Hastings
beats long odds to win national title
East Vancouver squad
off to the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pa.
Richard J.
Dalton Jr., Vancouver Sun, Aug 17
The Hastings Community Little League
hasn’t had it easy. Twenty-two teams play on one diamond. And fundraising is
tough in east Vancouver.
 The
Hastings Community Little League team celebrates winning the Canadian
championship in Val d’Or, Que., on Saturday. ‘Everybody’s still walking
about three feet off the ground right now,’ the league’s president said.
Now some of the baseball players are
headed south, but that’s a good thing.
The all-star majors team of 11-and
12year-olds will travel to Williamsport, Pa., this week for the Little
League World Series after clinching the Canadian championship in Val d’Or,
Que., with a 9-2 win over Windsor, Ont., on Saturday.
No Canadian team has ever won the
tournament. Hastings’ first game, on Aug. 22 against Mexico, will be
televised on ESPN.
“It’s an unbelievable feeling because . .
. no one in district 6, which is the east side of Vancouver, has ever gone
this far before,” said team manager Vito Bordignon.
“The word I use is magical, pretty
magical,” said Richard Saunders, who was the league president until last
year. “ We’re kind of over the moon, you might say, never figuring we’d ever
be able to go to Williamsport and actually watch a Hastings Little League
team play there.”
The Hastings League’s nine-and
10year-olds won the provincial title this year, too. But it hasn’t been
easy.
More than 20 teams share one diamond in
Hastings Community Park, across from the PNE, so it’s full all the time,
forcing the kids to play on school fields instead, Bordignon said.
Only three teams are in the major league,
so there wasn’t a big roster of players from which to choose the allstar
team. Whalley, Coquitlam and White Rock/South Surrey, meanwhile, boast seven
to nine major league teams, Saunders said.
“So, traditionally they’ve been the
powerhouses in B.C.,” he said. “We’ve come from a pretty small stock, but
our stock has been rising over the years.”
While backstops usually have an overhang
to block foul balls, the Hastings diamond has a makeshift setup of four
pipes wired to the top of the backstop, with fishnets thrown over to catch
the foul balls, he said. “I don’t think I’ve seen a backstop in the city of
Vancouver that’s built that way.”
But ground crews keep the diamond in
immaculate condition, Bordignon said.
Saunders said fundraising is more
difficult in east Vancouver than in more affluent areas.
At least three dozen parents can’t afford
to pay the little league fee, but their children still play because the fee
is covered by KidSport, an organization that helps pay costs for low-income
athletes, Saunders said.
Dave Jenkins, who took over as president
of the league this year, said the league will subsidize the trip to
Williamsport, and every child will have at least one parent there. “This is
pretty much a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so I think a lot of families
are just digging deep and finding ways to put the funds together,” he said.
Saunders said the players’ workingclass
roots have helped them. “Their stamina seems to be unbelievable, and I think
that’s because primarily they come from a working-class community,” he said.
“Things aren’t handed to them on a silver platter. You want something?
You’ve got to work for it.”
The team has a diverse lineup, including
Katie Reyes, the only girl in the provincial and national games. She hit a
home run in the final game of the provincials. “ She earned her way,”
Saunders said.
Every child of Carol and Jim Creamore has
played in the league, including their youngest son, Ian.
“Every little boy wants to go to the
World Series,” Carol Creamore said. “So it’s just been a dream. Now it’s a
reality for Ian.”
Jenkins said, “I know they’re pretty
excited, and everybody’s still walking about three feet off the ground right
now.”
Hastings' historic feat
Vancouver Sun
August 18, 2009
Vancouver Hastings Little League's win over Ontario's
team at the Canadian Little League baseball championships in Val D'Or, Que.,
is a sports feat of significant historical note. Hastings, from Vancouver's
east side, is the first Vancouver team to make it to the Little League World
Series in Williamsport, Penn., since Little Mountain Little League (then
called Jaycee Nationals) achieved this honour in 1953.
Over the last five decades, B.C. has been a perennial power in Canadian
Little League baseball, but the B.C. teams that have made it to Williamsport
were all from outside Vancouver proper, with the most dominant ones being
from Whalley (Surrey) and Trail, each with five trips to the world series.
