Tales from the Doug Out: August 9th, 2016

What could be better than winning a gold medal in a provincial final? How about winning two gold medals ! One of the Sox top starting pitchers was drafted this past week by Provost to play in their provincial final .  The big unit, 6 foot 3 inch  Corbin ‘ Crusher ‘ Ockerman name was entered into the draft on this past Tuesday after being approached by the Provost team. The Provost was playing in the bantam AA tier 2  provincial final in Edmonton on the weekend.

‘ Crusher’ made a immediate  impact for sure, starting a game on Friday going two scoreless innings, then throwing  a complete game against the top seeded team Calgary on Saturday winning that one by one run and being named the MVP in two of his games. I think the potential for ‘ Crusher’ is unlimited. He’s a horse and still not even close to full grown, he’s starting to learn new pitches and taking the game very seriously . Baseball Alberta has a draft system which allows every team to pick up two players of a lower category once they are finished playing with their team. The AA tier 3,4 and 5 teams had their provincial finals on the long weekend, the tier 1 and 2 this past weekend.

The draft has been in place for many years and over the years the Sox have picked up players at the midget level and had some of our players picked up . Back in 2003 when the Sox won their very first provincial gold, it was Provost who also drafted Mark’ the Marksman’ Letestu after hearing how awesome he pitched in our tournament. Even before that in 1997 Jordan ‘ Buhner ‘ Bassett and Tyler’ the Mouth’ Warawa were both drafted to play for Strome and Acme. ‘ The Mouth’ won a gold medal with Acme that year.  If you finish first in tier 1 you get the first pick, from one to eight then back up again. Some teams do not pick up players if they feel they have enough depth. Most teams will only draft pitchers, otherwise they are sitting one of their regular players which wouldn’t sit well with the other parents, but most parents are ok getting another pitcher on board. You can never have too many good pitchers. After the tier one picks the tier 2 get to pick the same way. If a player commits to the draft then he must play with whatever team drafts him, he doesn’t get a choice but most kids are picked by the team that calls, although some times more than one team will call.

Game MVP for all 4 Provincial Games, Dustyn Pankiw

One of our other top pitchers Dustyn ‘ Dust Pan’ Pankiw was called by  three teams Provost, Lacombe and Camrose but declined to enter the draft due to already committed to a family holiday in B.C.  No doubt the four time MVP would have been able to help a team out too on the mound and especially at the plate.

And now for the K.A. Campbell quote of the week, ‘ The base paths belong to me, the runner,. the rules gave me the right . I always went into the bag full speed, feet first. I had sharp spikes on my shoes. If the baseman stood where he had no business to be and got hurt, that was his fault. ‘ – Ty Cobb