October 5, 2002 - Kitchener report

The tournament

I give the convener – John Masse full marks in providing an excellent year-end Kitchener tournament. The weekend was well organized & presented. The games times were planned to avoid long waits between games and the Beaches were given late start times both days. This gave us ample travel and Sunday morning recovery time for the games. Even more interesting; all SOB teams played their games at exactly the same times, leaving the same social slot open for them to gather. The guy bent over backwards to give us his full cooperation and even looked for places for us to group dine on Saturday night and was willing to help with the reservations.

This is the only tournament I know of that gives 5 games per team regardless of winning status. It is the best game value for tourney money. I know we have all made a long distance trip to a Sunday morning game, only to get sent home back home an hour & 5 minutes later. Then, there are those of us who paid and have never made it to a Sunday game. This tourney gives back a lot.

New Beach Records:

We gave them a Grand Beaches’ presence entering 3 teams & bringing about 50 people (including friends) to support the event. I think this is the 1^st 3-team entry for us. New this year was the +55 team. This was something envisioned in the spring and I was pleased to see it come to pass before the year ended. If we can increase our membership a little, we will be able to continue with this division.

The 50s team had a super weekend & did us proud winning 4 straight before getting knocked out in the 5^th game. I think they burned out in the 4^th coming back late from an 8 to 22 loss – and achieved an amazing 23-22 win. The excitement in her voice and the sparkle in her eye lit up headquarters as Heather eagerly expressed to all

“What a grand game this softball is”!

Maybe, 4 in a row is not a new record, but the way I hear it – long overdue.

Dining:

The hour of 7-PM Saturday night found us seated in a private dining room at the Country Boy. The quality, volume and price of that meal got great reviews from all and may be the most praised weekend event. To paraphrase Don Adams’ remark – the two of us ate & drank to contentment and walked away for $50.00.

Lodgings - Saturday Night

A well-attended SOB’s hospitality room at Howard Johnson followed dinner. Most of us took advantage of the SOB group discount & roomed there. Having our own convenient on-site designated party room had many pluses: it avoided travel; people could come and go as they pleased and still find each other, no inconvenient visitors in your room, the drinking-driving situation was eliminated and it was a lot of fun. Beside all this, it was the most economical way to party, well worth the money spent.

The party room was located at the end of the building emptying onto the mutual parking lot giving all easy entrance without going through the motel. The rooms close to the area were rented to the SOB people. (A trick I learn from working trade shows.) This keeps the noise localized to us and away from other guests. Like the tourney convener, Jeanine at Howard Johnson has worked with me over the last month to give us a smooth sailing weekend.

The games:

The 50s were our champs and some of the grateful Slammin’ boys have sent thank you notes to us for letting them play. The last time I saw that Danny Auld, he was jumping about 4 feet off the ground in excitement.

In descending order of excitement

The +55 team had trouble getting going and was victim to mercy’s out of the 1^st 4 games. Spirits were low and some did not want to play the last game. However, they did show up (almost by accident) to play the last game and this is the event they will remember. They played a very good game against the dreaded Brampton Nissan 55s and lead all the way (almost won the 5^th inning mercy).

We went into the 7th with a +6 lead, at 2-out we had a +3 or 4 and little by little it slipped away from us. Ironically, I had a pickup team last year playing the same team at the same tourney & went into the 7^th with a +4 lead and Nissan came back. Well, it was nothing to ashamed of and it took us 5 tries, but we finally got our game! I know all the +55 were glad they stuck it out to the end.

The SOB 55s had strong opposition this weekend, but our 60s guys were out gunned all the way and on Sunday only had the Nissan 60s to play against. Losing the first game they elected to call it a weekend and not to play the last game. They didn’t feel it would be fun for either team and I have empathy with this.

This Nissan 60s team is very good and beat my Niagara Falls 50s team 3 weeks back at a mercy of 2 to 22. My biggest lost ever. I feel they are a stronger team than the 55s. There is a problem in the lack of rating teams from beyond the 50s group and maybe there too. This often results in uneven matching of teams at these tourneys. The convener cannot be blamed for this as the problem goes much deeper. I have some ideas on how to make it better out there, but it will require a lot of work.

We have a lot to talk about at the spring meeting. A great deal of it rotates around tourney involvement. I encourage you to attend and share your feelings and ideas as to what you want, from tournaments and expect to get from the Beaches organization.

How do you rate the Kitchener weekend?

When you get a moment send along your good and not so good weekend comments to me. This way we will find our week areas to improve and make sure we don’t lose the parts that are good.

I have to give the Kitchener Oct 5^th a high mark for overall success, but my feeling is not the one that really counts. I work too close to the project and sometimes this is where vision fails. So, your feedback is important. Just do it!

Wayne (Boots) Crowley