OASA Springboard Clinic a huge success

Thanks to all the volunteers organizers and coaches that made the OASA Springboard softball skills clinic at Stonecrest Elementary School on Saturday such a success.

The West Carleton Minor Softball Association did a survey at the end of last season to see what interested players - and a general skills clinic was top of the list.

About 100 boys and girls showed up to learn various softball skills in what was a well run day. Special thanks to Dale Aiken for putting everything together.

Expansion in local leagues

Fastball fans often hear bad news about teams folding, struggling leagues, etc.

So it is good to hear when leagues are adding teams and expanding.

GOFL: As reported earlier, the Greater Ottawa Fastball League is growing to eight teams with season with the addition of the Micksburg Twins.

Fitzroy Harbour Men's Fastball League: The house league in Fitzroy Harbour has experienced growth the last few years, with an influx of young players. With several news player signing up for the draft and the addition of a local West Carleton Midget Select team to the league, the FHMFL has gone from eight to ten teams for this season.

North Leeds Fastball League: This league, in the Brockville area, has added two teams: Domville Midgets and Lyn. They join Athens, Eastons Corners, Greenbush Generals, Greenbush Juniors, Newboro, and Seeley’s Bay to make for an eight team loop.

Has your league expanded too? Let us know the good news. Send an email to fastball@fitzroyharbour.com and I will post the info.

Caveman Practice Plan

As all veteran coaches know, you have to have a good plan to make a practice successful.

Since I am coaching Fitzroy Junior's Squirt Boys team, the Caveman's Atom team will be coached by his mom. Caveman is very excited for the upcoming season. While Fitzroy Jr and I were away at practice tonight, the Caveman asked Mrs Fastball what they would be doing at his practice later this week.

Because he was so keen, she let him devise the practice plan - and it actually isn't too bad!  See below, spelling left intact.

1st practist stuff

1. blob tage
2. runing throught 1st base
3. cathing driles
4. infeileding / outfeileding
5. how to hold the bat
6. tell posetions

End!!!!!

While his spelling needs work, it's actually not too bad a plan for a group of 6-8 year olds.

Softball season almost upon us

Word on the street is that Blackburn League has 8 teams again this year, and so does the Glen Cairn Men's League. I believe the New Edinburgh Fastball League is going with 4 teams again. GOFL is expanding from 7 to 8 teams as per an earlier announcement, and the Fitzroy Harbour Men's Fastball League is looking to possibly expand from 8 to 10 teams (including a new midget team) - if they can figure out the diamond time. Fitzroy Harbour kids softball registration is up too, almost 100 children registered. (Population of the greater Fitzroy area: approx 1000.) Good news all around.

The two boys and I were out enjoying the nice weather tonight, practicing our pitching skills as per the orders of "Coach Jamey" from up the line. Then a little batting practice and the next thing you know the girls from next door were outside, a couple of parents joined in, and a fun game of "scrub" softball ensued. Good times. Has me itching for the beginning of fastball season even more than before.

Anyway, after a good game, it was time for bath and bed for the lads. Then I had the unfortunate experience of the following conversation. (Honestly, there is no way I could make this stuff up.)

[voices from the bathroom as they are getting dried off]

Fitzroy Junior: "Caveman! Yuck! Stop chewing your nails!"

Me: "Caveman, listen to your brother. Chewing your fingernails is a bad habit."

Fitzroy Junior: "Daddy, he was actually chewing his toenails."

Me: [SPEECHLESS]

Caveman, exits bathrooms shrugging his shoulders: "Sorry, Daddy."

OASA Springboard Clinic this Saturday in West Carleton

The OASA, in partnership with West Carleton Minor Softball, is presenting a "Springboard" fastball skills clinic for boys and girls this Saturday April 27 at Stonecrest Elementary School in Woodlawn.

There are sessions for young kids in the morning, with older kids in the afternoon.

Response has been outstanding - we have had over 110 kids sign up to attend the clinic!

Looking forward to a great day.

New Men's Team: Napanee Express

Announced on Al's Fastball

Good to see a men's team out of Napanee on the tourney circuit.

Exciting news from Napanee, Ontario.


We are pleased to announce a new competitive mens tournament Fastpitch team from Napanee, Ontario. With support of Softball Napanee we have formed an exciting young team to compete in competitive tournaments in Ontario and the U.S. The team will be known as ‘NAPANEE EXPRESS’. Brad MacDonald and Daryl MacDonald felt there was a void for local players to continue with their fastptich careers after finishing the junior level. We polled some junior graduates and felt there was a real desire to keep playing top level Fastpitch. With that momentum over the winter we approached Express players to begin the process of putting the team together.

The team selection has solidified with a terrific group of athletes.

Every player on the roster has had time with the Napanee Jr Express program and experienced competition at the Canadian Nationals including gold, silver and bronze medal winners. All these players will continue
to play with their local league teams as they have in the past.

Our tournament selection has been finalized for this season. The Express will begin with the Crush Victoria Day tournament in Woodstock(May), Jim Bradford-Neil Cane in Cobourg(June), Mickey Brennan Memorial in Lackawana (July), Gil Read Memorial in Carp (July) and finish off the season with the NAFA Worlds in DesMoines, Iowa (Aug).

The roster is comprised of a pitching staff including Ian Wallwork, Josh Lockridge and Jordan MacDonald. The catching duties will be shared by Dan Burnham and Murray Hodgson. Position players are Kyle Lloyd, Joel Langford, Kristian Knapp, Lucas McNeill, Scott Mills, Ryan Mills, Adam Alexander , Nathan Moffat and Chris Switzer. The squad will have great team speed and defense, a good mix of power and contact hitting and solid pitching.

