Well the blackberry sore thumb award this week goes to Brian Baillie of Monkton who did an outstanding job of sending us tidbits, rumours, and updates all 4 days of the Monkton tournament and we know that once he has a chance he will do a wrap up report as well.

 

Congratulations go to the Kitchener Rivershark Twins on their win at the 7^th Annual Monkton World Fastball Invitational. What a fantastic weekend of fastball for the fans of Southern Ontario and for that matter all those who travelled a great distance to see what many of us describe as the jewel in the crown of weekend fastball tournaments. Monkton is the gold standard when it comes to running a quality tournament. They do it all and they do it well.

Everyone knows who Brian Baillie is and give him credit for running this quality tournament year after year and yes, he deserves it, but let me tell you he would be the first to tell you that he has a lot of great help from his friends in Monkton and he can name them all. The Monkton World Fastball Invitational has a dedicated group of hard working volunteers who as we speak are working on next year’s tournament scheduled for July 1-4, 2010.

While Brian can name them all, I can’t but I do recognize the fact that there are many people in this small town who take the tournament very seriously and do their part to make it the ongoing success that it has become. I know many of the friendly faces but cannot name them all but there are key ones who are representative of the larger group including Sandra Machan who looks after so many details and Kevin Quipp, the hard working leader who does so many things but for me, he gets me the results I am able to share with fans worldwide. My sincere thanks to all of them for making this the best Monkton tournament yet.

Why was this tournament better? Hard to describe but in my five years of attending this gem of a tournament, it’s always been perfect but somehow gets better the next year. This can be attributed to the fact that the host committee listens. They take advice from players, fans and their own members, doing a post mortem each year to discuss how they can make it better the next year. This year the whole complex looked better, maybe it was all the spring rain, the field and grounds were a lush green and accented by many improvements including larger stands behind home plate.

One of the most significant changes this year, and it was a long time coming, but it shows the respect that this tournament has earned, was the arrival of two of the most influential entities in the game today, BallParkRadio and Maddy’s Photos. Yes, none other than Jim and Maddy Flanagan from California.

Jim was there with http://www.ballparkradio.com/ and http://www.fastpitchwest.com/
along with regulars Kyle Smith, Joe Todd, Blair Setford and the team was augmented with a number of appearances by Steve Sabourin of CKNX who carried some of the games as well, but Steve was fully integrated into the BallParkRadio team. Further boosting the size of the team was new comer Brian Baillie who turned out to be an excellent colour commentator. Add to that the one and only Bob Henning from the Blue Crew who not only provided quality colour coverage but proved he can do play by play as well. One wonders what would have happened if Bob had continued his earlier career as a radio DJ in California. I am glad he took the route that led him to be umpiring some of the most prestigious fastball events in the world. The BallParkRadio had a number of guest appearances over the weekend to keep every broadcast interesting.

With only a few minor setbacks, the BallParkRadio team kept a constant flow of information going out over the net all weekend. The majority of the webcasts were carried without benefit of a wireless network, there were some problems on that end, but Jim and the team fine tuned the dial up they were using and did a great job.

Meanwhile Maddy was taking pictures all over the place. She got a ton of pictures of players on and off the field and many of the fans and the volunteers in Monkton. Stay tuned for an announcement form http://www.fastpitchwest.com/ about when Maddy’s pictures will be available on line.

A big thank you to Jim and Maddy for making the long trek from California to Monkton, through Toronto to get here. I know they brought a lot of equipment and were weeks in the preparation stage with their living room serving as the staging area getting ready for this. History of BallParkRadio at
http://www.fastpitchwest.com/broadcasts.htm

Speaking of pictures, MaryAnne Baier was also there taking lots of pictures this past weekend so stay tuned for her announcement on their posting. Already fans are asking me if anyone took pictures. Yes, they certainly did.
http://picasaweb.google.com/mapbaier/MonktonTournament2009?feat=directlink


and
Maddy's Photos from World Fastball Invitational at Monkton, Ontario,
Canada - July 2-5, 2009
http://fastpitchwest.com/morningbrief/?p=3433

So what made this year’s Monkton tournament different from the others? Well there are always some changes and this one had a few. On a personal level, this was my first year staying in the beautiful theatre town of Stratford. The Invitational arranged for some of us to stay at the totally refurbished River Garden Inn, http://www.therivergardeninn.com/
This was a quality establishment that ranked right up there on the quality and comfort level with the infamous Hilton Garden Inn that I raved about last year in Kimberly Wisconsin. The River Garden Inn in Stratford is one of three hotels in Stratford owned by the same people and all were used by fans and players over the weekend. A bit further to drive in the morning to get to the park but it was worth it, I got to drive through the beautiful country side through towns rich in fastball history like Sebringville and Mitchell.

This year, instead of having eight of the top ISC world contenders in the tournament we had six as well as the defending ISF World Champion New Zealand Black Sox. With the Black Sox, we got a preview of the team that will defend their title in Saskatoon, July 17-26. We also got to see many of the top players who will appear with other teams at the ISC’s, August 14-21, once the Kiwis disperse and join their respective club teams. We also got to see some of the top ISC II players in the game with the South Perth All Stars who played well over the weekend.

