The St. Albert Senior Cardinals achieved their goal of playing in Monday’s finals at the Canadian National Oldtimers Baseball Championships.
The Alberta West Central Baseball Association team finished 3-3 overall after losing 7-1 to the Regina Drifters in the 35-plus playoff for the B championship at Legion Memorial Park.
“We’re very happy,” said infielder/catcher Matt Edwards, 39. “It’s really nice to still be playing on Monday.”
The Cardinals finished 1-2 in the pool D round robin and in Sunday’s playoffs mercied the Calgary Chinook 11-1 in five innings at Telus Field and the Medicine Hat Tigers 12-2 in six innings at John Fry Park.
“Our hope was to play on Monday,” said first baseman/pitcher Jeff Calkins, 45. “After seeing some of the other teams here playing, the A final wasn’t going to happen. There are some teams here that are loaded.
“And with all the injuries we’ve had we’re quite happy to be in the B final.”
Injuries to catchers Paul Radchenko (broken hand on a play at the plate early in Friday’s 10-3 win over Kindersley), Edwards (lower body) and Daniel Corbeil (upper body) left a banged-up Lane Moore (upper and lower body) as the last man crouching behind the plate.
“It was definitely a marathon for us. We have lots of injuries but everybody gutted it out,” said Edwards, who played second base in the final.
Pitching-wise the Cardinals were in good shape for the final with their ace, 37-year-old Dave Edwards, healthy and refreshed for the big game.
The Red Birds started Brian Tavaroli and Jay Barley entered the game in the top of the third and Regina on top 2-0. Calkins replaced Barley after two out in the fourth and the Cardinals down 3-0. The younger Edwards was on the mound to start the fifth.
Pitchers were limited to the number of innings they could throw at nationals. Teams had to use a minimum of three pitchers per game. They were capped at six outs apiece for the first two pitchers and the third pitcher could throw three innings.
Teams also had to use a minimum of 12 batters in the order.
“We came out hoping to pitch our way to our best pitcher for the final three innings and our first pitchers did a great job by only giving up basically one run per inning,” said Matt.
His two-out RBI double to the left-field fence in the seventh brought his brother home for the team’s only run in the final.
“I thought our offence was going to put up a bigger number than it did today. We’ve been hitting the ball really well all weekend, we just managed to hit it right at guys today,” Matt said. “As well there were a couple of mental errors here and there. If we could’ve scored a little earlier it would’ve helped our momentum.”
Calkins tried to stretch a double into a triple to lead off the bottom of the first, but was gunned down at third without sliding.
Regina also pulled off a two-out double steal that resulted in the runner at third scoring the team’s third run.
In the seventh an inside-the-park home run with two out made it 6-0 and a botched rundown between second and third scored Regina’s final run.
In the playoff round Sunday the Cardinals pounded the ball with authority.
“The difference was the timely hits,” Matt said. “In our second and third game (losses of 7-0 to the Lloydminster Twins in St. Albert and 8-4 to the Tillsonburg Oldsox at Telus Field in pool play) we were hitting the ball really well, we were just hitting them at everybody. (Sunday) we managed to find those holes and scored the runs we needed to.”
In the quarter-finals the Cardinals jumped out to a huge lead early against Calgary and never looked back.
“We spanked them. We hit the ball hard everywhere. We also had fantastic defence,” Calkins said.
In the semifinal the Cardinals fell behind early before racking up the runs against Medicine Hat to end it in the sixth in order to save some pitching for the final.
“Our bats came alive (Sunday). Everyone was hitting, up and down the lineup. We hit the ball really well and were finding the holes,” Calkins said. “Our defence played really well too and our pitchers really sucked up some innings.”
The tournament featured 16 teams in the 35-plus division. Trophies were also handed out in the 44-plus and 50-plus divisions.
A total of 77 games were played in St. Albert, Edmonton, Spruce Grove, Stony Plain and Sherwood Park.
“The competition was great. We saw good hitting teams from everywhere. Everybody could hit the ball it seemed like really deep. Lots of good pitching too,” Matt said. “What I was really impressed with was the sportsmanship of everybody. Everybody came here in the spirit which it was intended, which is to have a good time and play competitive baseball and play it the right way. It made it fun to play at this high level of ball, but at the same time you shake hands and have a few laughs in the beer gardens afterwards.
“It was also nice to be able to host it and share it with the kids and the wives and the friends and families so that was fun. It was nice to be the hosts.”
The Cardinals will now focus on their league playoffs after finishing fourth at 9-6. Last year they lost the league final series to the Westlock Red Lions.