At this time we are still looking to secure a sponsor to aid in the promotion and development of the tournament team. We are looking forward to providing this opportunity to the players and endeavour to continue the program for years to come.

Team Coaches:
Brad MacDonald
Daryl MacDonald

To Contact Brad or Daryl
napmensfastpitch@gmail.com

Parry Island Hawks new website

The Parry Island Hawks, champions last year at the ISC II level, now have a new website.

GOFLers Joe McCleary, Matt Greer and Joran Graham will all be suiting up for the Hawks this season, who are managed by the one and only Derek Pinkerton.

Announcement: GOFL welcomes new club in Micksburg

The Greater Ottawa Fastball League will be expanding to eight teams in 2013 with the addition of a club in Micksburg.

The Twins, longtime powerhouse in the defunct Upper Ottawa Valley Men's Fastball League, will participate as a full member of the top area league in eastern Ontario and western Quebec.

Right away, the Micksburg club will be considered a contender for the league title as highly-regarded area pitchers Joran Graham and Corey Costello will toe the rubber for the Twins. The team is expected to field a squad of both veteran GOFLers and young area ball players.

Micksburg joins Fitzroy Harbour West Carleton Electric, Quyon Flyers, Stittsville 56ers, Carp I4C Victory, Kars Aces, Barrhaven Broadway Blues, and the Ottawa Blitz.

The GOFL schedule is under development and should be made public soon. The season will start the second week of May.

Would you buy hockey tickets from this man?

Well, if you would, read this.

Season starts soon.....and Caveman quotables

With April drawing to an end I am sure many players young and old are looking forward to ball season starting.

Caveman and Fitzroy Junior have once again signed up for the CanPitch sessions in Fitzroy Harbour. These are a great opportunity for kids to learn the mechanics of pitching. They are also a great way for their dad to learn more about teaching young players the basics of our sport's most important position.  I highly recommend it if you have young ball players.

As we wait for the weather to warm up and the softball season to start, the Caveman has been up to his usual antics. A few recent quotable quotes:

Training required
I guess the Caveman's experiences with learning to pitch have him thinking about appropriate training for all aspects of life - as demonstrated by this recent exchange last month:
Caveman: "How old do we have to be before kids can drink beer?"
Me: "We talked about this before - 19"
Caveman: "Do I have to take a course or something like that?"

Fake ID required
Caveman is desperate to play what he calls "real ball" - in other words graduate from Atom Coach Pitch to Mites, where he could use his pitching skills on a regular basis. Unfortunately he is a year too young to move up to Mites. He had a bit of a tantrum the other night when this was explained to him - repeatedly. Once he calmed down he came up with what he thought was a reasonable compromise: "Daddy, couldn't you just lie about my birthday?"

Inquiring minds want to know
Caveman was learning recently at school about making sure you can provide evidence when giving answers. (Things have changed since I was in grade two.) With Fitzroy Junior and I away one evening, the Caveman decided to put this methodology to work. "Mommy? Tell me the top three reasons why you married Daddy, with proof."

Blackburn Tournament update

BMFL Mens and Womens Summer Kickoff Tournament (June 13th-16th) **UPDATE**


Due to the tremendous success of the 2 tournaments we put on last year, we are kicking off the 2013 with a bang.

This year we are looking to not only have a Men's division but we want to add a Women's division as well.

We would like to have a minimum of 8 teams per division. The Men's division will be Fastpitch and Women's will be orthodox/conventional.

There have been a number of teams showing interest and a few confirmed. If you or anyone you know is interested in putting a team in make sure to send an email to the address below ASAP.

Interested/Confirmed Teams:
Gloucester Heating (BMFL)
Sebringville Sting Jr's
Curve Lake Trappers
Ottawa Taylors Blitz
Glen Cairn All Stars
Knights (BMFL)
Guzzlers (BMFL)
Eastmain Fireballs
Chisasibi Jays
Wemindji White Sox

There has been a bit of interest from womens teams but no confirmations yet.....

The entry fee will be $300 per team.

There will of course be food and beverages on site for all players and spectators.

Any teams who wish to register please email derek.t.martin@hotmail.com.

Pitcher need for New Edinburgh Men's Fastball League in Ottawa

Looking for possible spare pitchers for New Edinburgh Pub's fast pitch team. We have recently lost 2 of our pitchers for this up coming season and are in need of pitching. If you know of anyone that might be looking for some extra games could you please have them contact me at geoffgrace@live.com.

Robert (Bob) McClintock Facebook page

Check out the Facebook page made in honour of Robert (Bob) McClintock, who was a fastball pitcher back in the 70s and 80s for teams in the Kemptville area, and who died at an early age. Lots of great old articles and photos from years gone by, include a good photo one with a young Bob Templeton (former commish of the GOFL) from back in his Junior days!

Thanks to Brenden Holmes for the tip about the site.

New Edinburgh league looking for pitcher

from Martin Thornell
We're looking for an intermediate level fastball pitcher to join our team in the New Edinburgh Men's Softball League. We play one game a week on either Wednesday or Thursday night, starting at 6 p.m. at Stanley Park in New Edinburgh. This is a fun, competitive, 4-team league with players between ages 20-60. Contact me if interested in joining or learning more. martinthornell@gmail.com