It is a long and difficult road for a team to win all the challenging
tournaments - districts, provincials and Canadians -- on the way to the
world stage at Williamsport. Bravo, Hastings Little League for your terrific
and historic accomplishment, and good luck at the Little League World
Series, starting this weekend.
Kit Fortune
Historian, Little Mountain Baseball, Vancouver
Movin’ on up from the east side of Vancouver
ELIZABETH CHURCH
From Monday's Globe
and Mail Last
updated on Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2009 02:36AM EDT
The hardscrabble streets of Vancouver's east
side are a far cry from a field of dreams, but 11 boys - and a girl - from
the traditionally working-class neighbourhood are changing that, sweeping
the Canadian championships on the weekend and sending them to the Little
League World Series in Williamsport, Pa., next week.
The national
win by Vancouver's Hastings Little Leaguers was a first for a team that
plays ball on a diamond beside a highway and an amusement park, with rickety
wooden bleachers and graffiti on the welcome sign. While British Columbia is
a powerhouse for Canadian little league, clinching a string of five national
titles, the teams that have dominated in the past have come from leafier
locations.
The mostly
12-year-olds who make up Hastings's all-star roster took the title with a
9-2 win over Ontario's LaSalle Turtle Club on Saturday in Val-d'Or, Que.
That come-from-behind victory gave club organizers goose bumps and set the
stage for a whirlwind week of media attention and high-calibre competition.
The team will get on a bus this morning and head south to join seven other
international entries and U.S. regional finalists at the Little League World
Series. No Canadian team has ever won the tournament.
Todd Berman
Hastings
players celebrate after winning the national championship on the weekend.
They will go to the World Series in Williamsport, Pa., next week.
"I think it's
going to be a really nice field," said 12-year-old catcher and fielder
Christian Cullen in an interview yesterday from the Ottawa hotel where the
players spent last night, playing in the pool and enjoying a team dinner of
Mexican food. Christian said he was nervous before Saturday's championship
game but is eager to play in next week's tournament.
Team manager
Vito Bordignon was elated. "This is an unbelievable feeling. This is a
once-in-a-lifetime feeling for the kids and the coaches and the parents
included," he said. "This team is unbelievable. They just find a way to win"
said Mr. Bordignon, a volunteer with the organization for 25 years who grew
up playing Hastings Little League.
Besides their
5-0 championship sweep, the Hastings team is also set apart by their player
at first base. Katie Reyes is one of only about a dozen girls to make the
trip to Williamsport since officials opened up little league to female
players in 1974.
“ It doesn't get any bigger than this for little league”
Girls were
banned by the league in 1951. Kathryn Johnston, who hid her gender by
adopting the nickname Tubby and tucking her hair under her cap, played in
1950 for the King's Dairy team in Corning N.Y., is believed to be the first
girl to play little league.
Katie, a
member of the starting lineup who hit one out of the park in the provincial
championships, is described by the team manager as an all-round player.
"She is quite
a player," Mr. Bordignon said. "It's not unheard of to have a girl player,
it does happen, but it is rare that you have one of her calibre."
Dave Jenkins,
president of the Hastings Community Little League, said Katie joins a short
list of girls who have competed at the national and international level and
has handled the pressure well. "She is there based on her ability and she
has handled herself admirably."
Hastings's first game in Williamsport next week is
against Mexico Saturday morning.
"It doesn't
get any bigger than this for little league. There is no greater event," said
Mr. Jenkins from his Vancouver home, where he watched his all-star team take
the national title streamed over the Internet. Next weekend, he can catch
the action on a bigger screen with cable sports networks broadcasting the
championship.
The Hastings
team will start the official lead up to the World Series with a media day
tomorrow and fittings for uniforms. They will practise on Wednesday and
Thursday in preparation for the competition.
Mr. Bordignon
said it has been hard to get information on the teams they will face, but
coaches have been scouring the Internet for tournament results to gauge
hitting and pitching strengths.
Mr. Jenkins
says there is no doubt this weekend's victory has put his players on the
map. The team's 9-to-10-year-olds also took the provincial title this year.
He credits the success to a push by volunteers to draw in players to new
development camps. The Hastings Little Leaguers come from a mixed
neighbourhood and a variety of backgrounds, and that he said is part of
their strength. "People come from all walks of life, but everybody is equal
at the park."
