CentreField Sports is now taking registrations for fall and winter programs.  Brand new 12 000 sq.ft. facility @ 45 Midpark Cres. (401 and Highbury area).  Check out our website at  www.centrefieldsports.com.  Programs now run for eight weeks, and memberships are available this year. 
Softball instruction is also available this year.
 

Contact :

Adam Stern
519 318-5881

Last day to report scores for divisions --

Minor and Major Rookie -- August 23
Minor Mosquito -- August 23
Major Mosquito -- August 23
Minor and Major PeeWee -- August 16
Minor Bantam -- August 16
Major Bantam -- August 23
Minor and Major Midget -- August 16
Junior -- August 8
Midget 3 -- August 11
Junior 2 -- August 8

Schedules will be posted shortly after all of these dates.

Please remember to not leave valuables of any kind in vehicles at City Wide.  There have been more vehicle break-ins with items such as computers being stolen.

Classification requests have been sent to Baseball Ontario for their meeting later this month.  For those divisions with mega format tournaments, please contact the host directly about the tournament.  Since you are already classified due to the mega format, there will be a $500 fine if your team withdraws from the OBA tournament.  For all other divisions, you will be notified after July 26 if your bid for attending a certain division was successful, if a playoff is needed, etc.

When reporting your scores to your division convenors, please remember that the division, game number, score, and pitching records are required and necessary to be able to post the score.

Points, not percentage, is used to determine the league champions.

LDBA has a zero tolerance policy when it comes to language on the field.  It is inappropriate to swear during games.  Please be aware that there are parents and other family members attending games.  The umpires will be enforcing the zero tolerance policy. 

When reporting your score to your convenor, please include the division, game number, scores, and pitch counts of both teams.  It is the home team's responsibility to do this.  Please ensure that you send the score to the correct division convenor as listed in the handbook which all coaches received.

As per the OBA rule book -- In addition to wooden bats, metal bats will be allowed in OBA play. Subject to the following sentence, these bats shall meet the dimensional requirements, specified in rule 1:10 of the Official Rules of Baseball.  All bats used in:

Major Bantam will not exceed 2-3/4" in diameter, and will not have a weight to length differential of greater than five (5) ounces.  For all Minor Midget, Midget, Junior and Senior OBA play, only wood (including composite wood bats) shall be permitted.  Metal/wood bats are not to be considered wood bats.

In Bantam Girls, Minor Bantam, PeeWee, Mosquito and Rookie Ball, metal bats are permitted with no restrictions beyond the provisions of the Official Rules of Baseball.

If this past Sunday was any indication, the new program will be a huge success. The free hitting clinic allows house league and competitive players aged 8-12 the opportunity to actually 'HIT' with the Badgers. Despite a windy and chilly morning, close to 10 young baseball players and their parents took part in a one-hour hitting clinic with the Minor Midget Badgers prior to their PBLO doubleheader with the Ontario Blue Jays Under-16 team at Aldridge Field.

Garry Robbins was at the clinic with his son Adam who plays for the EBBA Mosquito Tecumsehs and had this to say, "It can only be a positive learning experience when our 10 and 11 year old boys attend a Badgers Baseball Clinic. It was a good time." Adam had some very interesting comments as well, "It was really a lot of fun, and I want to do it again. I like playing with the big guys. One of the players taught me how to bend my knees and position my arms so I can hit the ball better."

You wouldn't have known it was as chilly as it was by watching the young players go through warm-ups and hitting drills and then play a scrimmage against the Minor Midget Badgers. Another EBBA Mosquito player, Daniel Jaffe had some comments about the clinic and the scrimmage in particular, "It was great to play with older boys who are incredible players and who love baseball as much as I do. I don't know how they beat us in the scrimmage when they were hitting from the wrong side and running backwards."

Daniel's father Peter Jaffe explained what this kind of experience means to the young ball players, "The boys all want to be Badgers one day, so it is a good motivator to see how much they have to keep learning every day. It is like climbing to the top of one mountain and then seeing four more towering peaks ahead."

