Road to the Show

Tales from the Doug Out: May 16th, 2017

Just finished watching the Jays win again on Sunday, with a walk off home run by my favourite player Kevin Pillar.  I don’t really know why they started this season so crappy, but it seems to be behind us now. The games are much more exciting to watch when they win; especially knowing how they have struggled this year with their starters getting injured.

The Oilers are done, but what a run! Especially from our local man, Mark “the Marksman” Letestu making a real name for himself.  I always knew he was a great player; but now so does the rest of Canada and the USA. The Oilers future is looking terrific, but with them done for the season, we can focus on the great game of baseball.

On Thursday night the Elk Point Mosquitoes Sox team #1 took on St. Lina  at home. Finishing the game in a 12 all tie after 5 innings. It was such a beautiful night that it was a pity they didn’t go into extra innings; but it was already 8:10 and both managers agreed to shut it down. Great pitching in this one by the Sox “Mighty Casey” Warawa,  Nic “the Saint” Penner, “Bo Diddley” Fontaine, Vaughn “the Vulture” Ockerman and Tray Thomas.

Kobe “the Cobra” Warawa & Doug “the Sportshound” Bassett

In the park home runs by the  “Mighty Casey”, “the Saint” and “Vulture”. Behind the plate, doing his first game, was rookie umpire Kobe “the Cobra” Warawa. The “Cobra” had done some games last year as a base umpire, but this was his very first time behind the mask and he has potential to be a fantastic man in blue.  Another potential man in blue, ” King Cole” Bendixen did his first game behind the plate this past week on Wednesday and was terrific as well.

Kobe “the Cobra” also plays on the Lakeland Northstars AA Peewee team, along with Andon “Ace” Ballas, “Mic Jager” Fontaine and Jade “Jet Stream” Van Maarion. This is a provincial peewee team made up of players from the Lakeland area. They had a good day down in Provost on Saturday played two games in provincial round robin, beating Camrose 14 to 11, then losing a close one 9 to 7 against the host, Provost. Sunday games were rained out.

Another two local boys Kaiden “K Rock” Evans Anderson and Braden “Magnet” Fairbairn are playing for Jim Church in Bonnyville on his Midget team. They hosted a provincial round robin this past weekend winning over St. Paul 8 to 0 and losing to Ft. Sask. 6 to 4. Sunday games were also rained out.

Another midget player from town, Austin “Captain Obvious” Stafford has signed up with Marwayne this year. They traveled to Ft. Mac Murray this past weekend only to be rained out. (A year ago, right now, they prayed for rain to help stop the fires.)

Colin “Naz” Nazarchuk

Two other Elk Point boys have been playing Midget AAA ball, Corbin “the Crusher” Ockerman is with Sherwood Park and Dustyn “Dust Pan” Pankiw is with Ft. Mac. Both of them are very talented and have potential to get college scholarship, just like our local farm boy, Colin “Naz” Nazarchuk did. If you recall we wrote a story about him last fall when he went off to Douglas College in Vancouver. He’s been doing a great job in the rotation, pitching this past year against US college teams in the north west and is returning this week to spend the summer with his family. But there’s no time off for him, he will be working with his pitching coach fine tuning his pitches, before returning to college in the fall.

And now for the K.A. Campbell quote of the week. `Good ball players make good citizens.’ – Chester Arthur