Striking gold
Debert cancer survivor wins world title in New Zealand
Debert’s Tracy Snider brought home many wonderful memories and a gold medal from the World Masters Games in New Zealand.
A Debert woman is back from the World Masters Games in New Zealand with a softball gold medal and a suitcase full of golden memories.
Tracy Snyder played catcher for the Free Spirits, a team made up of women from different parts of Ontario and Nova Scotia in the women’s 45 and over elite softball division.
“I was super pleased with the whole experience,” said Snyder by phone from Debert. “I hit well: I had a .396 average, I had a triple and a bunch of RBIs – I did what I expected and a little more.”
Snyder, 50, hadn’t played any ball for the last 16 years and wasn’t sure how her left arm, her throwing arm, was going to work after breast cancer surgery and radiation treatment six years ago.
To make sure her body was ready for the physical demands of catching – especially squatting and driving out of the squat – Snyder worked with a personal trainer all winter.
“I really owe a big thanks to my trainer Debbie Harrison – she really helped me zero in on catching. She worked with me and made sure I was ready – she didn’t just push me on the machines, she was very creative about the training and you know: I am pretty proud of myself, to put in the work and go back catching and be physically able to do it and win the gold.”
Snyder did pull a muscle in her quads, something she had never injured before. It felt sore through the rest of the games, but she was able to baby it and play through.
In the final, the Free Spirits, based in Peterborough, faced a team from Belleville.
That Belleville team was started by some members of the Free Spirits team that won gold at the worlds in Italy four years ago.
“It was a tough battle the game in the finals. It was, to say the least, an intense rivalry,” says Snyder. “They were undefeated in the round robin and they were, for lack of a better word, pretty confident.”
The Ontario teams were tied 2-2 late in the game and it looked like Belleville had scored a third run. But that was called back for a failure to tag up.
The Free Spirits scored their winning run on a sacrifice fly in the top of the seventh and then held on.
Snyder says it was a tense bottom of the seventh with an announcer commenting on every pitch and hit.
“An announcer is not really something we are used to playing softball, and I remember he was babbling away and driving me crazy,” says Snyder. “I remember him saying they just need one more out, and the batter hit a long foul and a pop near third base which we didn’t catch and he was babbling and I called a timeout to consult with the pitcher, I just needed to slow things down, slow that batter down.”
The pitcher threw an outside curve, the batter popped it up to left field, the outfielder caught it, and the Free Spirits had repeated as world gold medallists.
“It was an amazing feeling,” said Snyder. “My husband had a live video going of everything and people at home were
“i wasn’t the only one in this scenario. it was so amazing to find someone else in the same boat and who made it to the other side.” Tracy Snyder
watching it – my sister was watching from her motorhome. We were seeing all these messages of support, it was nice to see that support when you’re on the other side of the world.”
Snyder said it was also touching to meet the other athletes and hear their stories – thanks to special backpacks all the athletes wore.
“You’d see these backpacks, they were really recognizable, there were 28,000 of them running around New Zealand and they were just a great easy way to start conversations,” she said. “Even flying home through Toronto, I saw another backpack going.”
The ladies also received a medallist hat – gold winners were lined with yellow, silver medallists received hats lined in white and bronze medallists had bronze lining – again making for lots of interesting conversations around Auckland.
However, one special encounter stands out.
Getting ready for a game one day, Snyder saw a team of
women softball players dressed in pink uniforms with pink ribbons printed all over their socks.
“I said those are breast cancer ribbons and I went over to talk to one of the women,” said Snyder. “It just happened the one woman I walked up to was the one woman on the team who had had breast cancer.”
Snyder said it made her feel good to know there was someone else at the games who had gone through a similar experience.
“I wasn’t the only one in this scenario. It was so amazing to find someone else in the same boat and who made it to the other side,” said Snyder. “I told her ‘Look at us, we’re playing ball! Who’d have ever thought we’d be here.’”
The Free Spirits have already asked Snyder to play for them again in four years in Japan.
“I asked if I could play first base because catching is so hard physically,” said Snyder. “But they said no, I had to play catcher. So I guess I’ll have to keep up my training for another four years.”