2012 Winner of the Dr. Anson Buck Award
2019 Brampton Tournament Finalist
2019 COBA MVP - Joe Ferreira
2019 COBA Playoff Finalist
2022 Lakeside Tournament Finalist
2022 COBA ROY - Aidan Murphy
2023 Lakeside Tournament Finalist
2023 COBA Playoff Finalist
2023 COBA ROY - Alex Fascia
A Proud member of the COBA "AAA" Major League since 2004
Baseball Tales
Blake Frost:
In one game we were getting creamed so I came up with an idea to get the guys pumped. I would get myself kicked out of the game, something that never happened to me before, so I went to the ump and told him to kick me out! He couldn’t believe what he was hearing, but he did it! Ron, on the other hand, was not aware of my plan and the next thing I know he’s out on the field objecting and he gets kicked off the field. Now we don’t have any coaches on the bench, but we came from behind and won the game. LOL
Steve Burke:
We took our 4-year-old daughter Jen down to a Blue Jay’s game at old Exhibition Stadium in 1986. During batting practice, we made our way down to field level beside the dugout to get a closer look at the players. Jimy Williams, one of the Jays coaches saw Jen and walked over and gave her a baseball. She thought he wanted to play catch so she threw it back at him. He was nice enough to bring it back and even signed it for her. Many years later at the then SkyDome, she found a partner in St. Louis Cardinals Brian Jordon playing catch from her seat behind the visitors bullpen.
Mathew Piccioni:
I remember one season that we had added a few new guys to the team. JR Crosby was one of those guys. A lot of us were a little deterred by this dude. He was a solid catcher; big, bulky and about as wide with muscle as Ron was tall.
We gathered together in one of the hotel rooms during a tournament to share a pop or two and get to know each other. As part of bonding for whatever reason there was a wrestling match. As they say... always take the big guy.
Well, that's what I did. I went right after Crosby. I jumped at him, got him in a head lock and brought him down to the ground... after tapping repeatedly, I released. Everyone in the room couldn't stop laughing... except me. I could see it in Crosby's eyes that he wanted revenge. I was one of the faster guys on the team... and I used this to my advantage.
He simply couldn't catch me hahaha. He literally chased me for about 30 minutes around the hotel grounds. Finally I caved and stopped running. Greg Dodwell sees me in the hallway and says "dude that was too funny... Crosby is such a B*&^%." He was obviously joking, but this wasn't the funny part. The funny part is that he didn't see that JR was standing right behind him. Needless to say, Dodsy isn't as quick as me and JR had a new "buddy" lol. This one day I will never forget and I know a lot of the other guys won't either. It released some tensions and we all had a good laugh. We all played much better when we loosened up and got to know each other a bit...
Ron Lutz:
The following happened in a game with the Milton Red Sox and the Battlecats. The teams were playing on a roaring hot Saturday in Milton. I was at third base coaching when one of our players, Matt Piccioni, belted a fly ball that sailed over the right fielders head. As Matt rounded first and was heading to second I noticed that the fielder had crashed into the outfield fence and was down so I began waving Matt to go home. He was really chugging home and shortly before he got there he began to slide but caught his cleats and ended up going feet first into the catcher. Well, the slide resulted in a bench clearing by both teams. I ran into the melee with all my 5'6" frame trying to break it up which eventually happened with no major injuries. As we managed to separate the teams I noticed that the two initial combatants, Peaches and Mastro, were standing side by side watching and politely discussing what had occurred. The Milton coach, George Moore, hung a nickname on me for getting involved, he named me "Mad Dog".
Steve Burke:
On July 13, 2018 Mike Burke’s Brampton Royals beat the best team in our league. Etobicoke were cruising through their 18-3 season with a perfect home record until Brampton soundly beat them 9-3. It was one of Mike’s best games ever, 132 pitch, CG 9 innings with 9 strikeouts and 0 earned runs.
At the 2018 Elims Mike faced Etobicoke again in their second game. The Royals came out on top 18-4. It was a lot of work for Mike as he threw 4 innings allowing 3 earned runs, but still earned the win, while riding on the coattails of his teammates.
The plan between he and coach Flannagan was to skip a couple of games in the tournament before throwing again. Knowing he wasn’t going to pitch he and Joe Ferreira decided to go fishing by the Detroit River at 1 AM.
The next morning, while he stopped at the store loading up on water for the team for what he hoped would be a long day at the diamond, he got a call from Steve Hough asking where he was, because he was slated to pitch that morning. Uh, oh, a change in plans. He raced to the diamond and parked right beside the dugout. He had to get someone to park the car for him because he only had 18 minutes (it’s usually an hour) to warmup for one of his most important games ever. Everything he did to get ready for the game would be out of his normal routine. Baseball teams always look at the other team warming up to see who their pitcher is. I wonder what Etobicoke was thinking when they didn’t see anyone warming up on our side for the longest time. They must have been licking their chops watching all of this ineptness.
Although Mike didn’t have time to warm up properly, or even eat, he owned the bump and threw the best 5 innings of his life. After the second inning he told the coach to get someone warmed up because he was done, but his team started scoring and so he thought he could tough it out. He would lie under a nearby tree and try to relax between innings to get out of the 33-degree heat. They mercied Etobicoke 10-0 in 5 innings. He threw a CG 3 hit shutout, on the leagues biggest stage.
They ended up finishing 4th at the Elims, Senior AAA baseballs Provincial Championship. It was the best Brampton had ever done which will serve them well prepping for next year.