Senior AA ball ready for first pitch

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This article was published 06/05/2023 (1053 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Senior AA baseball returns to Manitoba soon with the spectre of the pandemic finally behind it.

Brandon’s Andrew Agencies Senior AA Baseball League, the South West Baseball League, the Border Baseball League and the Santa Clara Baseball League are all set for the first pitch in the next three weeks.

South West president Aaron Tycoles said his league was able to just discuss baseball again at a recent meeting, which was a relief.

“This year was a very nice, normal spring meeting,” Tycoles said. “We weren’t talking about return to play and we weren’t talking about what happens if we get shut down. It was more about how many games we were going to play and how many teams we were going to have. Everybody was glad to have a normal season last year. It will be good to hopefully move forward with that.”

The crown jewel of the summer in Manitoba senior baseball will take place from Aug. 19 to 21 when the Oak River Dodgers host the senior AA western Canadian championship.

The leagues will chase provincial championships as well, with the AA tournament in Morden from July 21 to 23, and the A playdowns set for Aug. 11-13 in Clearwater.

The all-star event, which pitted the top players from each league against each other, has quietly been set aside due to declining interest. As a result, the winner of the AA provincials will represent Manitoba at the western Canadian championship next year.

SOUTH WEST

The league received a little good news at its annual pre-season meeting with the return of the Elkhorn Expos.

After two seasons without a team, the Expos are back with a good crop of players.

“It’s great,” Tycoles said. “I was surprised when Mike Stevenson called me about a week before the meeting to say that there was a group there who wanted to bring them back. Talking to Mike Kyle, who is actually running the team, they’ve had 18 or 19 guys out at practice already and have a couple of exhibition games scheduled with Moosomin.

“They’re ready to go with a combination of older guys and some younger guys.”

In 2019, the league still had 11 teams and was divided into North and South divisions. But that changed with the loss of Elkhorn, the Hartney Hoppers and Souris Cardinals a year later. The latter two both had representatives at the SWBL meeting, and even floated the idea of combining to put a team on the field, but nothing came of it.

“Honestly, if they had a combo team, it would have hurt both Wawanesa and Reston to the point that Reston would have a tough time fielding a team. It’s probably a good thing because Reston did rely on Elkhorn and Hartney guys last year.”

The Boissevain Centennials went 6-0 in the playoffs last season as they captured their first championship since 2018. They earned the title in Game 3 of the best-of-five final with a 6-0 victory over the Deloraine Royals on Aug. 18.

Boissevain captured the pennant as well, going 12-2. It was followed by Deloraine (11-3), the Hamiota Red Sox (8-6), Virden Oilers (6-8), Oak River Dodgers (6-8), Wawanesa Brewers (6-8), Rivers Comets (5-9) and the Reston Rockets (2-12).

But it all starts again shortly.

“Everybody has been practising and Oak River has an exhibition game coming up with Minnedosa,” Tycoles said. “We’re on track to start after the long weekend in May and are going to play a 16-game regular season, with the top eight making the playoffs.”

The season begins after the Victoria Day long weekend on May 22 and wraps up by July 9, with the first round of the playoffs done before the AA provincials start on July 21.

The quarterfinals and semifinals will be best-of-threes, with the final remaining a best-of-five.

“Everybody got their dates to me fairly quick and we should have a draft schedule out to the teams here by the end of the weekend,” Tycoles said. “I think everybody is excited to go. Sixteen games within that tight, compact seven weeks will be a sprint more than it will be a marathon but everybody is excited.”

South West is taking a proactive approach to a looming crisis that could have a more devastating impact than the pandemic. A shortage of umpires who are willing and able to do games at the senior AA level is getting serious.

“As a league, we’re putting some money into umpire development,” Tycoles said. “We’re going to try to get some of the younger guys who are coming to the point that they are Level 2s and Level 3s into the league, but we’re also going to pay to have someone come to watch them a bit and give them some guidance.

“We know there’s a situation. In the last three years, we’ve lost four or five long-term umpires who did a lot of games. We’re at the point where we need to start getting some new guys involved.”

SANTA CLARA

The circuit welcomes back an old friend this season with the return of the Minnedosa Mavericks, who took a leave of absence after the 2019 season.

The Mavericks dominated the league for a long stretch, winning 10 championships in a row between 2006 and 2015. But after a number of players moved or retired, they found themselves unable to form a team in 2020.

“It’s awesome,” league co-president Warren Birch said of the Mavericks, who he jokingly called the old arch-nemesis of everybody. “It was too bad to see them leave. They ended up in the (Manitoba Baseball) Hall of Fame last year I believe and there’s a reason. They were so good.