This year, with the guest Black Sox we had a tournament where one of the teams had arranged in advance to not be part of the play offs. This did not stop the Kiwis from playing their best ball, they played well and many commented about how athletic this team is. They are sharp and looked even sharper with each game they played. We also got to see the cultural side of the Kiwi’s as well, when for their last game, they performed their ceremonial Haka. They only performed it once this weekend, as it’s usually saved for games vs another international team. But they can have other reasons for performing the Haka and it’s left to the team to decide, just before a game. For their final game, an exhibition match vs the South Perth All Stars, their good friend and fellow countryman Paul Walford had just won the batting championship for the tournament, playing for the Mid West Stampede team. The Black Sox honoured Paul Walford by presenting him with a ceremonial coin, and then performed the Haka to him as he faced them. As many times that I have seen this ceremony, it still gives me goose bumps. This one was no exception and the sight of each and every Black Sox member after the ceremony embracing Walford and rubbing noses, was very moving. The players were each visibly moved and Walford told me afterward that he was absolutely humbled by the honour bestowed upon him by his mates.


Haka on FastPitchWest

I have commented elsewhere about the opening ceremonies and how they were carried off so crisply and efficiently by Brian and his team. I did want to emphasize that his tribute to our good friend Lloyd Poirier who recently passed away in Nova Scotia was truly appreciated by his brothers and sisters in blue and by the many ball players and fans who knew Lloyd. Also on a personal note I want to thank Brian and his crew for the honour bestowed upon me at the opening ceremonies, I did not expect that. Sandra had kindly asked me to throw out the first pitch and although I originally agreed, eventually reconsidered this and thought in the best interest of the game to not throw a ball straight up from the pitchers rubber and totally tarnish the image of the game. So Brian had asked me to say a few words instead but he did not mention that he was going to have my good friend Larry Lynch do the Reader’s Digest version of his Hall of Fame induction speech to me. With that I am again truly humbled by the honour from Monkton. Thank you all.

Side note: I was honoured as well to be invited to the Blue wrap up gathering after the tournament at Chez Baier and I can attest to the fact that the umpires were deeply appreciative of the respect paid to Lloyd’s memory during the tournament.

This is the tournament where much of the buzz in the park is about how each time will be doing at the upcoming ISC World Tournament. That buzz was still there, these are predominantly ISC club teams and we got a good sample of how they will look come August 14. Kitchener Rivershark Twins certainly look good to be a major force to beat, they want to do a repeat of their performance in Kimberly and take home another trophy. Some teams, like MidWest Stampede were short handed – they were missing four of their Kiwis but ended up in the final game. Vancouver were short some of their regulars but assure us they will be at full strength in Quad Cities. The Farm had some new players and did not look in mid-season form yet but never count out Rod and his Farm boys. Jarvis had a frustrating weekend; a team that has done well this year and on paper should be a contender but is still looking for one missing ingredient. Saskatoon was as always, popular in Monkton and almost made it to the final game. They should be interesting to watch in Quad Cities. We look forward to getting wrap up summaries from each of the teams. Congratulations to all the teams who participated, you provided a great weekend of ball, all of you.

The additional buzz this year is how each of the international teams represented on the weekend. Yes, New Zealand was there officially and looked great, sharp, and ready to go. But Canada was well represented there with many national team members on the field with Kitchener and other teams. Australia had a strong presence in the park on the weekend, not so many players this year but the national team was in the park o n Sunday and their manager Bob Harrow was making the rounds. Loren Algar (Paul’s older brother) who is with the Australian national team as a coach also made the rounds. It’s interesting to note that the staff from both Australia and New Zealand was very much visible scouting the Canadian players. New Zealand, as always perfecting the use of high tech, videotaping habits in the batter’s box, while Australia using low tech to chart each hitter as well as the pitchers. No, I did not see any official representatives there from Team Canada or Team USA. But maybe they were in disguise and making use of binoculars from the outfield.

Side note: Paul Algar pitched for the NZ Black Sox in their opening game. We understand that Paul was asked to play for his former national team as their pitching staff needed a bit more time to recover from some minor ailments. Paul looked pumped for this game and was obviously honoured to be back in the Black Sox uniform.

There were probably many other things that were new this year including the fact that some old friends were missing and that I met some new friends. As always, I am grateful to the many people who took time to comment on how they enjoy getting their fastball news on line. And to answer the big question, “yes, we are going to Saskatoon” although our role is somewhat foggy at this point. At a minimum we will be supplementing the results provided by Saskatoon on their official site, making sure that fans worldwide have the full picture.

 

By the way, thanks to Gary Baughman, the ISC Statistician, we have complete stats for a number of games played on the weekend, (another first) they are linked at:
http://www.alsfastball.com/uploads/File/2009%20Files/Monkton2009ScheduleFP.htm
Gary listened to most of the BallParkRadio.com webcasts and scored those games. Then he ran them through his stats software and sent me the corresponding files.
Gary is working with Brian to obtain the score sheets for the other games but this will take some time as they have to be scanned, emailed and scored and sent back to me.
We will post them as we get them.

 

See our Pre-ISF Exhibition Games by International Teams Headed to Saskatoon
for the results we did receive and the list of exhibition games coming up before the ISF’s in Saskatoon, July 17-26.

NOTE: Al's Fastball will be on site,
June 5-7 - Kitchener, ON - Legends Tournament
June 12-14 - Midland, MI - Explorers Tournament
July 2-5 - Monkton, ON - Annual World Fastball Invitational
July 17-26 - Saskatoon, SK - ISF World Championship
August 14-21, Quad Cities - ISC World Tournament and ISC ToC
August 30 - Sep 6 - St. Thomas, ON - Canadian Senior Men's Championships

Al's Fastball News
*Email: fastball(at)pmihrm.com
fastball@pmihrm.com
NEWS-1: http://www.AlsFastball.com/
NEWS-2: http://fastpitchwest.com/alsfastball