The California A’s will play the ISC World Tournament host team, the Quad City Sox at 5pm Central time tonight (actually a bit later, due to rain delays).
The 20th ranked A’s are 0-2 after two tough losses, 5-4 to #10 ranked Midland, Michigan in 9 innings, and 4-2 to a tough # 11 ranked Dominican Republic team.
Their opponent tonight, Quad City Sox is ranked # 17.
Eight team remain unbeaten at the ISC World Tournament at Moline, IL:
Kitchener, ON
Albaugh, IA
Jarvis, ON
Midwest Stampede
Aspen, SK
Farm Tavern, WI
Vancouver, BC
Broken Bow/Patsy’s
Compare the final pre-ISC World Tournament rankings:
1 Kitchener Rivershark Twins
2 Broken Bow Patsy’s
3 Aspen Interiors
4 Midwest Stampede
5 The Farm
6 Jarvis Gamblers
7 Vancouver Grey Sox
8 Albaugh, Inc
While we’re in Quad Cities at the 2009 ISC World Tournament and ISC II Tournament of Champions, next year’s hosts in Midland are giving MB readers this sneak preview at their website which is being officially launched this week.
Kyle Beane, David Lach and their group are bringing the fastpitch world to Midland, hosting the city’s first ever ISC championship.
Check it out by clicking the logo above.
(click logo to visit BallparkRadio.TV website)
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RAIN DELAY SUNDAY MORNING AUGUST 16 – update at 2:30PM central time
The earlier schedule posted has been changed – we are waiting for an official update.
Sunday August 16 – Games we plan and hope to do, though rain delay could result in elimination of one or more
MidWest Stampede vs NY Gremlins
Aspen Interiors vs Dolan & Murphy
The Farm vs Pueblo Bandits
Broken Bow Patsy’s vs Bar of Appleton
Editor’s note: Will men’s softball ever get into the Olympics? With the IOC recommending golf and rugby, it seems that day is now further away than ever.
Soft touch: the 2016 Olympics will not be graced by softball after it failed to gain recommendation for inclusion Photo: REUTERS
Daily Telegraph
Golf and rugby sevens have been recommended for inclusion in the 2016 Olympics by the IOC. But where does this leave the other five sports that missed out?
By Rod Gilmour
Published: 3:30PM BST 13 Aug 2009
Olympics 2016: as rugby sevens and golf recommended what will become of those that missed the cut?Baseball
Will not be fazed by missing out on $10 million boost that comes with inclusion in the summer Games and still has a significant global audience.
However, it has suffered from Major League Baseball’s doping scandals and an inability to persuade top players to participate in the Games. A shortened eight-team tournament for 2016 was credible but at present there are just too few competitive nations.
Karate
It may be the most popular of the martial arts but poor lobbying looks to have accounted for a sport that claims to have 100 million competitors. The Olympics already has judo and taekwondo and it may take another competitor to kick a referee in the face – as happened in Beijing – before the latter is axed and karate gets its chance again.
Along with squash, karate narrowly missed out on IOC’s controversial two-thirds majority vote in 2005. Administrators will now have to work hard on differentiating the sport from judo and taekwondo.
Roller Sports
Given the IOC’s stance on attracting youth to the Games, this was an outside chance for 2016. The sport’s green credentials also held the bid in good stead while the proposed speed skating road race required no special venue.
But is this what the IOC wanted rather than skateboarding or rink hockey, which appeared as a demonstration sport at the Barcelona Games? It’s back to the drawing board.
Squash
If medals were handed out today, it is likely that Egypt and Malaysia would pick up gold, fitting the IOC requirement of under-developed countries winning medals. Supporters say that this would be the pinnacle of the sport, but the truth is squash doesn’t yet fit the IOC’s agenda of global TV domination, mainly due to the problem of following the ball on a screen. The advent of high-definition TV should change this.
Both men and women’s world tours are also in good health and administrators are slowly finding appeal from sponsors attracted to the drop-in glass courts and potential with venues. But how the sport will cope by narrowly missing out on 2008 and now 2016 after a fervent few years of lobbying remains to be seen.
Softball
Looked to have made a late bid to sneak in through the back door after being dropped for the 2012 Games in London. Has links to baseball but unlike its big brother is drug free and its inventive global development programmes could see it make more of an impact for a 2020 bid.
