Silver for Kahnawake winter baseball

With the summer baseball season approaching fast, winter baseball is giving way to spring training.

As such, the Prospects Baseball Winter League’s U13 season has come to an end, with the team made up of players from Kahnawake finishing with a silver medal, losing 5-1 in the finals against the team that had been first overall all season.

Teams did not have names but were instead differentiated by jersey colour; Kahnawake wore white and their finals opponents wore black.

Neil McComber, the baseball coach from the community who has been behind the push for Kahnawake athletes to take part in this league, said the team gained a lot of experience from their season that will translate to the regular season.

“They grew confident in themselves,” said McComber.

“They’re not all U13 players, some are U11. They got to play against U13 players, and some of them are big kids who can pitch fast. They got to experience that and see what it’s like. So, it eliminates your fear, and it seemed like they were all pretty confident to go up to bat.”

Unfortunately, they could not turn that confidence into manufacturing runs in the finals.

What also went against them was the fact that they did not have a full team of nine players, but six, a frequent occurrence for them due to hockey season and injuries. They can still play without a full team by not playing any outfielders, who in this league stand behind the fence and can catch what would otherwise be homeruns.

With no fielders, they are automatically home runs, and that is what happened, with their opponents hitting four of them in the finals.

To note, all of the home runs came off the tee given to a batter in lieu of giving them first base on a walk.

Their semifinals game, an 11-2 win against the navy blue team, was more indicative of the rest of their season, according to McComber: they had a balanced offense where everyone hit, and they scored runs in multiple ways - with just two home runs, and the rest coming from batting in runs off of singles and doubles.

They also fielded the ball extremely well, which McComber said was one area where they improved a lot during the season.

Most balls coming off the tee were not home runs, but hard-hit ground balls, McComber explained, which is a lot more challenging than the average ground ball you’d get in a regular fielding exercise.

You also see more hits than in a normal game because of the quicker pace, with the count for each batter starting at one ball and one strike to accelerate the pace.

“You get so many more reps in this kind of league because of how quick it is,” said McComber.

They’ll get the chance for even more reps in the coming weeks, as Prospects Baseball will also be holding spring training sessions beginning tomorrow (Saturday, March 21), from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m., with an emphasis on the fundamentals of batting, fielding, and pitching.

Players aged nine to 13 are eligible to participate in each of the six upcoming sessions. Each of them costs $20, and while it is advantageous to go to as many sessions as possible, it is not necessary to go to all six, McComber said.

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