Selects dominate in season opener

Last night, for the first time in five years, the Kitchener Selects opened their KFL season without me in the lineup. And if the result is any indication, maybe I shouldn't come home.

Veteran first baseman Steve "The Pail-man" Hall keyed a monstrous nine-run second inning with a towering three-run blast over the center-field fence, while Doug Hoffman and Scott Clark combined for a nine-strikeout performance, as the Selects needed only five innings to dispose of the Bulldogs, 11-0.

The mere fact that I'm able to write this post means that my teammates are doing a good job of feeding my obsession. Within 18 minutes of one another, I received email updates on the comfortable victory from Trev, Glen, Scott and Fogal.

From the sounds of it, my boys issued notice to the league's other 13 teams that anyone with their eyes on the 2009 KFL title will have to go through the Selects. Throughout my time with the team, we've held opposing offenses in check with the kind of overpowering pitching and stalwart defense that again characterized play last night. But we certainly did not average more than two runs per inning.

In addition to Stevie's offensive firepower, Jamie Hickling showed no sign of rust in his return to the team after a two-year hiatus, going 3 for 3 with a walk, 2 RBIs and 3 runs scored. Kevin Ryrie and Reed "Diva" Laughlin weren't willing to let the old guys have all the fun, though, batting a combined 5 of 6.

Damn, I miss baseball.

I think this off-season has been the one in which I most consistently thought about ball, in part owing, no doubt, to spending it in such a warm climate. Equally responsible, I think, may be the fact that my ball team - which, as is probably abundantly clear by now, I care entirely too much about - is one of the few things I still feel ownership over back home, particularly with my involvement with The Cord coming to a necessary, organic and wonderful close.

Now, obviously, I hold no delusions that my contributions to the Selects parallel those of team lynchpins like Doug, Trev, Steve and Glen - but I do feel as though I've been something of a leader in the Selects' youth resurgence.

2009 will mark my fifth season on the team. Over the last three years (when comprehensive statistics started being kept), I have led the Selects in at bats (149), hits (53), runs scored (42), and stolen bases (30).

Off the field, I have become a co-captain, run the beer fund for a year, taken over the team finances, filed the paperwork for most of our tournament entries, functioned as the team statistician, done 95% of the writing for the team's website, and written countless strategy-related emails.

Last year, I also managed, coached and played for the first-ever incarnation of the Selects Under-23 team. Even from West Africa, I have played an unreasonably large role in off-season management.

So it certainly comes as no shock that I was daydreaming of ball as my teammates took to the diamond at Budd Park last night. At the risk of putting entirely too much stock in a dominant win over a team that didn't even make the playoffs last year, yesterday's result confirms my suspicions that this year could very well be a watershed one for the Selects.

We've improved every year I've been on the team. After my inaugural season was characterized by growing pains and we languished in 11th place, we've made the semi-finals for three consecutive years, last year knocking out world-class pitcher Casey Halstead in the quarterfinals and coming within a couple innings of eliminating another dominant hurler, Mel Ross, in the semis. We let that victory slip away, but something tells me this year's team might not have.

Even from thousands of kilometers away, the atmosphere around the team just feels different. There was talk of pre-season training in early January. We held four spring training practices. It all points to an interest in not only out-drinking and out-laughing the competition, but out-playing them as well.

And it's time, I think. After all, I made that drunken Phil's promise to my boy Brad Cleasby, Gold Glove second baseman extraordinaire, that I'd put off competing career ambitions to give the Selects five years to qualify for the world fastball championships. This is already year two.

In addition to the welcome offensive infusion of Hickling's stick, we've added a promising young pitcher in Brent Furtney and our other hurler, Scott Clark, is back full-time. I'm confident he'll return to his offensive form of two seasons ago and it all adds up to an exciting time to be on the Selects. And a pang of homesickness.

Perhaps more than last night's on-field exploits, though, I missed the post-game chill session. I can only imagine how jovial the mood must've been around the beer car as the guys got used to the strangeness of winning games before the season's halfway mark, when we usually stop playing possum and go on a tear to enter the playoffs.

At some point, someone probably shrugged their shoulders and uttered that timeless phrase, "He's a Clark", to explain away the absence of Dan C., whose fragility has earned him such nicknames as "Porcelain" and "Hangnail" (because that's all it takes to put him on the DL). That someone was probably Reed.

Who knows? Perhaps Fogal foolishly revisited the Talib Kweli vs. Beastie Boys debate and again came away looking like a racist. And even hypothesizing about what kind of outrageously politically incorrect statements Doug made would be sheer folly. But I bet I would've fucking loved it.