GOFL Article in the Orleans Star
The GOFL and the Orleans Gators were featured in an article in the Orleans Star:
http://www.eastottawa.ca/article-104410-Citywide-fastball-league-diamond-in-the-rough.html
City-wide fastball league diamond in the rough
by Jim Donnelly
I realized I'd made a mistake only seconds after uttering the word.
“See, you said the word 'baseball'," corrected Gary Hargrove. "This is fastball."
What's the difference, I asked?
"This is windmill pitching, and there’s a big difference," continued the manager of the Orléans Gators, the latest team to join the Greater Ottawa Fastball League. They're the only squad from Orléans in the city-wide GOFL, and hooked up with the league this year after logging several seasons in the Orléans Amateur Fastball Association as the Orléans Rebels midget boys' team.
The junior-aged team (all players under 23) lost their league debut last Thursday 3-2 to the Carp I4C Victory, an intermediate side (all players over 23) with a bit more league experience.
Just don't ask the Gators about the b-word, however. “It’s a faster game than baseball,” described Hargrove.
Fastball pitches are delivered from 46 feet as opposed to 60, he explained, thus requiring greater reaction time from the hitter – top windmillers are regularly clocked at 90 mph–plus, despite slinging a large and less-aerodynamic softball.
“We’ve seen players come over from playing baseball and try to adjust to hitting fastball pitching, and it's really tough on them," he said, a little proudly. He added the basepaths are also several feet shorter.
That's a Phyrric victory for Hargrove and his fellow fastball supporters, however, who acknowledge they're fast becoming an endangered species on local diamonds across the city.
Though he said the GOFL has entered a growth phase as of late – they've moved from four teams to nine in a matter of a couple years, including clubs from Kanata (Kanata's Team Easton is the squad to beat), Manotick, Stittsville, Fitzroy Harbour, and downtown Ottawa – Hargrove points to the immense popularity of baseball (a.k.a hardball) and slow-pitch as immediate causes for windmilling's decline.
“Men’s fastball has died over the years,” explained Hargrove, whose own son Chad pitches for the team – he fanned 13 batters in his league debut last week, good for the league lead in strikeouts – along with 10 of his childhood friends, including infielder Matthew Bowman.
Bowman said he's patrolled sandlots for teams in both sports, and wouldn't think of leaving the windmill sport he's come to love. "I played high school baseball," he said. "And just comparing the two, the pace of (fastball) is so much quicker – you're not standing around as much.
Plus the mound is much closer, so it's more about reaction time," he explained. "You have a split-second to react. It's out of the pitcher's hand and you have to decide immediately whether to swing."
Bowman, however, said the experience garnered against older, more experienced competition will be invaluable for the Gators – especially when they enter high-level tournaments, as they did last August during the National Midget Fastball Championship in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. The team finished fifth in that tournament, the 20-year-old Bowman explained. But he said they could have done better had they more experience.
"We're going up against better pitching (in the GOFL), for sure," he said. "But I think we're going to gain a ton of experience this year."
We might not win as many games as we have in the past, but in the long run it'll be invaluable."
The Gators will play home games at the Pierre Rocque Park diamond (at the north end of St. Pierre Street), and games start at 8:30 p.m. on Thursdays. The team's inaugural home game is scheduled for this Thursday, May 17 versus the Stittsville 56ers.
http://www.eastottawa.ca/article-104410-Citywide-fastball-league-diamond-in-the-rough.html
City-wide fastball league diamond in the rough
by Jim Donnelly
I realized I'd made a mistake only seconds after uttering the word.
“See, you said the word 'baseball'," corrected Gary Hargrove. "This is fastball."
What's the difference, I asked?
"This is windmill pitching, and there’s a big difference," continued the manager of the Orléans Gators, the latest team to join the Greater Ottawa Fastball League. They're the only squad from Orléans in the city-wide GOFL, and hooked up with the league this year after logging several seasons in the Orléans Amateur Fastball Association as the Orléans Rebels midget boys' team.
The junior-aged team (all players under 23) lost their league debut last Thursday 3-2 to the Carp I4C Victory, an intermediate side (all players over 23) with a bit more league experience.
Just don't ask the Gators about the b-word, however. “It’s a faster game than baseball,” described Hargrove.
Fastball pitches are delivered from 46 feet as opposed to 60, he explained, thus requiring greater reaction time from the hitter – top windmillers are regularly clocked at 90 mph–plus, despite slinging a large and less-aerodynamic softball.
“We’ve seen players come over from playing baseball and try to adjust to hitting fastball pitching, and it's really tough on them," he said, a little proudly. He added the basepaths are also several feet shorter.
That's a Phyrric victory for Hargrove and his fellow fastball supporters, however, who acknowledge they're fast becoming an endangered species on local diamonds across the city.
Though he said the GOFL has entered a growth phase as of late – they've moved from four teams to nine in a matter of a couple years, including clubs from Kanata (Kanata's Team Easton is the squad to beat), Manotick, Stittsville, Fitzroy Harbour, and downtown Ottawa – Hargrove points to the immense popularity of baseball (a.k.a hardball) and slow-pitch as immediate causes for windmilling's decline.
“Men’s fastball has died over the years,” explained Hargrove, whose own son Chad pitches for the team – he fanned 13 batters in his league debut last week, good for the league lead in strikeouts – along with 10 of his childhood friends, including infielder Matthew Bowman.
Bowman said he's patrolled sandlots for teams in both sports, and wouldn't think of leaving the windmill sport he's come to love. "I played high school baseball," he said. "And just comparing the two, the pace of (fastball) is so much quicker – you're not standing around as much.
Plus the mound is much closer, so it's more about reaction time," he explained. "You have a split-second to react. It's out of the pitcher's hand and you have to decide immediately whether to swing."
Bowman, however, said the experience garnered against older, more experienced competition will be invaluable for the Gators – especially when they enter high-level tournaments, as they did last August during the National Midget Fastball Championship in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. The team finished fifth in that tournament, the 20-year-old Bowman explained. But he said they could have done better had they more experience.
"We're going up against better pitching (in the GOFL), for sure," he said. "But I think we're going to gain a ton of experience this year."
We might not win as many games as we have in the past, but in the long run it'll be invaluable."
The Gators will play home games at the Pierre Rocque Park diamond (at the north end of St. Pierre Street), and games start at 8:30 p.m. on Thursdays. The team's inaugural home game is scheduled for this Thursday, May 17 versus the Stittsville 56ers.
posted by fitzroyfastball | 5/16/2007 12:31:00 pm
4 Comments:
Nice article but who is being clocked regularly at 90MPH plus?? I'm pretty sure the top senior pitchers were "only" clocking in at the low 80's at last years ISC's and the top ISCII's in the low-mid 70's
I'm sure what was meant was that the fastpitch hurlers are clocking at the equivalent of 90+ mph when compared with baseball pitchers because of the closer distance. That's a regularly made comparison.
Thats the comparison I made but thats not how it was written.
Gary Hargrove
Anybody who has even been interviewed by the paper can tell you that what you tell the reporter and what gets printed in the paper don't always match up exactly. I know that from experience! (Not from you Terry if you are reading this ha ha).
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