Tales from the Doug Out: July 13th, 2016

Enough with the rain already! There’s been so much rain the last few days  that even the Elk Point ball diamonds had some water standing on them early Sunday morning,  and because of the gravel under our diamonds, they rarely ever do . But they are terrific for drying up fast, whereas  some places are shut down for the day, in Elk Point we were  still able to play.

The Bantam Sox hosted a provincial round robin this weekend coming up with two wins and a loss , which is usually considered very good by most coaches, but it could have been three wins if the boys hadn’t had some costly late innings errors, bobbling of the ball in their first game against Wainwright Saturday at noon. The Sox didn’t lose this game, they threw it away.  They started out well hitting the ball and putting runners across the plate. Dustyn ‘ Dust Pan ‘ Pankiw pounding one out of the park, adding a single and a double. All he needed for the cycle was a triple. Leaving that for Kaiden ‘ K Rock” Evans Anderson and Corbin ‘ Crusher’ Ockerman who both crushed a triple. Starter  Cody ‘ the Babe’ Fairbairn up on the hill to start the boys bats had a 9 run lead when he left the game in top of the fifth inning. One run short of the mercy rule. When you have your opponent down for the count you should finish them off. The Sox should have been  a little more aggressive and pushed another run in when they had the chance , instead of letting Wainwright up for air. Graham ‘ Uncle Cracker’ Broda and Dalton ‘007’ Reed coming in on relief, they  both pitched well enough for the Sox to win, but errors in the infield cost us the game. Wainwright was still down by three runs in the bottom of the seventh, but the train came off the track, and the boys couldn’t  get it back!!

No problem in the second game later that evening, the Sox winning easily Okotoks  by the ten run mercy rule. ‘ Ty Cobb’ Smereka starting on the mound in this one, Dusty Pankiw coming in on relief to finish them off. Everyone hitting well in this one, and only two errors making a huge difference. Brayden ‘ Magnet’ Fairbairn hitting the cycle in this one, a single, double and triple, and his triple coming very close to leaving the park at center field.

Sunday morning was a very ugly morning weather wise, pouring rain in the first game, but fortunately for the Sox they didn’t play until 4 o’clock and by then it was still threating  thunderstorms, but all we had was a few sprinkles during the game. ‘ K Rock” getting the call to the hill to start the game, he had 4 strong innings allowing only two earned runs. Four K’s for the  ‘K Rock”, ‘ Crusher ‘ coming in on relief shutting them down for the final three innings, the Sox winning 8 to 2 and get this, they never even committed one error! The fielding was suburb. ‘ Uncle Cracker ‘ at center field coming up with two terrific diving catches that looked like Kevin Pillar of the Jays, plus a deep one he couldn’t quite get to, he fired a throw to the cut off man Dusty Pankiw at short stop and with a great relay by him to third baseman Dalton ‘007’ Reed got the runner out anyway. Score it 8-6-5 in you score books and a run saved. The ‘ Babe’ who’s been battling a rough hitting slump came out of it,  hammering  two doubles in this one, Dusty Pankiw who leads the team in home runs, hitting a two run dinger right over the center field wall.

And now for the K. A. Campbell quote of the week, ‘ The best and fastest way to learn a sport is to watch and imitate a champion.” Last weeks answer to ‘ Hitting is timing. Pitching is upsetting timing.” – Warren Spahn.