PLAYING FOR THE LOVE OF THE GAME
RAMBLER PARK’S LEGACY CONTINUES TO MOVE FORWARD DESPITE CHALLENGES
Around Rambler Park, the only flying objects are airplanes and softballs.
The diamond complex is located near Regina International Airport, which is one of the city’s busier destinations.
A few tape-measure home runs away from the terminal, the stars of the Western Cycle Rambler Park Fastball League display their skills virtually every weeknight during the spring and summer.
Beside the gate leading to the main diamond, there is an admission booth — one that is seldom occupied. On some nights, there are more people in the dugouts than in the wooden stands.
Yet, for those who do spend part of their evening playing or spectating at Rambler Park, it is an inviting and enjoyable place to be.
“It’s barely out of town, but you feel like you’re completely out of town, I guess,” says league president Stephen Kwasnicki, who plays for the Regina Gold. “It’s a really nice place to be on a warm summer night.
“Sometimes you get out there and it’s that perfect temperature and maybe there’s a slight breeze, and you’re thinking, ‘What else would I be doing on a night like tonight? I’d rather be out here than pretty much anywhere.’ ”
The same mindset is held by Colin McLeod, who plays for and administers the Bulyea Rustlers.
Some of his closest friendships have been nurtured on the ball diamond. “It’s awesome, because we’re all good buddies,” McLeod says while sitting in the bleachers at Rambler Park.
The Rustlers, who were formed in 1972, joined the Rambler Park league in 1994. McLeod joined the Rustlers the previous year and, nearing 41, has no intention of hanging up the uniform.
“I just love the sport,” he says. “At the end of the day, that’s what it is — a great sport.”
Albeit one that has had its struggles.
Many of the Rustlers’ players remember a time when fastball, at the competitive men’s level, had a significantly larger base of participants and fans.
“You see the same people here most nights,” McLeod notes. “You could probably count them. There are only 10 or 15, but you see them fairly regularly.”
Those 10 or 15 fastball aficionados seem to be in on a hidden gem.
On a nice night at Rambler Park, the view of the sunset is hard to beat.
So are the Rustlers, and other teams that have helped to keep the league alive, even when its future has been imperilled.
“At one point, the league was in survival mode,” says McLeod, who has seen the ranks grow to 15 teams in recent years from a single-digit total.
It’s a really nice place to be on a warm summer night. —Stephen Kwasnicki
The league is on stronger footing now, but there is nonetheless little comparison to the sport at its peak — when senior A men’s fastball was popular in the city and the old Mount Pleasant loop attracted triple-digit crowds to Kaplan Field.
“The sport has been on a downswing for a while,” McLeod says. “Times are a little different now. Back then, it was common to shut the tractor down to play ball or go to a tournament. Now it’s more of a commitment, and some people can’t commit to doing it.
“It’s a sign of the times changing, compared to back in the day when you’d throw the kids in a car and go to a ball tournament — whereas now, maybe the focus is going to kids’ events.”
Some of the kids’ events used to be fastball games. However, a development circuit — the ACT minor boys league — disbanded several years ago.
“Once the ACT league (folded), all of a sudden that feeder system disappeared,” says Kwasnicki, 34, who was among the last graduating players from the AC circuit.
The Regina Minor Softball League, which has 89 girls’ teams in age groups ranging from under-6 to under-16, is thriving. However, there is not an equivalent for boys in this part of the province.
Without such a vast reservoir of talent, and a league in which pitchers can develop fastball’s windmill style, some resourcefulness has been required.
“Teams have found ways to get guys and keep guys,” Kwasnicki says.
“A few guys have converted from baseball and there are some guys from smaller towns whose parents played and things like that.”
The out-of-town component is crucial to the Rambler Park league.
In Division 1, for example, six teams — Bulyea, the Chetty’s Pretty Boys, NB Petro Hawks, Pasqua A’s, Moose Jaw Canadians and Moose Jaw Giants — are based outside of Regina. The Regina Gold and Silver Screen Sportswear represent the Queen City.
Division 2 consists of the Little Black Bear Blues, Best Buds, Standing Buffalo Dakotas, Earl Grey Rockets, Piapot Padres, Piapot Wolfpack and Muskowekwan Pride. All those teams are based outside Regina although, in both divisions, many players live in the city.
The addition of the two teams from Moose Jaw bolstered the Rambler Park league’s ranks, which have always been strengthened by First Nations squads.
“If it wasn’t for their involvement, we wouldn’t still be playing,” Kwasnicki says.
Kwasnicki appreciates the efforts of people such as A’s head coach Tim Cyr, who is the sports and recreation co-ordinator (with an emphasis on youth development) at Pasqua First Nation.