The free hitting clinics which are open to all London area baseball players aged 8-12, will continue for the next few weeks.

Anyone interested in taking part in this great opportunity can get more information by clicking on the 'GRASSROOTS' tab on the Badger website, www.londonbadgers.on.ca and then clicking on 'HIT WITH THE BADGERS.'

Regular meetings -- August 16, September 20, October 18 -- all at 7:30 p.m. -- Elizabeth St. building

Classification meeting -- July 12 -- times for divisions TBA -- Elizabeth St. building

Annual General Meeting -- December 6 -- 7 p.m. -- Nichols Arena Meeting Room

A player wishing to play competitive baseball in the L.D.B.A. for the 2009 season MUST register with his/her home association prior to March 15.  Failure to register with the home association before March 15 would mean that said player will be allowed to only play house league for 2009. 

(A Badger player only needs to register with the Badgers before March 15 -- if he is not successful in his attempt at making a Badger team, said player must return to his home association to play for the 2009 season)

 LDBA has a no release policy -- players MUST register with their home association.

Pulham was given six months to live about two years ago. Though he outlived that deadline, the loss still came as a shock to friends. "He put up a fight. Boy, he put up a fight," said Joe O'Neill, president of the London District Baseball Association and past president of the London Junior Knights. Pulham was a dedicated volunteer who always put his heart into his work, O'Neill said. "As soon as you met Dan, you realized his total reason for being there was to make it better for the kids," he said. "He's what you would hope that every sports community volunteer would be."

Pulham's list of volunteer commitments was long. Just to name a few, he was on the board of the Forest City Hockey League for more than 15 years and was its chairperson. He was the local representative for the Minor Hockey Alliance of Ontario, and he was a tournament director for the London Minor Hockey Association. Pulham was honoured as volunteer of the year by Baseball Ontario, and he was on the city's ball diamond task force. He was also president of the London District Baseball Association for about 10 years. He was named London's sportsperson of the year at the 2001 Rogers Sports Celebrity Dinner and Auction. He also volunteered for the Canada Summer Games and Ontario Winter and Summer Games.

Pulham was truly one of a kind, said O'Neill, and he can never be replaced. "Dan was a great friend to everybody and incredibly well respected as a sports volunteer throughout the province. No one person can replace everything that Dan has done."

The former London Badger and St. Thomas Tomcat recently completed his Junior season at Youngstown State. 

At the annual general meeting, LDBA announced its 2007 award winners.

Left to Right -- Doug Kenyon (presenter), Dave Haldane (Coach of the Year), Ron Stewardson (Pitcher of the Year), Andrew Firth (Player of the Year), Derek Brooks (Volunteer of the Year), Diane Wakefield (presenter), Rob Companion (presenter - holding trophy for Andy Laliberte - Umpire of the Year) and in front - Mike Lumley (Presenter) 

Associations should NOT be registering or recruiting out of area players.  Doing so is in violation of Baseball Ontario rules P1-4(i) and P1-4(j)

"Any coach or manager who allows a player to participate in any game(s) or practice(s) with a team that does not hold his/her playing rights will leave the said coach and/or manager open to suspension by the OBA."

"NO player, coach or manager may approach any other player for whom their team does not hold the playing rights with the intent of securing said player for their own team without the permission of the Local Association that holds the player's playing rights.  Violation of the rule will leave the player, coach and/or manager open to suspension by the OBA."

This would include all indoor workouts/tryouts, outdoor workouts/tryouts, practices, etc.

A feature on Chris Robinson, a former LDBA and London Badger player appeared in the June 4th edition of The Londoner.  Chris who is from Dorchester and Londoner Adam Stern played major roles when Team Canada secured a spot in August's Beijing Olympics at an Olympic qualifier in Taiwan in March. 

Due to space restrictions only a portion of the story appeared in The Londoner, but the entire interview can be read on the Badgers website.  www.londonbadgers.on.ca