Niagara Falls Men's League tournament
Niagara Falls Canada
The annual Niagara Falls Men’s league tournament wrapped up Sunday afternoon. The tournament was divided into two divisions, the Rusty Dekker (RD) and Janet Greatrix (JG) divisions. Congratulations to the NOTL Snappers who won the RD division and Cool Hand Lukes who won the JG division. I do not have all the details with me but in summary, the Snappers defeated the Red Hot Chili Pepper and the Udney Storm defeated Elkland Fastpitch in the RD semi’s. The Snappers then defeated Udney 4-2 in the finals. Byron Demoe picked up the win with 13 K’s.. Jamie Thompson took the loss. Peter Dobbin hit a homerun for the Snappers..
Cool Hand Lukes defeated the Toronto Royals and the Statfordville Express defeated Beam Me up Scotties in the JG semi’s. Lukes went on to beat the Express in the JG finals. Ron Winger took the win and James Atkinson hit a grand slam in the game.
Lake Simcoe Lightning won the RD consolation and Storms Fury won the JG consolation.
All four Niagara Falls teams fared well this weekend. As mentioned above, Chili Pepper scored an upset or two on their way to the RD semi’s, Lukes won the JG division, Storm’s Fury won the JG Consolation and Beam Me Up Scotties were 3-0 before losing in the JG semi’s.
The good - the tournament field again was maxed out at 18 teams, even though Ker Park is under-staffed the City guys did a great job keeping the fields in good shape, the weather could not have been better and there were spectacular plays and great games all weekend. We are blessed with a great group of volunteers ready to take on any role we ask of them.
The bad -I cannot understand why some teams not only do not visit the beer tent, but bring their own beer and drink it in the parking lot. We had at least two teams back their vans up to the outfield fence, bring out lawn chairs and pop open a cooler, a mere 10 – 15 ft away from the beer tent. The proceeds from the tournament go directly to the league which in turn allows us to play the game we all love. You can’t cough up few bucks for a beer so you pay all those volunteers the ultimate disrespect of drinking your own right in front of them? Needless to say I had to make frequent trips out to the parking lot to tell these teams the obvious, the Niagara Police department are not fond of drinking beer in a parking lot on a Sunday afternoon, our liquor license could get revoked etc. To these teams, other teams in the beer tent laugh at you as they all run their own tournaments. You are cheap and come across as bush league. Ultimately it is up to the tournament executive but my recommendation will be to not allow these teams back into the tournament.
Of course many people help make the weekend a great one. I will start the thank you’s with the tournament committee, Dave Rotella Cool Hand Lukes, Herb Beckman Storm’s Fury, Rick Lessard Beam Me Up Scotties, Craig Smith Red Hot Chili Pepper and Al Greatrix tournament chair. I would also like to extend a huge thank you to the countless volunteers. Official scorekeepers (Bill and Shirly Weaver, Dave and Linda Rotella, Debbie Bedard, Ross Bateman, James Atkinson and C Guillion, sorry if I missed someone) , all the beer garden volunteers, Storms Deli for the barbeque and Front Row Sports for the equipment booth. A special thanks to Mark Korten for keeping the score sheet and scoreboard up to date and running around helping with whatever he could throughout the weekend.
Janet and Rusty are two longtime friends of the NFMFL. We played this weekend with heavy hearts and in memory of them both. I would like to thank the participating teams with playing in a manner that would make both Rusty and Janet proud. All the games were played aggressively but in good spirit and sportsmanship. Janet would often say the mission of the tournament was to meet new friends, develop relationships with other fastball communities while allowing our visitors to enjoy our fabulous town. To all the teams thank you for giving us the opportunity to do so.
One last huge thank you to Al Greatrix, tournament chair. Al essentially lives at Ker park during this event and he did so this year with his past years partner here in spirit only. It was a large task made only more daunting this year. This was one of Janet’s favorite time of the year, when she could visit and talk with all her fastball buddies. We owe the success of this tournament in large part to Al and Janet.
rgreatrix@kpmg.ca
