Coaching changes

Back in March, I wrote an article asking what’s next for Colin Moro.  The Calgary native and former Calgary Viper star had suddenly found himself without a place to play as spring neared.  Well, the phone never did ring from a team looking for an experienced hitter.  Instead he spent the spring and summer coaching a high level team with Calgary’s Pro Baseball Force.

World Cup of Women's Baseball

The IBAF World Cup of Women's Baseball has been going on all week at Telus Field in Edmonton, and the first round is now complete, and the playoffs are being played this weekend. Yes, there is girl's baseball-real baseball, not softball-and not just in the movies.  Canada has had a very impressive showing so far.  The team is made up of 20 women from across the country ranging in age from 17 to 29, including four from right here in Alberta who have been major contributors to the team's success so far.  These Albertans who are representing team Canada are Heidi Northcott, a pitcher from Rocky Mountain House, Nicole Luchanski, a second baseman (basewoman? baseperson? someone please help me out with the proper nomenclature here) playing in her hometown of Edmonton, Tara Sliwkanich a pitcher from fort Saksatchewan, and Meagan Cornelssen, an outfielder from Grande Prairie.

The squad started off strong, with their first two contests being mercy-shortened 5 inning affairs, 12-2 over China - with Luchanski going 3-4 scoring 3 runs and knocking in 2 while Cornelssen added 3 RBIs -  and 14-2 over Venezuela.

Provincial Championships - Part Deux

The last weekend of July saw Baseball Alberta Championships in the Competitive Mosquito, PeeWee and Midget levels.  The August long weekend completed the rest of the Provincial championships.

Strathmore were crowned Competitive Bantam champions in Tier I, beating Grande Prairie 25-20 in a slugfest in the championship game, hosted in St. Albert.   In other Tiers, the Olds Spitfires hosted and won Tier II,  Calgary PBF hosted and won Tier III, Bawlf won Tier IV in Confederation Park and Barrhead took the Tier V title hosted by Kikino.

At the Performance level,  Red Deer hosted the PeeWee championshiops.  Sherwood Park went undefeated in pool play, while Red Deer and Spruce Grove tied for 2nd.  Due to Spruce Grove winning the head to head game, they advanced to the final to play the A's.   The Spruce Grove White Sox won the first final game 10-7, but since the A's were undefeated, a second final game was necessary.  In that one, Sherwood Park rebounded from their loss beating the White Sox 10-3 and taking home the Provincial Championship.

Provincial Championships

Last weekend Baseball Alberta crowned it's PeeWee and Midget Competitive Champions.

In Tier I PeeWee held in Grande Prairie, Camrose Red and Lacombe went undefeated in pool play, earning a berth in the semi finals. Camrose held off Leduc to advance to the finals, while Lacombe suffered their only loss to Fort McMurray, setting up a championship game between Fort McMurray and Camrose Red.  Fort Mac again handed a team their only loss of the weekend, narrowly defeating Camrose 8-7 and winning the PeeWee Tier I Provinical Championship.

Albertans in the minors... and majors too!

A while ago I posted a list of Albertan players playing in the minor leagues.  Since that time several more players have started playing, and one has gotten the long-awaited call.  Here is an update on these home province players:

Let me start with the ones mentioned in my April post:

“Jim Henderson who is a Calgary native and was originally drafted by the Montreal Expos is pitching at AAA for the Nashville Sounds.  This is his second stint at AAA, having had prior experience there with the Iowa Cubs in 2008, before the Brewers organization promoted him to their AAA affiliate last year. Although a bit old to be considered a 'prospect' at age 29, he could be called up during the season and help out in Milwaukee's bullpen”
As undoubtedly most of my readers have heard by now, Jim Henderson did indeed get called up, receiving the call the evening of July 25th and has appeared in 3 games so far for the Brewers and has yet to give up a run.  I don't expect him to continue to sport a 0 ERA indefinitely or even approach the success of the last pitcher from Calgary to play in the show, but he is doing his job and helping the Milwaukee bullpen.