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.”

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.”

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.”

mhunter@kamloopsnews.ca

This entry was posted on Friday, August 7th, 2009 at 10:40 am and is filed under General, Tournaments. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.