Some thoughts from the Sydenham tourney

From a personal point of view, my opinions on the Sydenham tournament. Feel free to add your comments if you would like to add anything. Please include your name if you want it posted.

• While a nice location with the two diamonds side-by-side, the field conditions really were not that good. Warning tracks full of grass, infields a bit rough and the outfields pretty bumpy. We only played on the second diamond, but I'm not sure the first diamond was any better.
• Not sure why, but we used the Dream Seams which were the softballs from last year. I had thought we were using the new K-Master 120s which the GOFL uses in league play, but instead we used the mushier Dream Seams.
• The diamonds in Sydenham are very deep. Over 260ft to centre, and over 240ft to the corners, with 8ft fences. Of course I'm used to the short porch in Fitzroy, but these diamonds combined with the mushy balls meant that anything to the gap was a triple. Lots of triples on the weekend, but I am only aware of one homer that cleared the fences all tourney, though there may have been a few more.
• Having the first diamond scoreboard fired up was a nice touch.
• No announcing at either diamond was disappointing. A public address system, at least for the first diamond, doesn't seem like too much to ask.
• Crowds not too bad on Friday and Saturday. It was tough to get a parking spot! Lots of folks stuck around to watch our nine inning game on Friday night. Not too sure how many people showed up on Sunday since when you go 0-2 and BBQ it's best just to get the hell out of town.
• If losing a nine inning marathon that we should have won against Scarborough was enough of a disappointment Friday night, how about the beer garden running out of ale? Yip the beer garden had no beer left for us after our first game. BOOOOOOO. Thankfully, some of the guys had some extra Pepsis in their trunk, so we were able to enjoy a parking lot refreshment, but come on that is weak.
• On the topic of the beer garden, $3 a pint I thought was pretty reasonable. So then why were some teams chugging beer in the parking lot and not supporting the tourney? WEAK. I know our team dropped a pile of money in the beer garden while a local team that got beat out on Saturday sponsored by a pool company sat around in the wide open in the lot chugging their own beer. That's not cool - if teams don't support the concessions, these things don't make money, and if that pattern continues, then there are no more tourneys to go into. BOOOOO on teams not going to the beer garden, at least for one or two.
• I thought Adam Lake from the Cowboys worked hard to make this tourney happen. He was hard to miss running all around the complex all weekend. Didn't seem like he had a lot of help from his Kingston teammates, but good for Adam in keeping the bracket board updated with both tourney scores, and for generally pulling this thing off well. (Has anyone else noticed a passing resemblance between Adam and the Kingston Cowboys "muscle ball wearing a cowboy hat" logo? Perhaps he was the inspiration for the design?)
• The draw was a just a tiny bit interesting as to who got byes. The bye certainly paid off for each team, as the top 4 teams in the tourney were all recipients of first round byes.
• Teams performed as expected: Top ranked Easton ran the table as they did last year and looked good with all three throwers (Bradley, Murphy and Konkle) getting work. Second ranked Waterdown looked good as well, finishing a strong third. Carp was ranked 5th going in and in finishing tied for fifth had a good tourney despite losing their first game - and who knows, may have an outside shot at at ToC bid.
• Teams that did better than expected: Donnaconna impressed. I think they were a bit of a darkhorse coming in and they did very well finishing second and beating all their opponents except for Easton. Francis Leclair, a skinny kid with glasses but a great arm, threw very well. Word I heard now is that they will take their berth, but if Leclair is unavailable due to the Junior Nationals, I'm not sure how they will fare at the ToC. Quyon had some help from the bye, but beat a tough Scarborough team twice to finish fourth. I hope these guys get a bye to the ToC, they are a good young team and a great bunch of lads.
• Teams that disappointed: Kingston can't be happy with not making it to Sunday despite being host team and being ranked 4th going in. I thought they would be in contention for sure, but their chances for getting a berth are now very slim at best. Scarborough, with many players from the finalists at Junior Nationals last year, came in as the third ranked team in the tourney, and brought an army of 18 guys and 2 coaches, but ended up finishing tied for fifth, losing twice to Quyon. Fitzroy Harbour WC Electric should have beat Scarborough in their first game, then completely choked against Blackburn - a huge disappointment for a team that got an invite to the ToC last year.
• I am not too familiar with the teams in the southern/western part of Ontario, but I can tell you the Wyevale and Bucktown finishing 1-2 is a huge upset. Highly favoured Elora ranked #2 in North America ended up going 0-2 and BBQ! The eastern qualifier by comparison was a lot more predictable.
• And finally, what is with these guys wearing #69 for a jersey number? Yeesh. Back to slo-pitch boys if you are going to wear that. Trust me, even the chicks in Friday night mixed three pitch think that's weak.

Anyway, happy to hear anyone's opinion on the above. Leave a comment and include your name.