The International Softball Federation recently announced a $100,000 grant for the sport in Africa with new equipment and programmes. Softball is, at least, making the right noises with the US still dominant in the game.
—
The IOC Congress takes place in Copenhagen on Oct 2 when the committee will decide on whether golf and/or rugby sevens should be approved for 2016. The host city for those Games will also be announced at the quadrennial vote.
Phillies miss playoffs at Westerns
By Eric MacKenzie, The Daily Graphic
A tough start to the Senior B Men’s Western Canadian Fastpitch Championship in Regina was too much for the Portage Phillies to overcome, as they missed the playoff round at this weekend’s tournament.
The Phillies, who captured a bronze medal at last year’s Westerns in Brandon, went 1-5 through the round-robin to finish eighth out of the nine teams.
Portage’s bats were relatively silent at the event, as they posted a tournament-low 14 runs in their six games, and batting just .220 as a team.
“The other teams had really quality pitching, so we didn’t hit the ball the way we normally do,” said Phillies’ pitcher Gregg Waldvogel. “The teams were a lot deeper than we saw last year in Brandon, and every game was a tough game for us.”
Meanwhile, Waldvogel had a rare off-weekend, struggling to an 0-3 record and a 14.00 ERA in his 13 innings of work.
Look for the full story in The Daily Graphic newspaper, or subscribe to our online edition.
sports.dailygraphic@shawcable.com
First pitch, 6:00 p.m. CDT next Friday, August 14, 2009. Click logo for official website and more details.
Veteran’s Park, Bay City, Michigan
Aug. 7-9
Friday’s Round Robin Seeding Games delivered some great pitching and timely hits to great crowds on every Field at the Veteran’s Sports Complex in Bay City, Michigan.
Pitching Duels such as Jeremy Holman vs Shawn Winship. Pete Lockridge, Sean Kelly, Dave Stokes, Todd Winkworth, Ryan Nichols, Jeff Murphy, MIke Joseph, Brian Lathrop, Mark Van Vleet, Brian Whitman, Jeff Hoover, Ryan Cummings just to name a few of the hurlers in attendance this weekend.
Marshall Lighting, Michigan, Hickson Reds, Canada and Ingersol Crush, Canada went undefeated in pool play. Keating Fitness, Pennsylvania, Munger Softball, Michigan and New Image, Wisconsin all went 1-1 in pool play. Up to Date Painting, Twisters and Tiffanys went 0-2 in pool play but Tiffany’ barley lost both pool play games and took Lightning to extra innings in a thriller to end the day which attracted a large crowd.
Saturday’s Schedule was complety rained out with over 2 inches of rain which lasted all day. All Teams advance to a Double Elimination bracket beginnning at 6am on Sunday with opponents as follows:
Munger Softball vs Ingersoll Crush at 6am and the winner plays the winner of
Twisters (won over Up to Date) vs Lightning at 6am
New Image, 1-1, plays Tiffany’s, 0-2 at 6am and the winner plays Hickson Reds at 7:30am and that winner plays the winner of the Keating Fitness, 1-1 vs CPI, 1-1 game at 6am
The Bay City Pig Gig annual 20,000 person celebration created alot of excitement with the players and the Host Champion Diversified and owner Heather Bouman working with PIg Gig Operater Wendy Dure provided free passes to every player in the tournament.
NAFA appreciates the Bay County Convention & Visitors Association and Executive Director, Shirley Roberts and Heather Bouman’s Champions Diversified for hosting the event in Bay City.
Tournament Directors Loren Lathrop and Dewey Yoke as well as UIC Steve Vail and Statistician Jan Tokorchok are overseeing the event with an excellent umpiring crew.
We will post a full report late Sunday/early Monday with results and stats.
Benjie Hedgecock
NAFA Executive Director
Written by Jason Peters
Citizen staff
Peter Ghostkeeper stands in the middle of the toppled ticket booth at Spruce City Stadium. A vandal, or vandals, broke into the local ball park earlier this week. (Citizen photo by David Mah)
Dumb.
That’s the word Peter Ghostkeeper used to describe the act committed by an individual or group of individuals at Spruce City Stadium.
