Our friend Bernie Lopez (a member of my 50+ team, Long Beach Deadwood) spent the last couple weeks in Saskatoon taking in the XII World Championships. Have world caliber tournaments, (he) will travel. You may recall his report to us from the Czech Republic the summer before last, and the one in Holland last year. “Have world caliber tournament (he) will travel. I enjoyed the note and photos, as it gave me a feel of the tournament, from a fans perspective, and got Bernie’s Ok to share it with you:

Bernie Lopez (top center with the sunglasses) and his buddies at the XII World Championships in Saskatoon last week.

After a long, two-day grueling drive I’m back In Vegas where I was greeted by 116 degree heat. Guess I’ll never complain about the Saskatoon heat again.

After a brief rain delay, the day began with the Canadian boys playing New Zealand for the right to play Australia in the championship. The Kiwis did their pregame Haka to the delight of the hundreds of New Zealanders, who had flown to Canada for the tournament. They cheered and stomped the stands as the Kiwi boys did their thing.

The Canadian players pretty much stayed in their huddle ignoring the Haka, to which Kiwi 3rd baseman Brad Rona took offense to, scowled and kicked an arm gesture to the Canadians, to which the home crowd responded with a rousing and lusty boo. The Canadians answered the Haka by standing arm-in-arm singing their National Anthem to which the crowd of Canadian Thousands joined in. It was quite a sight to see and hear that many people sing at the top of their lungs – just before a fastpitch game. Needless to say, this was going to be a good game!

Team Australia sharing a gold medal moment with the crowd in Saskatoon. (click to enlarge)

But the Kiwis flexed their muscles and even the top-notch Canadian pitching couldn’t stop their hot bats as they sent the Canadians to their Bronze medal podiums by a score of 8-5. Now they had to face the Aussie’s who had previously knocked them into the loser’s bracket by blanking them 7-0. The Aussie’s sent their ace Adam Folkard to the mound. This time he no-hit the Kiwi’s 5-0 – game over. Adam Folkard absolutely dominated the Kiwi bats and is regarded as the best pitcher in the world having been clocked at 138 kmph. That translates into 85 miles per hour – how sick is that? And you wanna hear the worst part for his competition? He’s only 22 years old. And his teammate, 6’9″ lefthander Adam Kirkpatrick is no slouch, as he earlier threw Australia’s first perfect game in their World championship history.

Australia celebrates winning the gold medal at the XII World Championship, July 26, 2009. (Click to enlarge to fully appreciate this photo)

The New Zealanders had won the previous 3 World championships, but this time it was no contest as the Australians proved to be quicker, younger, and more aggressive. Oh yea, and there’s that pitching dominance too. Changing of the Guard indeed.

Our USA boys finished fourth as they lost to New Zealand the night before 7-4. The evening prior, Canada beat up our boys 6-4 in a game our boys shoulda and coulda won, but guess it wasn’t meant to be. Japan finished 5th, Venezuela took 6th, and GB (Great Britain) ended up in 7th place with Argentina rounding out the top 8 spots.

Finally, a few things I’ll always remember is watching Japan against the Phillipines and listening to all the Asian softball chatter. And Venezuela plaing Mexico with the Latin softball lingo being chirped across the diamond. Or watching the Danish squad or the Czech team play and hearing their European sounds of the game. Oh yea, then there’s those African fellows from Botswana and South Africa; simply amazing! This truly was a WORLD championship!! I’m not sure where the next mens fastpitch World championship will be held in 2013, but what ever corner of this planet the boys will be lacing up their spikes, I will defintely be there. And you should try to go as well, I promise you won’t be dissappointed!

Anybody wanna pitch in to see if we could get this tourney here in in Vegas? How cool would THAT be! : )

Here are a few pics from the last day, enjoy.

Bern

Yakima, Washington – JRW & Associates pitcher Shayne Arndt suffered a fractured jaw in an Adult City League Fastpitch Game on Tues Night, July 28th at the Gateway Complex.

Shayne, a minister in Hermiston, OR drives up to Yakima once a week for City League games. He also throws for JRW in weekend tournaments.

With two outs in the bottom of the 7th and an 11-3 lead, Shayne took a line drive to the face from a batted ball. It took Shayne to the ground. In about 30 seconds, Shayne rose to his knees with blood dripping from his face. He then stood up and said “ Give me the ball. I am going to finish this”. He induced the last batter to fly out to left field to end the game.

