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Editor's note:

Before the trip, Rick Boyd posted the following announcement on the Ontario Men's website:

"A team of old guys will be travelling to Canberra Australia from Oct 28/03 to November 11/03 to participate in the World Master's Fastball Championships for players 35 and over."
 

Little did they know their "participation" would be topping 91 other teams for the gold medal.

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Pride  Fastball Team Sizzles Down Under

(reprinted with permission from The Record, Waterloo Region)

Sports, Wednesday,November 19, 2003, Ontario, Canada

KARLO BERKOVICH RECORD STAFF

Talk about going out with a bang. And they went all the way Down Under to do it. Nineteen hours on a plane. Major jet lag. A total of about $5,000 per man in out-of-pocket expenses. Yet it was all worth it for members of the Kitchener-Waterloo Pride men's fastball team -- a team that, simply due to the passage of time, is disbanding after nearly three decades together.

But they went out in a blaze of glory as gold medalists at the Australian Masters Games earlier this month in Canberra. The Pride, which adopted the name Pride of Canada for the event, was the lone non-Aussie entry in the 92-team tournament. "It was like a Hollywood script for us," said Pride player-manager Rick Boyd of Conestogo, one of a core group of team members, average age 44, who have been playing together since age 18. The others are Jim Farwell, Ray Verbiski, Mike Waechter of Kitchener and Sam Forbes of Waterloo. It's a script that, essentially, the Pride wrote itself while meeting over a few refreshments a few years ago during yet another championship run in first the Kitchener and later the South Perth fastball leagues.

The Pride won seven KFL major division titles and another South Perth crown while capturing 31 tournament championships. But these guys wanted to broaden their horizons. "We were sitting around and someone said, 'wouldn't it be neat to play in Australia,' " Boyd related. "We all said, 'Yeah, right. It'd be great but we'll never actually do it.' " Well, they did it, thanks in part to connections within the extended world fastball family. The Australian national team happened to be playing in Milverton last summer as part of a tour, and Canadian expatriate Bob Harron, originally from Milverton, was helping coach the Aussies. He told Boyd about the Masters Games for players age 35 and over and voila -- a lifelong dream of visiting Australia could be combined with fastball. The Pride got commitments from 15 players, boosted their own individual out-of-pocket funds by $2,000 through assorted fundraising vehicles, and were off.

Accompanied by wives and girlfriends, the team was soon winging it over the Pacific -- via a layover in Los Angeles -- en route to its Aussie adventure. But not without some anxious moments as the plane passed over the fires raging in the L.A. area. "The pilot announced that we would smell smoke but not to panic as it wasn't from the plane -- it was from the fires," Boyd said. Once in Canberra, it was the Pride that was too hot for the competition. K-W went 8-2 won-lost in round-robin play, losing twice to the powerful Sydney Storm by counts of 3-2 and 7-2. But Boyd unveiled a secret weapon in pitcher Pete Spitzig when the Storm -- which had champagne on display in the dugout in anticipation of a title win -- provided the opposition in the championship game. Spitzig was purposely held out of the preliminary games against Sydney but was there when it counted, tossing a one-hit shutout as the Pride won the championship with a 3-0 victory.

The Pride celebrated the championship by turning into tourists, booking a bus from Canberra to Sydney to see the sights, including a not-to-be missed cruise around Sydney harbour that featured the usual swoop under the famous Sydney harbour bridge. All in all, a trip of a lifetime for, literally, a lifetime team. Sports editor Karlo Berkovich can be reached at 894-2250, ext. 2686, or by e-mail at kberkovich@therecord.com Category: Sports and Leisure Uniform subject(s): Sports and Leisure Story type(s): Column Edition: Final Length: Medium, 522 words © 2003 The Record (Waterloo Region). All rights reserved. Doc. : news·20031119·KR·0084 This material is copyrighted. All rights reserved.  © 2003 CEDROM.