Mitch Calvert
The Rainy River District Fastball League is reaching the busy part of its schedule, with the Rick Copenace Memorial tournament on tap this weekend in Sabaskong.
Things certainly will be heating up on district diamonds, but what is most surprising so far this season has been the level of parity across the board.
Last year’s regular-season champs, the Big Grassy Lightning, headed into a meeting with Sabaskong last night with a 5-1 record while last year’s playoff winners, the Barwick Blue Knights, are right there at 6-2.
The rest of the league is jockeying for position below them.
“All the teams have a lot of new guys and it’s a good sign,” Sight & Sound Wolves’ manager Derek McKinnon said.
“Nobody is really short players, and you [saw] that sometimes in the past where teams can’t get enough guys hardly to field a team,” he noted.
“But now it seems everyone has four or five guys on the bench and it’s good for the league.”
The Fort Frances-based Wolves are in an unfamiliar place in the standings with a 3-3 mark prior to a road meeting with Barwick last night (the result was unavailable prior to press time).
The Wolves’ match-up with Big Grassy set for last Thursday was postponed due to a funeral there.
“We haven’t been playing much here lately because of a bye and then a make-up date, but there’s been a few runs we should’ve cashed in and left stranded,” McKinnon recalled.
“It’s good to get these young guys in there, but there’s a bit of a learning curve there,” he added. “We could’ve won a couple more games if we played the older guys more and stuff, but that tends to work against you by the end of the year.”
“Right now we’re leaving a lot of guys on,” Wolves’ pitcher Marcel Pagee agreed. “Bases loaded, one out, and we’re leaving them all out there.
“Those things happen, but it’s happening too often to us and we’re letting a lot of games slip because of it.
“Even if it’s a double-play grounder, there’s still an opportunity to leg it out and get one run, but we’re going down looking or whatever the case may be,” Pagee added.
“It’s a trying year a bit because we’re always so used to being one of the top teams, and we’re just in the mix right now and have to fight for everything,” he stressed.
Pagee has taken over the pitching reins from the departed Bob Andy and forced to learn on the job to some degree.
“It’s got to be tough on [my teammates] when I’m not filling the shoes of Bob Andy that we’ve been accustomed to for so many years,” he admitted.
“I’m doing what I can, but the other guys are coming along well,” he added. “We’ve got a really fast team but we’ve just got to learn to execute.
“We’ve got to learn to score that one run and sometimes that’s all that makes the difference.”
Despite some struggles on the mound, Pagee said he wouldn’t want it any other way.
“I want the ball, but I’m not good enough right now. The big thing for me is the mental part of it,” he stressed. “I’m overly competitive and when things go wrong, I start squeezing the ball and miss my strike zone.
“Mechanics will come with time and more pitches, but the mental part is tough for me right now.”
The Wolves have brought along some young players, including sophomores Logan Allen and George Halverson, along with first-year player Colin Barton, who have stepped in and played well.
But Pagee said there’s usually a steep learning curve for a kid joining a men’s league, and he wished there were more baseball options for teenagers.
“How do you bring a kid into this league and teach them fundamentals because after [Little League], there’s nothing,” he stressed.
“A kid like Colin Barton has played fastball in International Falls and has the fundamentals, so he’s easy to teach, but there aren’t many out there who played all the way through just because there aren’t a lot of options.
“There seems to be a lot of young guys coming along, so it’s good to know [the league] will be alive for a few more years anyhow,” Pagee continued. “But you wish there was something for the younger kids out there to get their nose in after 12 years old.”
Barwick, meanwhile, has avoided rain-outs which have plagued much of the league and sits comfortably with a 6-2 record—looking like they are well on their way to challenging for their fourth-straight RRDFL title.
JJ Landry has pitched the bulk of the innings for the Knights as long-time ace George Oltsher has passed the torch in that department—choosing instead to clean up in the late innings of games.
Big Island looks much-improved from last season’s outfit which finished near the bottom of the standings in the regular season, currently sitting with a 5-2 mark on the year.
The team has seen a resurgence thanks to the stellar pitching of Leland Indian.
Stratton (3-4), Rainy River (2-5), and Sabaskong (0-7) round out the standings according to scores reported on www.rrdfl.ca
After the tournament in Sabaskong this weekend, the league will turn its attention to the annual Canada Day tourney on July 1 in Barwick.