Faced with the 1-½ hour drive back to Hermiston, his teammates were concerned that he might have a concession. But Shayne was completely coherent when he left the ballpark. He was checked by phone enroute and upon arrival at home and seemed fine.

When Shayne arrived at home, his wife, a nurse, told Shayne that he had a broken or fractured jaw. The fracture was confirmed the next day. Apparently there was no damage to the teeth.

Shayne will be operated on at 5:00 PM on Friday July 31st at the Kadlec hospital in the Tri-Cities (Pasco, Richland and Kennewick, WA)

Our prayers and best wishes go out to Shayne for a successful operation and a return to ministering God’s word.

by YH-R Sports

YAKIMA, Wash. — Casey Johnson drove in two runs and Tim Fischer batted 3-for-5 to lift JRW & Associates to a 12-8 victory over C.H. Robinson on Wednesday night, knocking the losers out of a first-place tie in the second half of Yakima ASA Adult Fastpitch at Gateway Complex.

C.H. Robinson, which got a three-RBI game from Brad Campbell, fell to 5-2, a game behind 6-1 Aramark Monsters.

In Wednesday’s other game, Bobby Harris went 3-for-3 with a triple and Skyler Trissel homered to lead Peak Performance/Del Monte to a 12-9 victory over Kimmel Athletic.

JRW & Associates 410 122 2 — 12 9 1
C.H. Robinson 203 300 x — 8 6 4

Fischer, Hite (6) and Johnson; Seward and Otterstein.
Highlights: Tim Fischer (J) 3-5; Casey Johnson (J) 2-3, 2 RBI; Mark Seward (C) 10 K; Brad Campbell (C) 2-3, 3 RBI.

Kimmel Athletic 130 005 0 — 9 10 6
Peak Performance 020 136 x — 12 15 3

Foster and Call; Fickle and Harris.
Highlights: Mike Smith (K) 3-4; Tia Beavert (K) 2-4; Carlos Gonzales (P) 4-4; Bobby Harris (P) 3-3, 3b, 3 RBI; Skyler Trissel (P) 3-4, HR, 2 RBI.

Please note that the starting time for the ISF XII Men’s WorldSoftball Championship Bronze medal game between Canada and New Zealand has been changed to 1:00pm EDT. This game is scheduled to air tomorrow (Wednesday, July 29th) on Rogers Sportsnet from 1:00pm EDT to 4:00pmEDT.

The Gold medal game between Australia and New Zealand will air in thesame time slot as originally announced, 2:00pm EDT to 4:00pm EDT, on Friday, July 31st.

“RogersSportsnet is thrilled to add the ISF XII Men’s WorldChampionships to our lineup,” said Dave Akande, Vice-President, Content, Rogers Sportsnet. “It affords us the opportunity to offer international softball to our audience.”

World event lets city shine — even in rain

BY JEANETTE STEWART, AND KATHRYN WILLMS,
THE STAR PHOENIX

Australian players swarm pitcher Adam Folkard as they celebrate their 5-0 win over New Zealand in Sunday’s final of the ISF world softball championship. Photograph by: Greg Pender, The Star Phoenix

Rain couldn’t take the sparkle off the diamond during Sunday’s final day of the International Softball Federation world men’s softball championship in Saskatoon.

Australia won the championship 5-0 over New Zealand as Aussie pitcher Adam Folkard tossed a no-hitter, but Sunday’s games — including Canada’s 8-5 loss to New Zealand in the semifinal — only went on because of the hard work of some two dozen volunteers who got the field back in shape with rakes and wet-dry vacuums after a morning downpour.

Those volunteers were part of a contingent of 425 people who put in time during the 10-day international event.

Volunteer Ida Nerbas also remembers the last time Saskatoon hosted the men’s championship in 1988.

That year she coached a bantam girls’ team and all of the players volunteered with her. Some of those former players, now grown up, volunteered again this year.

“The roots of softball in this province are right here in the city,” she said.

Her grandson and children also put time into this year’s events. “It’s what we do as a family,” Nerbas said.

Tournament co-chair Keith McLean said more than half of the teams brought fans with them, and Saskatoon quickly made a positive impression.

“All of them came up and said how impressed they were with our city,” he said.

