Well that was a great weekend of ball - - - - mainly as I spent my first weekend in the ballyard, and it was the Peter Hallman Ballyard in Kitchener for the annual Legends tournament. And it was the first tournament of the year for many hard core (loyal) fastball fans that generally start the year off at this quality event.

The results of the Legends tournament are at:
http://www.alsfastball.com/uploads/File/2009%20Files/2009_Legends_Schedule.htm
I am still working on adding some links to this page to the great stories and pictures from John Thompson of Diamond Dirt fame and if you don’t find the links his stories are on this month’s news:
http://www.alsfastball.com/index.php?page=25
along with many many other interesting postings from tournaments etc.

My apologies that we were not able to keep the information flowing to the main site as fast as we had hoped, we filled in the blanks a bit by posting from the park on our blackberry to both facebook.com and to our NEWS-2 http://fastpitchwest.com/alsfastball
without a wireless connection at PHB, like we had in 2002, 2006 and 2007 (and will have again in 2011) for world tournaments, we had to make the 8km run to the hotel every few hours to update the main site. Maybe next year Santa will bring me a hot stick to work wirelessly from anywhere.

As usual, and even more so, this year the Legends was a great tournament, great teams, great ball, great weather, great friends, what more could you ask for (besides a wireless connection)! Many thanks to our perennial host and a man of a thousand hats, Larry Lynch. I know Larry would be the first to say the credit should all go to his many hard working volunteers who work so hard planning and delivering this well run tournament. I was going to start listing some of these wonderful people but I realized I would miss a few and that would not be fair to them so will leave that to Larry for his wrap up.

Congratulations to the Kitchener Hallman Rivershark Twins who won the 2009 Legends Tournament, they left no doubt that they are back and deadly serious about going after a repeat ISC World Tournament title in Quad Cities in August. A sincere Well Done to the Rivershark Twins and all the teams who participated this weekend. They all played quality ball and gave the many fans that turned out good value for their fastball dollar.

It was nice having the national team from Argentina at the tournament; it had everyone talking about the upcoming ISF Championship coming up in Saskatoon, July 17-26. The visiting team were very popular with the fans and spent as much time as possible at the park and met a lot of people. They played well too, being around Sunday morning and played some extra innings. They were this close to being in the championship game.

The two most asked questions in Kitchener were: 1. Who is going to the ISF’s in Saskatoon? And 2. Who is winning at the Snapper’s Tournament? The fans are well aware this tournament has become a quality event worth attending but the conflict with the Legend’s tournament for the regulars keeps them in Kitchener. We have passed this along to the organizers of the Snapper’s tournament and we hope we see a date change next year so that we can go there and enjoy their quality tournament as well.

We were there for the Snapper’s Tournament last year in Niagara and can attest to the fact its quality ball and its well run. Last year there was no date conflict.

Thanks to Dan Bernard for his frequent updates over the weekend. His final report with all the results is at:   http://tinyurl.com/lw6gtk

Dan also sent us lots of pictures which are posted at:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=7126928&l=8ca314f9a2&id=868475614

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NOTE: Al's Fastball will be on site, tentatively:
June 5-7 - Kitchener, ON - Legends Tournament - YES, FINALLY MADE IT TO THE BALLYARD!
June 12-14 - Midland, MI - Explorers Tournament – MICHIGAN HERE WE COME!
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






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