There was a time, not all that long ago, when fastball was
among the handful of sports that ruled the summers in Sudbury.
In the 1950s and 1960s, hundreds of fans would regularly flock
to diamonds across the region, taking in some of the biggest
names in the sport.
The exploits of the likes of Metro Szeryk, Booker Thomas and
Ezio Bevilacqua regularly graced the sports pages of the local
paper at a time when fastball enjoyed, quite likely, its
greatest popularity.
Still, as I remember my teenage years through to my days
attending Laurentian University in the early 1980s, the sport
remained a fixture at a variety of levels. Playing out of the
old "Sudbury Stadium" at the corner of Lasalle and Notre Dame,
the pitchers of the era included the familiar names of Gerry
Gauthier, Steve Lebedick, John Monahan, Rick Petryna and Gerry
Goudreau.
Of course, at that time, there still existed a "feeder" system
of sorts as the Garson ball park was alive with youth teams
competing at "A" championships across the province. Brad
Ringuette, Paul and Pat Lizotte and Doug Foley all came through
the program, with the park itself now dedicated to the memory
of one of the foremost volunteers of the organization, Lorne
Brady.
Even as I attended E.S. Macdonald-Cartier, fellow students with
far more gumption than I to dig in their heels in the face of a
rising fastball drifting a little too far inside, would take to
the fields behind Felix-Ricard, part of a league that, over
time, gave way to the slo-pitch era that we see today.
Even the fairer sex enjoyed the lure of fastball, with the
on-field battles every bit as intense as the ones contested by
their male counterparts. In fact, the Sudbury & District
Ladies Fastball League provided me with my first true
first-hand exposure to the sport, first as a scorekeeper and
statistician and eventually as league president for a couple of
summers.
Those were the days when Sonic Northern and Baz' (subsequently
became CHC - Canadian Hardware Consultants) went toe-to-toe on
virtually a bi-weekly basis, matching the likes of Pat Dailey,
Louise Lynch, Pauline Henrie and a host of others in wonderful
pitching confrontations.
As Bob Dylan so aptly put it - "the times they are a changin'."
There remains a few bastions of fastball enthusiasts in the
Sudbury area these days, although one can only wonder for how
long.
The Rick MacDonald Memorial Fastball League still runs six
teams deep, and that without the benefit of a pure
developmental grass roots system in which youngsters can be
groomed in the sport.
Many of those who toil for the likes of the Garson Hounds and
Dog House North Stars were the same names one could read about
a decade or two ago, brought together these days by an
unyielding passion for a sport that is still contested in a
great many countries worldwide.
But gradually, over time, the prospects for the league become
dimmer. The saving grace, these days it seems, emanate from the
Native community where the sport continues to attract young men
to the diamond.
Not surprisingly, the Rick MacDonald league features teams in
outlets such as Pickerel River, Whitefish Lake and Magnetawan,
while squads on Manitoulin Island battle for bragging rights in
the towns of Wikwemikong and Sagamok.
Ironically, while the ladies enjoy the benefit of still having
a minor youth league capable of producing players familiar with
the sport, there is currently no adult women's fastball being
played in Greater Sudbury.
Granted, the numbers, while growing in the Sudbury Minor Girls
Softball Association, are not particularly extensive, with
somewhere between 100 and 150 young ladies still partaking in
the sport at Selkirk Field, Downe Playground, Twin Forks and
the Rick MacDonald Complex in Azilda.
Unfortunately, graduating players get scooped up most often by
slo-pitch teams, with relatively little adjustment required for
long-time athletes of the SMGSA making the move to the more
batter-friendly game.
Earlier this summer, Cambrian College Director of Athletics Bob
Piche confirmed that the women's softball program had been
dropped, with mixed slo-pitch intermural teams likely to move
into its stead. This despite the eternally optimistic
enthusiasm of long-time fastball player and coach Mickey
Chartrand, who guided the team in their final few seasons and
tried desperately to keep the sport alive for the Golden
Shield.
For a whole variety of reasons, it was simply not to be. And
one can't help but wonder if we'll be writing the next chapter
in the epitaph of men's fastball in the not too distant
future.
Randy Pascal is the voice of Persona 10 Sports and the founder of SudburySports.com.
