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 My Site News: Origin of North Bay Senior Men's Fastball League |
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Origin of North Bay Senior Men's Fastball League
(The following are excerpts from History of the League written by Jimmy Russel, one of the founding members. Additional comments have been added to make the article current)
In the early 1980's every small community in the area had an old-timers's fastball team, many of which ran their own tournament to raise money for their teams.
Astorville, a small town southeast of North Bay is commonly given credit for starting the first old-timers's team. Other communities soon joined. They included Povvassan, Trout Creek, Sundridge, South River, Callander, Bracebridge, Cache Bay, Bear Island, Chelmsford and the CFB Silver foxes.
Initially, the teams only played in as many of the tournaments as they could afford.
It is thought that the eventual need for a League was due to the demand of playing tournaments
every weekend. Also many of the tournaments began folding for various reasons.
In the summer of 1983 the North Bay Old timers Fastball Association was formed. The League was formed as a recreational league with 3 teams, Jimmy's Restaurant, Fraser Tavern and Auto Truck Collision, (formerly Mario's Auto Body) taking part. They were joined in mid-season by The Cooperators who later became Liquid Pro Gas. In 1984 the league expanded to six teams with the addition of Kingston Lee Watson and Tilden Rent-a-Car who would later become Cortina's. In 1985, the CFB Silver Foxes and Time Out Lounge joined the circuit bringing the number of teams to eight.
Through the next ten years the League flourished and the spirit of competition was alive and well with many very talented players and executive members contributing to it's success. It was during these years that the games were umpired by the teams themselves to save money. This system worked well in the early years. There were the usual disagreements but generally the benefits out-weighed the few problems. However, this would soon become redundant as the caliber of play steadily improved and the need for rules and regulations created a need for a League Constitution. The other main difference between the Old timers League and the GMFA (North Bay's premier fastball League) was the unlimited substitution rule. All players, including pitchers, could rotate freely, defensively. You could choose to bat 9 players or allow all of your players to bat. This rule kept all players actively included in the game. Other rules were written into the constitution such as age requirements and length of games to 7 innings. The prominence of the League was evident when a call was received a few years ago from the organizers of the Ontario Senior Fastball Championship who asked for a copy of our Constitution to assist them in developing their own. It was due to this championship that the League changed its name from "Old timer's" to "Senior". Finally, a minor name change was introduced when "men's" was added to both the League and Tournament constitutions.
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