[Alsfastball] Men's Provincial Masters

[Al Doran]

From: mohearn at uoftbookstore.com
To: fastball at pmihrm.com
Subject: Men's Provincial Masters
Date: Tue, 27 Jul 2004 14:58:59 -0400


Port Perry, ON


This past weekend I had the honor and privilege once again to play with the
Cold Spring Cats Masters at the provincial championship in beautiful Port
Perry.  Friday night we faced Cloyne who's roster boasted many names very
familiar to those close and even not so close to the game of fastball.
Terry Challis, Chris Jones, Dave Hoffman, Jim Cowdrey and of course that
legendary hall of famer Pete Landers.  Even my old buddy Vere Small showed
up to coach first base for them.  It was fun playing against them which is
what Masters is supposed to be all about and thankfully we caught them early
and perhaps a little unprepared to secure an opening night win.

At the end of round robin play our division had three teams with 2-1 records
(Cold Springs, Cloyne and Waterloo) and one team at 0-3 (Chepstow).  The top
two teams in each division were to advance to the playoffs and after the tie
breaking calculations had been done it was Waterloo who were told they were
out.  Certainly heartbreaking news for a scrappy team who I'd always enjoyed
playing against.  A team who played hard in a gentlemanly sort of Masters
fashion, and who had also beaten us 4-3 after being down 3-0 in the round
robin.

Pete Landers did the bulk of the pitching for Cloyne and realized following
the round robin that they just didn't have the pitching to be competitive on
Sunday so after meeting with his team big Pete and the rest of his Cloyne
mates showed the ultimate in class by approaching the OASA and asking that
Waterloo be allowed to take their place in the playoff round.  The OASA at
that moment could have taken a major step towards recognizing what Masters
is all about by setting aside the rules and granting Pete's request.
Certainly nobody would have complained and certainly Waterloo with a 2-1
record deserved to be there.  The OASA instead insisted that the rules be
followed to the letter.  Surprising.......no, but very sad that they don't
fully understand what Masters should be all about.

Congratulations to Alviston (who I picked from the outset) and to Colborne
for their one, two finish and a big congrats to my "Cats" teamates for our
gritty 3rd place showing.  Done primarily on the arm of Gary Vowles who
pitched 5 and a half games (three on Sunday) after Roger Cole's injury.

Mike "Red Dog" O'Hearn
E-mail:   mohearn at utpress.utoronto.ca

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