With a report from Rod Mickleburgh
Hastings
players are one big family
East Vancouver team has bonded well in
common cause to win the Little League World Series
Yvonne
Zacharias, Vancouver Sun, Aug 19
When 12-year-old Matteo Vincelli was two
years old, “Papa Dale” gave him his first baseball glove, a gift that lit a
spark in the toddler’s heart.
It hasn’t always been smooth sailing for
Matteo, who pitches and plays third base for the Hastings Little League
all-stars, the amazing little team that could.
Because he was born with twisted and
bowed shin bones, Matteo has had to have several major surgeries to cut his
bones and reposition them. Still, Matteo played. Now Papa Dale, his
grandfather whose full name is Dale Weisbrod, is with Matteo as an assistant
coach with his team in Williamsport, Pa., where the little leaguers from
east Vancouver could become the first Canadian team to win the Little League
World Series.
Vancouver’s
Hastings all-stars are aiming to become the first Canadian team to win the
Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pa.
They’ll be cheered on by a whole
contingent of parents, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles and friends.
Matteo’s mother, Terry Vincelli, arrived
Monday evening with her mom, dad, daughter and husband as part of the
vanguard. Most of the families will be arriving Thursday or Friday.
She said Matteo isn’t the only one with
extended families that have dug deeply into their pockets to travel first to
Quebec — where the team won the Canadian championship on Saturday — and now
down to Williamsport to experience this once-in-a-lifetime chance.
Terry said she is lucky enough to be a
stay-at-home mom, so getting time off work for all this traveling wasn’t an
issue. Others have had to struggle to get there. Fortunately, each child
will have at least one parent with him or her. Fortunately, too, the
Vancouver league and sponsors have helped families foot some of the bills.
The last time Terry saw the players was
when they all had breakfast together Monday at a Tim Hortons just before
crossing the U.S.-Canadian border. The 11-and 12-year-old boys — and one
girl — then piled on the bus and went their own way to a players’ compound
so they could focus on their game. Teams and families are now firmly
separated.
“It’s a real special bonding experience,”
Terry said from her cellphone while standing in the muggy Pennsylvania heat,
adding that most of the kids have played with or against each other since
they were five years old. “This is a very tight team in the sense that the
families have grown together over the years.”
Terry has watched members of the team
mature over the past weeks. Many had never been away from their families
before, but at the Canadian tournament in Val d’Or, they were billeted, in
some cases with families who spoke little English. Everything seemed to turn
out well.
“I think it has been a bit of a growing
up experience for most of the kids.”
Now, far removed from practices on
cramped school playing fields on Vancouver’s east side, the kids will get to
play in Williamsport’s famed Lamade Stadium, which is like a major league
ballpark.
Williamsport will be flooded with young
sluggers and their families from places like Taipei, Venezuela and Saudi
Arabia over the next 12 days. In all, there are 16 teams competing, with
half of those coming from the U.S. The Vancouver cheering contingent will
number almost 60 by the time everyone arrives.
Head coach Jeff Matsuda said the players
have just been outfitted with two bats each, cleats, batting gloves and
helmets. “It was like Christmas today.” The team had a 2-1/2-hour practice,
which was interrupted by a thunderstorm. Then they headed off for a dinner
of spaghetti and meatballs.
As he spoke by cellphone, you could hear
the kids in the background. Yes, they are incredibly excited, said Matsuda,
but they are also “really loose,” not too nervous.
Matsuda hasn’t had a chance to watch
other teams practice, so he won’t know what his team is up against before
game time. But he sounded confident, saying Hastings is strong in all areas
— offensively, defensively, and with their pitching.
As with every winning team, this one has
its own special magic. Terry defined it this way: “We have 11 incredible
boys and one girl on this team that have been able to come together and see
each other as equals and play as a team. They have jelled very well. They
all have the same purpose. They all want to win and play ball.”
She admitted that the parents are a
little nervous, but very positive. Win or lose, she wants the kids to savour
the moment.
Hastings
opens the World Series Saturday against Mexico at 8 a.m. Pacific. The game
will be broadcast on ESPN.
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