Kyle Jamieson was the premier midget-aged pitcher in the area back in the early 90s. Here is a story about him being part of the Team Canada winning squad at the ISF World Juniors in 1993.Softball world knows K.J. nowTeam Canada KOs Kiwi war call
Wayne Scanlan. The Ottawa Citizen. Ottawa, Ont.: Feb 25, 1993.Nobody was out and the bases were loaded with obnoxious Kiwis when the call came for K.J. from Stittsville.
Ringing in Kyle Jamieson's ears was a Maori chant from a couple of thousand Auckland spectators, the second most menacing chant K.J. heard last Sunday. The scariest was from Team Kiwi before the world junior softball championship final even began -- an in-your-dugout Maori Haka , the pregame intimidation ritual that works better than Kate Smith.
Team Canada deflected the psych job with an impromptu huddle and chant of its own. But huddles weren't much help to Jamieson now, with the bases full, the crowd in his head, the defending champs' Nos. 4 and 5 hitters due up and Canada ahead 2-1 in the seventh inning of a scheduled seven-rounder.
"I was shaking, says K.J. "There weren't much legs in me then."
Kyle fanned the first batter and couldn't tell you how he recorded the second out. He does remember the No. 6 hitter delivering a bloop single on a grooved 3-2 pitch, scoring two. K.J. made him earn it, he wasn't about to walk in the tying run of a world championship.
When these teenagers from Sooke, B.C. to St. John's, Nfld. would stay up that entire night laughing and crying and singing O Canada until their voices surrendered and hotel patrons complained, they would talk about Rob Giesbrecht of Landmark, Man., headed for the hardball training camp of the Minnesota Twins after hitting .600 worth of softballs in Auckland; about Rob O'Brien of St. John's pitching 13 heroic innings on championship Sunday -- Canada beat Japan 3-2 that same afternoon to reach the final -- and they would talk about Kyle Jamieson controlling his rage to face another batter after the go-ahead run crossed the plate.
"I could barely grip the ball, I was so mad at myself", says Kyle.
He got enough of a grip to record a final strikeout and when he reached the dugout, he couldn't believe what he found there. Hope. The lead was lost but the damage was minimal. Canada had three outs left.
Three outs were enough to score the tying run in the bottom of the 7th. In the extra 8th, with Canada down to its last pitcher, big Kris Gillis worked a walk and then lumbered home on Shane Newson's triple that rolled all the way to the fence. Canucks 4, Kiwis 3. For the first time, the world junior title belonged to Canada.
Kyle Jamieson was the first to greet Gillis.
"It took so long, I thought he would never cross the plate", says Kyle. Nearly 15,000 kilometres from the Ottawa Valley leagues, K.J. and the rest of the Canadians danced around the bases in Auckland, waving their country's flag and singing the Canadian anthem they would soon wear out.
The first chance he could, K.J. phoned the Stittsville man who had coached him 10 of his 11 years of fastball. Ray Jamieson.
"Dad", screamed K.J., "we won the whole damn thing."
K.J. is back in Stittsville today and the marks barely show from two days of pinching himself. He's soft-spoken and polite, but the Popeye forearms suggest why no New Zealander pursued him during a round-robin brawl. And when it comes to baring arms, the hurler lists noticeably to the starboard side.
There's been an addition to his left ear that his mother, Lois, hopes is merely a championship fad -- a diamond-studded earring that all six Ontario-based players wore in solidarity. Emotions run high at these junior world gatherings, especially the golden ones. When Team Canada parted in Vancouver Monday, K.J. felt like he was saying goodbye to family. The family reunites at the Canada Summer Games in Kamloops, B.C.
Among the collectables laid out like treasures from the greatest three weeks of an 18-year-old's life, two Canada hats rest on the Jamieson's kitchen counter. Inscribed by teammates inside K.J.'s game hat is a message out of Bull Durham: "Give them the gas, Meat!"
The other Team Canada hat a boy carted halfway around the planet to give to his dad. Inside it reads: "Thanks for all your help and support over the years. You deserve this hat as much as I do. Love, Kyle."
Last July, after Ray Jamieson arranged for Kyle's midget 56er's to face senior players in Ottawa-Carleton, before K.J. wowed the coaches at a national tryout camp and before K.J. worked three days a week in an RCMP gym developing a drop pitch to go with a killer rise and fastball, Ray Jamieson made a prediction.
"This is the year, said Ray, "that the world is going to find out about you, Kyle.
Good call, Ray.
I wonder if K.J. still has the earring ;)