“They were always right there at the provincials too. They didn’t end up getting a provincial title but were there in the semis and lost a couple of provincial finals.

“It’s nice to have them back. They’re a team of young and old, they say, so we’ll see.”

Last year, the Neepawa Cubs went 5-3 to win the pennant, followed by Birch and the Carberry Royals (4-3-1), Portage Padres (4-3-1), Plumas Pirates (4-4) and Austin A’s (2-6).

The Ebb and Flow Lakers were banished by the league mid-season and won’t return.

In the playoffs, Portage beat Plumas 4-0 in Game 4 of the best-of-five final on Aug. 11 to win their first title since 2019 and fourth since 2016.

“It’s kind of status quo,” Birch said. “Everybody has their normal team. Portage was struggling to get some guys at the start, just not sure about commitment, but they’re going to be in again. I think everything should be pretty normal.”

The teams will face each of the other five clubs three times in a 15-game regular season, followed by three rounds of playoffs. Last season they played eight regular season games.

“Because we finally had a normal year, getting more games and playing more baseball was a big emphasis,” Birch said. “Guys wanted to play more ball because last year they definitely felt like we didn’t play enough, especially in the regular season. Guys are ready to be back and get into it for sure.”

The Santa Clara season traditionally starts on the Wednesday before May long — that’s May 17 this year — and hope to have the season wrapped up in early July. The last week of the season is set aside as a makeup week for any games that were rained out, with the majority of games played on Mondays and Wednesdays.

All six teams will make the post-season, with the first- and second-place clubs earning byes as the other four clubs play best-of-three series. The final is a best-of-five.

The pennant winner will be the representative to the AA provincials, another tradition for the league, which took the 2021 season off entirely due to the pandemic.

On the umping front, Birch said the teams are responsible for scheduling officials and Carberry is lucky to be close to Brandon. But he acknowledged it is an issue.

“Across the province, I think they said it’s down 30 per cent,” Birch said. “That’s a pretty big number, especially for teams that are further away from Brandon, like Plumas or Austin. They’re trying to pull guys from Portage, and those guys are getting pulled everywhere.”

Birch added the guys he’s talked to are excited to get back on the diamond, although that comes with one big qualifier in Carberry.

“Unfortunately in a place like this, ball season starts at the same time seeding and planting spuds does,” Birch said. “Come May 17, we’ll see how many people have actually had their ball gear out before that game. Everybody wants to play ball but getting onto the field is tough.”

BORDER

The eight-team league has been a model of consistency in recent seasons, even during some trying times.

League president Darren Russell said despite some major differences in population, the league continues to chug along.

“It’s a pretty big commitment from our teams,” Russell said. “They’re all on pretty solid ground, and it’s pretty funny because it’s hard to believe they are. When you look at the teams in our league, if you take Winkler as an example, Winkler has double the population in Winkler than all of our western teams have combined.

“There are more people on one street in Winkler than there are in Cartwright, Clearwater, Pilot Mound or Baldur. To have that many teams on solid ground when you look at the disparities in population, it’s pretty crazy … It’s funny how competitive it is. It shouldn’t be, but it is.”

Last season, the Cartwright Twins beat the Morden Mud Hens 6-5 in Game 5 of the best-of-five final on Aug. 25 to earn their first championship since 2002.

Cartwright finished first in the West Division with a record of 9-5, followed by the Baldur Regals (6-8), Pilot Mound Pilots (6-8) and Clearwater (4-10). Meanwhile, the Winkler Whips topped the East Division at 9-5, followed by the Carman Cardinals (8-6), Morden (8-6) and Altona Bisons (6-8).

“It was a super competitive playoffs,” Russell said. “In the regular season, it was unbelievably competitive.”

He pointed to Morden, which won its first seven games and then went 1-6 the rest of the way in the regular season.

“That was one of the top teams in Manitoba,” Russell said. “They ended up losing the league final to Cartwright but they ran the table to start the season.”

In a break-out season, the Twins also won their first provincial AA title in Rivers with a 1-0 thriller over the host Comets, and had Manitoba’s senior AA player of the year in Ty Enns.

“Cartwright was our poster child last season, winning AA provincials and winning our league,” Russell said. “It was their time, they were building to that for years. You could see it coming. They had a really great core but were just a little too young before that but once they all matured together, they were pretty good.”

The regular season begins on May 23, with each team playing the other three clubs in their division three times, plus a single game against the other division’s four squads for a 13-game season. It wraps up on July 14, with the league debuting a divisional all-star game in Cartwright two days later.

