{"id":31179,"date":"2017-06-24T10:26:14","date_gmt":"2017-06-24T17:26:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/?p=31179"},"modified":"2017-06-24T10:26:14","modified_gmt":"2017-06-24T17:26:14","slug":"sean-cleary-is-the-ace-up-canadas-sleeve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/?p=31179","title":{"rendered":"Sean Cleary is the ace up Canada\u2019s sleeve"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By Robin Short, The Telegram<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Without fanfare, Harbour Main softball pitching star has emerged as the finest athlete on local sporting stage (or at least one not named Gushue, Nichols or Osmond).<\/p>\n

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His name is Cleary, but he\u2019s not that<\/i> Cleary, the Stanley Cup winner a few years back.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

He\u2019s Sean Cleary, ace of the national men\u2019s softball team\u2019s pitching staff, and among the tops at his craft on the planet.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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He may the finest athlete on the local stage today. Definitely the best local athlete with the lowest profile.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n
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Perhaps that\u2019s by choice. This Cleary guy isn\u2019t rah-rah. You get the feeling Cleary \u2014 like another well-known introverted Newfoundland athlete, Michael Ryder \u2014 would prefer a hangover than talking about himself to a meddling sports reporter.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n
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\u00a0It\u2019s safe to say Sean Cleary let\u2019s his game do the talking.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n
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Men\u2019s softball is not an Olympic sport. Never will be, which is too bad for Newfoundland, among the last outposts where the game really, truly matters.<\/div>\n
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The athletes are not carded under Sport Canada, nor are they recipients of Own the Podium funding. \u00a0Click here to continue reading and to view photo at The Telegram.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n
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\u00a0Editor’s Note:<\/strong> \u00a0Sean Cleary will be front and center for Team Canada, who seeks to defend their 2015 gold medal, at the 2017 WBSC Men’s World Championship, July 7-16, 2017 at Whitehorse, Yukon.<\/div>\n
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Otherwise, perhaps we\u2019d be speaking of Cleary in the same breath as quasi-professionals Brad Gushue, Mark Nichols and Kaetlyn Osmond (even though she hasn\u2019t lived in Newfoundland for years and years and years, but that\u2019s an opinion for another day).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Consider this:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Just in the past two years, Cleary\u2019s won an International Softball Congress club team championship (he was top pitcher and first-team all-star last year, leading the Toronto Gators to the title), a world championship with Canada (5-0 in round-robin; 2-0 in playoffs) and a Pan American Games gold medal (4-0, 0.97 ERA).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n

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By Robin Short, The Telegram Without fanfare, Harbour Main softball pitching star has emerged as the finest athlete on local sporting stage (or at least one not named Gushue, Nichols or Osmond). His name is Cleary, but he\u2019s not that Cleary, the Stanley Cup winner a few years back. He\u2019s Sean Cleary, ace of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,28,9,82],"tags":[737,193,669],"class_list":{"0":"post-31179","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-canada","7":"category-featured","8":"category-international","9":"category-wbsc","10":"tag-seancleary","11":"tag-softballcanada","12":"tag-wbscmens2017","13":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31179"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31180,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31179\/revisions\/31180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}