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Thunder looks to make noise south of
border; Kingston team will also play in U.S. league this year There is a new pitch to the coming season for Matt Steele's Kingston Thunder baseball club. Over the last four years, the Thunder has won three Ontario Baseball Association championships, as the players climbed up through the different age groups. Steele has decided the timing was good for the group, now of bantam age, to take a swing at playing in the American Amateur Baseball Congress. Steele said he put the idea to his players during the winter, after much coaxing by Rick Beer, president of the Brockville Bunnies. "Before ... I felt we were too young," Steele said, "but [Rick] said we could do a 15-and-under team and I thought that was a good fit for us. The players are excited to do it. They are gung-ho. They just like to play baseball." Five members of the Thunder have been part of the team for the last five years. Three of them - nephews Kris Grant and Keli Grant and Tyler Allen - have been with Steele since those boys were eight years old in mosquito baseball. The Thunder will become the first Kingston-based team to play in the American league, which takes in teams from Ottawa, Brockville and Indian River, Potsdam, Malone and Massena in northern New York state. While the Thunder will play with U-15 age lineup, the league is for players under the age of 16. The winner among the Canadian teams will get to go to the Upper New York State championship in Albany in July. Steele knows the baseball his boys will face is of good calibre. "We've played American teams in [tournament] games before and I know they usually are very good hitting teams," Steele said. "I was talking to the Brockville guys about that and that's what they said: The teams hit well but the Canadian teams play better defensively. That kind of fits our team well. I think our team's strength is defence. We play the small game, bunting and stealing." Besides playing in the AABC, the Thunder is also doing a complete 24-game schedule in the Eastern Ontario Baseball Association as a minor midget entry. The team is also hosting the EOBA championship tournament on the Aug. 8 weekend. It will amount to more than 50 scheduled games and that was something Steele had to sell to the parents of the players, too. He just drew upon the statistics of past seasons when the team played an EOBA schedule and several tournaments, ending up with 55 games played each of the last three years. "That's what I said to the parents ... that's no different than other years, and we're not travelling as much," Steele said. The Thunder lineup will have eight players returning from last season - Cole Kaiser, Brandon Cross, Tanner Hoffman, Robbie Meyers, Kevin Thompson, the Grants and Allen. Newcomers are Tyson Thompson, Matt Swift, Vadim Ignatov, Andy Revell, Eric Blanck and Peter Dagres. Matt Labranche and Phil Thompson, two midget-age players, will be able to play the AABC games for the Thunder because the team is playing in the U-16 division. Both Labranche and Thompson can pitch and will add to a pitching staff which will have eight or nine arms. Kaiser is one of the better pitchers in the EOBA, Steele said, and both the Grants and Allen are also experienced pitchers. The Thunder will open its AABC season today with a game in Brockville against the U-16 Bunnies. Tomorrow, the Ottawa Knights U-15 team is the visitor for a doubleheader at Woodbine Park. First pitch is at noon.
Kingston Thunder player Tanner Hoffman takes part in baserunning practice at Woodbine park on Thursday evening. Ian MacAlpine/The Whig-Standard |