Sometime prior to Thursday afternoon, the local fastball park was vandalized. The most serious damage was inflicted on the ticket booth, located at the front entrance of the facility. The booth, built in advance of the 2006 Canadian senior men’s fastpitch championship, was tipped over and part of its roof was ripped away.
“What reason would there be for them to do that?” asked a frustrated Ghostkeeper, a Spruce City Men’s Fastball Association committee member. “The ball season’s over, the gates are all locked. The only way they could get in was to climb the fence.”
A fence, standing about eight feet high, protects the stadium grounds.
A plywood wall in the concession area was also torn down and part of its roof was damaged. Ghostkeeper said vandals also went to work at the park about a month ago.
“They tried to break into the concession by climbing the backstop,” he said. “And it seemed like they were hitting the door with a pick or something. They tried to get in there. They were unsuccessful, but they damaged the door. And those doors are 1,500 bucks apiece, maybe.
“Every year, we have a bit of something,” he added. “We had the storage shed (vandalized) too. We had a piece of plywood over the window and that was ripped off. There’s nothing in (the shed) but they tried to get in there. And on the other side of the storage shed, a couple years ago, they took off one of the boards for the wall.”
The RCMP attended the scene on Thursday but Ghostkeeper said there’s little the police can do.
“All they can do is just record it,” he said. “Their hands are tied. There’s no evidence, other than the ticket booth being pulverized.”
Ghostkeeper said the booth will be repaired.
“We’ll put it back up and we’ll have to do some fixing,” he said. “We’ll make it work. We figured that building was heavy enough to withstand a big wind so we didn’t bother chaining it to the fence. Now, we’ll have to do something.”
BY MARK HUNTER
DAILY NEWS SPORTS REPORTER
[Kamloops] – Richard Haldane saw the best of the world last month at the ISF World Men’s Softball Championship in Saskatoon.
This week, he’ll see the best of the west at the Western Canadian Masters Fastball Championships, which are to start Thursday. Eight 40-plus men’s teams and six 35-plus women’s teams will battle on two Charles Anderson Stadium diamonds starting tomorrow at 8 a.m.
Haldane is leading the Kamloops Sandman Inn Blazers into the tournament after spending July 17-26 at the world championship pitching and playing first base for Great Britain, which finished tied for seventh.
“The intensity (between the two tournaments) will be a big difference,†said Haldane, a 40-year-old Vernon resident whose father was born in England, thus making Richard eligible to play for Great Britain. “I pitched against New Zealand, who were three-time defending champions, and I’ve never played in anything like that.
“It was phenomenal and I loved every minute of it.â€
In his start against New Zealand, Haldane pitched two innings, giving up two earned runs in a 14-0 loss. New Zealand ended up losing 5-0 to Australia in the final.
The Blazers are to take on Northwest Territories on Thursday, 10 a.m., in what will be the first of the team’s six round-robin games before the playoffs start Saturday.
Kamloops will have a team — called the Dearborn Classics —in the women’s draw. It will take on one of two Saskatchewan teams on Thursday at 11:30 a.m., in the first of its five round-robin games.
Both finals are scheduled for Sunday at 1 p.m.
Haldane is no stranger to the local fastball scene after pitching the last few seasons in the Kamloops Major Men’s Fastball League. He’s hoping to see a lot of fan support at the weekend games.
Fan support wasn’t much of a problem in Saskatoon, where as many as 8,000 spectators took in a few of the games.
While like numbers aren’t realistic for Kamloops, the tournament does show an apparent resurgence in the local fastball scene.
“The Western Canadian championships are a big thing to land,†Haldane said. “(Organizer) Ken Ward has played a big part in landing that. It’s usually tough to get a Western Canadian or Canadian championship.â€
The Blazers have loaded up for the tournament. Along with the local players, the Kamloops team will have Jerry Kennedy, Kevin Careless and Dean Longstaff on its roster.
All of these players, who live in the Lower Mainland, have impressive resumes in top men’s leagues. Haldane knows the players from his travels in the sport, and thinks the team will be a contender this week.
“It’s going to be a lot of tough competition,†he said. “But if we hit the ball, anything can happen. As long as we can put some hits together . . . I think our pitching will be fine.â€
mhunter@kamloopsnews.ca