Tales from the Doug Out: July 20th, 2016

There was great news coming out of the head office of Baseball Alberta Tuesday afternoon. The Elk Point Sox were awarded the AA tier 4 provincial finals at the end of the month starting on Friday July 29 running through to Sunday July 31. The Sox have hosted many times before and have the volunteers and the facilities to make a successful tournament that’s enjoyable by everyone and is one of the reasons that Baseball Alberta keeps awarding them to us. The Sox have been very successful at home winning  a gold  medal in peewee AA  in 2013 and a silver in 2014 both times on  the same diamond the bantams will be playing on. And ten times the midget Sox hosted in the years before that winning their fair share of hardware.

The big news  must have really motivated the boys of summer, later that evening when they hosted Wainwright Red Sox  they came out to play winning big time 14 to 1 in 5 innings. The mercy rule being applied 10 runs after 5 innings but the boys  showed no mercy to the team that had given them a very good lesson the last time these two teams met. In ball its not over until its over. If you remember that time the Sox had a 9 run lead only to blow it with throwing and catching errors, losing in the bottom of the 7th.  The boys learned their lesson, this time they never let off on the gas, hammering the ball hard and  committed only one error in the whole game.

Elk Point Zone 7 Representative Dustyn pankiw

A zone 7 selected player Dustyn ‘ Dust Pan” Pankiw who just returned from playing on the  in summer games  and winning a silver medal with them was sent to the mound to start this one going three complete innings, allowing one earned run, on one hit and striking out four. Kaiden ‘ K Rock’ Evans Anderson coming in on relief with going two strong innings, not allowing a hit or a run and striking out four batters.  The pitching was very good, the fielding almost flawless and the bats were hot, almost everyone in the line up getting on base . Dusty Pankiw who leads the team in batting and slugging percentage with a 2 RBI double in the first inning would lead the way, after that they never really gave him anything to hit.  Clean up man Corbin ‘ Crusher’ Ockerman crushed the ball over the wall for  a grand slam in the third inning to empty the bases, that really took  the wind out of the Red Sox, Brayden ‘ Magnet’ Fairbairn getting hit by a pitch in his first two a bats, then  taking one deep for a 2 RBI triple. Coming up this weekend the Sox travel to Beaumont to take on St. Albert and Okooks in their last round robin before the provincial finals.

Now for the K.A. Campbell quote of the week . ‘ I never did say that you can’t be a nice guy and win. I said that if I was playing third base and my mother rounded third with the winning run, I’d trip her up.’ -Leo Durocher