sufficient experience with the pitching rules. However, their
colleagues did work with them on these issues and one could see the
improvement as the weekend progressed. I will comment that I do not
think this is the place for the umpires to learn, they should come to
a tournament like this fully trained and prepared to do their job.
There was some criticism of the age old tradition of using major
elimination’s as evaluation tournaments for umpires, rather than
sending the best qualified umpires. I agree with that criticism to a
point, we should be using the best umpires available. In fairness to
the umpires, what I did see this weekend was substantial progress on a
consistent approach to calling illegal pitches and I saw the umpires
being very helpful to each other on this issue and certainly to
pitchers, managers and fans who wanted an explanation. To those fans
and others who criticized the lady umpires this weekend "get with the
90’s folks, they are here to stay!". They did their jobs just like
the rest of the crew. Well done Blue!
Saturday, August 2
01 Milverton won by forfeit (North Fred withdrew)
02 Fingal 1 - Elora 4
03 Oakville 0 - Sammys 1
04 Milverton 7 - Owen Sound 0
05 Scarborough Thunder 3 - Kemptville Thunder 4
06 Bramalea Slam 2 - Elora 9
07 Sammys 0 - Waterloo Twins 5
Sunday, August 3
08 Owen Sound 3 - Fingal 1
09 Scarborough Thunder 5 - Oakville 3
10 bye
11 Owen Sound 3 - Oakville 3
12 Slam 5 - Sammys 4
13 Milverton 2 - Kemptville 5
14 Elora 2 - Waterloo 0
15 Milverton 5 - Slam 3
16 Waterloo 3 - Owen Sound 7
Monday, August 4
17 Kemptville 5 - Elora 4
18 Owen Sound 7 - Milverton 2
19 Owen Sound 4 - Elora 2
20 Owen Sound 9 - Kemptville 2
21 Owen Sound 2 - Kemptville 4
Kemptville wins 1997 O.A.S.A. Senior Men’s Elimination’s!
Kemptville and runner-up Owen Sound will represent Ontario at the
Canadians in Victoria BC.
-Al Doran
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