Casino Rama World Series of Fastball
July 12, 2006
Orillia, ON
Orillia, Ontario, Canada
With only hours to go before the first pitch will be thrown at the 9th Annual Casino Rama World Series of Fastball things are starting to take shape at the park. A full crew of tournament volunteers have just completed the installation of over 3,000 feet of temporary fencing, the installation of the new scorers booths and a general park clean-up. The crew will be back tomorrow morning to continue to set up the diamonds, install tenting, trailers and everything else that is needed for a tournament of this magnitude.
The park in undergoing a complete transformation and all the volunteers can't wait to get the tournament under way.
The park layout has been completely redesigned and for all of our regular visitors you will be pleasantly surprised with the new park layout. First off the beer tent has been increased in size and moved down the 3rd base of the lower diamond, greatly improving the sightlines to the action on the diamond. Our signature souvenir tent has been relocated to below the permanent concession building (in the area of the old beer tent) and the large tournament master schedule will be located in the same area. There will be many other small changes to the normal park layout for this year.
As for getting scores and details out to all the fans that cannot make the trip to Orillia, we will be getting scores out in a few different ways, First off, Al Doran will be in attendance throughout the weekend and he will be getting results out over his network throughout the weekend. New for this year we will be scoring games electronically and our plan (provided everything works) is to post a full game report, with play-by-play on the tournament website at www.city.orillia.on.ca/worldseries.
The final bit of news is about the one thing that no tournament director can control but we all wish we could - THE WEATHER. The latest forecast for the Orillia area is hot, hot, hot with lots of sun. If you are coming to the park make sure you bring lots of sunscreen and get ready to sit back and watch the most exciting game on the planet, played by the best players in the world.
Things get under way here in Orillia tomorrow night (Thursday) with an exhibition double header between the Orillia River Sharks and a local all-star team. The games will get under way at 7:00 PM and there is no cost to take in these games. If you cannot make it out to the game make sure you tune into CTV Sports at around 6:45 PM as Lance Brown will be at the park doing the evening sportscast live on location. Tournament games will get under way at 4:30 PM on Friday evening with all 10 teams playing during the evening. Round-robin games will continue throughout Saturday with elimination games getting under way Sunday morning. The Championship game will start at 1:45 PM on Sunday afternoon with Rogers Cable on-hand to tape and televise the game.
I look forward to seeing everyone at Kitchener Park in Orillia this weekend
Paul Barnetson
Chairman
