Top Teams Show Rest of

Province What it Takes to Win

August 4, 2014

 

Year in and year out there are more than 20 teams who start the season with high aspirations and beliefs that this is the year!  All teams that enter the senior "AAA" eliminations, legitimately believe they have what it takes.  They think they have enough pitching, good hitting and solid defence.  They think if they catch the right breaks or get the right draw, they can make a run and go to the Nationals.  The fact is, that couldn't be further from the truth.

​

The senior eliminations might be the toughest amateur baseball tournament to win in all of Canada.  The senior loop always has more entrants than any other level in Ontario, and the process of representing Ontario at the Nationals is far more rigorous than gaining a berth in any other province.  Although the level of competition might be tougher at the Nationals, getting there is a bit more difficult than actually competing there.  With such a perceived crapshoot with so many teams involved, one might be inclined to think that anyone can win.  The senior eliminations have shown year after year that not anyone can win, and quite frankly- your team is just not good enough.

​

For many years, the Windsor Stars had a stranglehold on going to the Nationals.  Despite teams thinking they could beat them, they just never could.  One Nationals spot was all but guaranteed for the Stars, and everyone was playing for second place.  To most, that was good enough.  With a change in the Nationals' structure, Ontario has had two representatives in all but two years since 2006.  You no longer had to beat Windsor to go, you just had to get there.  

​

In rare situations, a team has come out of nowhere to be that second team.  In 2010, Ilderton was the team to come out of nowhere and surprise people.  They had not really done anything before that, and have not done much since.  I suppose they are the anomaly in the eliminations jigsaw.  Outside of them, there hasn't really been a surprise team.  Oshawa joined Windsor for a bit as a team that was loaded and could be counted on to be there in the end.  They had their stretch of successful eliminations appearances and suddenly folded.  They left the door open for a team to play second fiddle to Windsor.  

​

The Mississauga Southwest Twins have done that and then some.  They joined the senior "A" ranks in 2009.  They had a subpar first season, and have evolved as a dominant team since then.  Despite many teams thinking they are better than them, or that they can compete with them- it is just not true.  The Twins now have three Nationals appearances in the last four years.  If their players decide to keep the team in tact and continue to play, then your team is just out of luck.  When the games mean a lot, and the stakes are high, this team is simply too good to beat.  They were a heartbreak away from having a shot at Canadian gold last year, but settled for third best in Canada instead.  They have lost some players, but have replaced them with players just as good or better.  They play well together, and they do what it takes to win.

​

The Tecumseh Thunder have been a force as well.  They made deep runs a few years ago, and have made the finals two years in a row now.  They have played on Monday four times in the past seven years.  With the team they have now, they are probably going to continue playing on Monday.  Sure, they went outside of their program and added players from the Windsor teams, but their junior team is still producing some unbelievable talent.  The Tecumseh juniors would probably beat your senior team.  Players in other leagues jump from team to team all the time, so why can't they? 

​

These two teams will probably have a tight grip on the eliminations for a few years, just like the Stars and Oshawa Royals did.  There might be a team to come from the shadows and shock the world, but results show it is not likely.  While teams will continue to try to stockpile players and talent and think they have the winning formula, they really need to think again.  Winning the eliminations and going to the Nationals is just not a realistic aspiration.  Maybe success needs to be measured differently for the rest of the teams;  because if what teams play for is to win the eliminations, then almost every team in the province has been a huge disappointment every year.  Next year they will be disappointments again, and the year after that as well.  Teams seem to measure their rosters against past editions of their teams, or against teams in their league.  They need to think bigger and better though, because one look at the Twins and Thunder rosters, and any honest person will see that there is a huge discrepancy between them and everyone else.  Other teams might be just as good or even better in one aspect of the game, but as a whole they are not even close.  So many teams have a couple of good pitchers and think that they have a good pitching staff.  Maybe their pitching staff might be good enough to win a league playoff that nobody cares about (remember, the eliminations are what it's all about, right?), but it is not good enough to be able to throw a good pitcher out there on Sunday night at the eliminations.  Heck, it might not even be good enough for Sunday morning.  When Tecumseh is throwing Brandon Lindquist in their fifth game, and Mississauga SW is throwing Kyle Porter in their sixth game, and you are throwing fill in the blank in your third or fourth game- your staff is probably not as good as you think.

​

Some teams can be counted on to make good runs.  The Pickering's and Newmarket's of the world are solid choices to make a little noise, but there comes a point where they have to turn to a pitcher who is just not capable of matching up against the elite teams.  There eventually will come a spot in their lineup where a guy cannot be counted on to get the big hit.  In all fairness, the Hawks suffered a tough defeat last year to Tecumseh in the semi-finals, and should have beaten the Thunder to make it to the undefeated game this year.  That doesn't change the fact that the Thunder still have a better team.  Then there are teams like Etobicoke, Niagara and Thornhill, who rack up some godly league records and then it means nothing in the end.  It might lead to a league playoff championship, but teams have checked out after they make the drive back down the 401 after losing at the eliminations.  If teams want to view winning the league championship as a decent consolation then by all means go ahead.  But if teams want to spin it to seem like winning the league playoffs is a successful season, then they are lying to themselves.

 

The Rangers and Metros are too good to accept league championships as successful campaigns.  There are other teams who are on the cusp.  The Strathroy Royals went to the Nationals in 2012, and were unlucky in drawing Mississauga SW on Sunday night.  Who knows, if they drew Leaside or Pickering instead, they could have been heading back.  Speaking of the Leafs, they have played on Monday three times in the last eight years.  They just seem to not be able to get over the hump.

​

Next year we could see any final.  It could be East York vs. Burlington, Lakeside vs. Erindale, Brampton vs. Sarnia, etc.  But chances are it will be Tecumseh vs. Mississauga SW, or maybe Windsor vs. Strathroy, with a couple of others who will be lucky to be in the mix.  And despite what every other team might think, they have no shot to make it with their current rosters.  That's just the plain and simple truth.

​

Author - Unknown

​