“People talked to them and knew what they were involved with. A quarter-million people, that’s the size of a city that can really do this type of thing. Vancouver, Toronto, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton, it gets lost. Not here.”

Saskatoon Sports Tourism’s assessment was the tournament would have a $3-million impact on the city.

McLean says they likely reached that, and although the profit won’t be announced until fall when all the bills are paid and the audit done, he has every reason to be optimistic. He anticipates a “very substantial profit.”

“Our finance guy’s a banker,” says McLean. “He’s a very cautious guy and he started smiling on Friday. He was even smiling on Saturday and that was really impressive because he was at the Rider game. So he was happy. We’ll put money back into Saskatoon amateur and minor ball and the facility.”

Despite Sunday’s rain, the championship was blessed with excellent weather during the entire 10-day run, McLean said.

“We had the perfect weather. Every country in the world would love to have a tournament with the weather we had and the fans we had.”

Volunteer Donna Coates said part of the appeal of an international event is getting to talk to people from all over the world, including the players, who she says are approachable and willing to share their stories.

On Sunday, Justin Laskowski carried around an event program with the names of each Japanese ball player autographed above their photos. He spent the week as “bat boy” for the Japanese team

For the 11-year-old, the event has influenced his ball playing.

“I’ll try to play more like them,” he said.

Dale Trrey travelled to Canada with her husband and nine-year-old daughter to cheer on New Zealand.

They spent 10 days in Saskatoon, mostly watching ball but also shopping and riding the river boat cruise down the South Saskatchewan River.

“It’s a lot like home,” Trrey said. Her family members all play softball, and know some of the players from their club in Christchurch.

jstewart@sp.canwest.com

© Copyright (c) The StarPhoenix

By Ami Afriatni

Given the chaos that led up to its appearance at the World Men’s Softball Championship, Indonesia’s lackluster showing was hardly surprising.

Indonesia lost all seven of its games in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, only avoiding being shut out entirely by scoring one run in each of its final two Pool B games.

Indonesian Amateur Baseball and Softball Federation (Perbasasi) president Gugun Yudinar said he hoped the team would be better for the experience.

“What can we expect from a team with two weeks of preparation? We almost decided not to send the team to the championship because of a budget shortfall before we found a donor,” Gugun said on Saturday. “I just hope the young players, especially pitchers, could have their first experience playing in international competition and learn a lot from it to face the 2011 Southeast Asian Games to be held in our country.”

Indonesia brought five pitchers to the championship, three of whom were new to international competition. Reza Nurman Chustriawan, Iqbal Tawakal and Syaefullah all represented their country for the first time during the game against Venezuela.

Indonesia lost to Puerto Rico (9-0), South Africa (7-0), Venezuela (18-0), Canada (9-0) and Australia (10-0) before getting on the board.

Danika Sarottana scored Indonesia’s first run of the tournament, crossing the plate during his team’s 15-1 loss to Argentina on Thursday. On Friday, Muhammad Saputra scored the lone run for Indonesia during its 8-1 loss to the Czech Republic.

Otto Minarto led Indonesia at the plate with four hits during the tournament. Heri Haeruman and Rizki Ramdhani each had three hits, while Saputra, Danika, Jakaria and Fricharda Oestabima each hit safely twice.

Gugun said the next step for Perbasasi is to hold a decentralized training camp in preparation for the 2011 SEA Games. The toughest opponents standing in the way of Indonesia’s goal of gold, Gugun added, were Thailand and the Philippines.

The proposed camp would take place in Jakarta, Lampung, West Java, East Java and East Kalimantan provinces. During the camp, Perbasasi plans to hold monthly tests for players to assess their readiness.

“I’m thinking of a foster father program to succeed the plan, and Perbasasi will work it out. If we make it, I’m sure we’ll win the gold in 2011,” Gugun said.

The Philippines finished fifth in Group A, winning three of its seven games. It defeated Great Britain 4-3 in its tournament opener and also beat Mexico (7-4) and Botswana (7-5).

Japan, the other Asian nation at the event, reached the knockout rounds after finishing 4-3 in Group A.

It beat the Philippines (5-0), Mexico (10-4), Botswana (9-4) and Denmark (14-7) in pool play. It beat Argentina 7-6 in knockout play before falling 9-6 to New Zealand. Softball