“We’re just grateful for the opportunity to still be a part of men’s fastball in Regina because, without it, I don’t know where half of our guys would be,” Cyr says. “It brings us together as a family. All we go and do is have fun, try and win, and hope for the best.”
The A’s are literally a family for Cyr.
“I am related to every single ball player on this team,” he notes. “I have two sons that play. I have one cousin (on the team) and the rest are all my nephews.”
That is one example of how fastball is part of the culture at Pasqua First Nation, which is located near Fort Qu’Appelle.
Teams have found ways to get guys and keep guys. A few guys have converted from baseball and there are some guys from smaller towns who parents played and things like that. — Stephen Kwasnicki
It’s starting to come full circle again. We may have in the area, just here along, 20 youth who want to play all the time. It’s about finding the resources and getting them equipped and all these other things. — Tim Cyr
“That’s what you grew up out here with,” Cyr says. “All you needed was a glove. You didn’t even need a ball or a bat – just a glove. That’s how a lot of our kids really adapted to the sport. Their parents played. Their grandparents played. Their older siblings played. You just went with it.
“It’s starting to come full circle again. We may have in the area, just here alone, 20 youth who want to play all the time. It’s about finding the resources and getting them equipped and all these other things, like getting them a proper hitting instructor or pitching instructor and finding them a facility during the winter.”
Cyr works devotedly to ensure that the young people have opportunities to participate in the game he loves.
The sport overall is doing great. Certainly, male fast-pitch is struggling, and more so across Canada. Our numbers in Saskatchewan are probably the best of any province, and yet we know that we’re struggling here. — Guy Jacobsen
“Our parents and our communities are listening to our youth,” he says. “It’s all in the name of abstinence from drugs and alcohol. If we find programs for our youth, they will participate.”
The participation numbers, when examining the sport as a whole, are encouraging to Guy Jacobson — Softball Saskatchewan’s executive director.
“The sport overall is doing great,” he says. “Certainly, male fast-pitch is struggling, and more so across Canada. Our numbers in Saskatchewan are probably the best of any province, and yet we know that we’re struggling here.
“We still have provincial championships in all of our minor categories and our adult categories, whereas I know some provinces are struggling to hold provincial championships in their male fast-pitch categories.
“That makes it tough for us, because a lot of those categories will lead to a Western Canadian or Canadian championship. So we’ve got teams that want to go, but if there’s no other provinces sending teams, obviously that impacts the numbers here.”
Jacobson points to Saskatoon as a long-standing fastball hotbed, adding that Prince Albert is to play host to the 2018 world junior men’s championship.
Softball Saskatchewan’s overall registration is in the neighbourhood of 15,000 players, compared to a peak total of 32,000 in 1996.
“You can say that (the decrease) huge, but our minor fast-pitch numbers have been really good,” Jacobson says. “That 13,000 to 15,000 is a really good number for us.
“When you look at the new emerging sports and you look at all the things that kids do nowadays, a lot of them don’t play sport anymore. It’s Nintendo or whatever.
“I think you could go to virtually every sport-governing body and ask them what their numbers were back in the mid- to late 1990s and they’ll tell you that their numbers aren’t anywhere near (what they were).”
Softball Saskatchewan honoured Harvey Curts in 2000, when he received the Outstanding Service Award.
Curts has seen fastball at its zenith and during periods in which there have been challenges. The one constant is his passion for the sport, which he first played as a Grade 8 student in Odessa.
“I was introduced to the sport by the principal,” says Curts, 64. “The Grade 8s used to play against the older boys at recess and that’s how I got involved.”
Curts kept playing until his late 50s. He doubled as the Rambler Park league’s president until 1999, when the reins were handed to Kwasnicki, and is now the treasurer.
As a long-time executive member of the Rambler Park Fastball Association, Curts saw the current facility upgraded in advance of the 2005 Canada Summer Games. The infield, which once presented a challenge to anyone who dared to field a ground ball, has been smoothed out.
Curts and so many others pitch in — even if they aren’t pitchers — to ensure that avid fastball players still have a league in which to compete.
It is “a small community,” he says, but the modest size has its own sort of charm.
Even if the stands are mostly vacant, there is plenty of chatter emanating from the main diamond as teammates encourage one another.
And, despite the paucity of fans, the public-address system is in service.
One of the flourishes is a recording of a ballpark organ. When someone slams a home run, they are liable to hear Fred Flintstone’s patented “yabba dabba doo!” over the speakers.
It is a humorous touch after someone touches ’em all — one more reason to enjoy a night at the ballpark.