“It’s to recognize the players who have had a good year,” Russell said. “It’s more of a recognition thing for our all-stars. We talked about it last fall at our ball meeting and agreed to it this spring.”

The quarterfinals and semifinals are best-of-three series within the divisions, with the two divisional winners meeting in a best-of-five final. It will also be a busy year for Border outside of league play as well. Clearwater hosts A provincials and another team from the league may also participate, with a team from each division heading to AA provincials to join the host, Morden.

On top of that, by winning the final all-star provincials last summer, Border also landed the right to send a Manitoba representative to the western Canadian playdowns in Oak River.

If there is a disappointment, the Killarney Lakers remain on hiatus, last playing in 2019. Russell speaks regularly to the team’s former organizer, Andrew Lochhead — who now suits up for Cartwright — and doubts they’ll be back any time soon.

“They’re a casualty of COVID,” Russell said. “They had a somewhat tepid level of commitment from their players previously and when COVID hit and we lost a year or two, they just couldn’t hold it together. It’s too bad. It’s by far the largest centre we have in the West Division, and to lose them was a loss, but everybody’s found something else to do.”

He noted Border is also hard hit by the shortage of game officials.

Jack Mutcheson of Morden organizes umpires for the East Division, although they’re trying to convince him to take on the West Division too.

“It’s tough. It’s probably the hardest job we have,” Russell said. “It’s the western end that gives us the most trouble. In larger centres like Carman, Winkler, Morden, Altona, they have a lot more access to umpires. It’s a struggle. It really, really is.”

In other news, the league named Russell’s heir apparent in Morden product Steve Mullin, who will serve as vice president.

BRANDON

The Andrew Agencies league is back down to four teams.

Longtime president Chris Campbell said the league, which lost the Marlins in 2020 but gained the Sioux Valley Dakotas in 2022, will be playing without the Simard Industrial Giants this summer.

“The Giants had a couple of guys leave Brandon for work commitments and opportunities, and it was a couple of their core guys,” Campbell said. “They just couldn’t seem to round up enough bodies with work commitments so that took that team out of the fold unfortunately. We’ll just roll with four this year and hope to get a fifth back next year.”

The defending champion GW Vacuum Truck Service Young Guns, RFNOW Cardinals and Cubs will be back, but they also sort of lost another team, albeit in a different way.

In previous years, each team met the under-18 AAA Brandon Knights for one game, but that’s also been shelved for now.

“They’re in that Winnipeg league so I think’ve got something like a 28-game schedule,” Campbell said. “We were hoping to get at least one game per team from those guys but their schedule is too busy and it would be tough on their arms.

The final wrinkles for the season are still being ironed out, but the teams will meet the other three clubs four times each for a 12-game regular season that’s expected to open on May 17 and end in late July. Every game is played at either Andrews or Sumner Field.

“They’ll be pristine, as usual,” Campbell said. “We’re pretty lucky to have those two diamonds available to us. We’re spoiled.”

They’re also lucky to play in a community with enough local umps who can call senior games. Still, Campbell said the umpiring situation is an ever-present source of anxiety.

“The umpires that do our games also do games in the South West league and Santa Clara,” Campbell said. “It’s certainly a concern. Ball seems to be going strong in our part of the province but there doesn’t seem to be enough umpires coming up through the ranks. We had a couple of young guys step in and help us out the last couple of years but it’s definitely a concern.”

The semifinals will be best-of-three series, with the final either a best-of-three or best-of-five depending on how late in the summer it’s getting and the weather.

Last summer, the second-place Young Guns (8-2) beat the first-place Cardinals (10-2) in the final for the third year in a row, earning the championship with a 7-0 shutout of the Cardinals on Aug. 14 to sweep the best-of-five series.

The Cubs were 4-5 and the Dakotas were 0-8 as an expansion club.

With a new season dawning, Campbell said everyone is eager to get going.

“When spring and ball season roll around, everybody is pretty excited,” Campbell said. “It’s nice to get out and enjoy some nice weather and be with the guys again.”

WINNIPEG

The season is set to hopefully begin on May 15 in Winnipeg, with all nine teams returning this year.

The West Winnipeg A’s (18-4) won the pennant last season, followed by the Elmwood Giants (16-5), Carillon Sultans (13-8), Stonewall (13-8), Springfield Sr. Braves (13-9), North Winnipeg Pirates (13-8), Bonivital Brewers (8-14), expansion Pembina Phillies (4-17) and South Winnipeg Longhorns (3-19).

Stonewall swept Carillon in the best-of-five league final, winning a wild 11-10 shootout in Game 3 on Sept. 13. When the nine teams took the field a year ago, that was the most since 2011 in Winnipeg.

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