2013 was the year of the Red Sox.
In October, the Boston Red Sox capped a worst-to-first season with a World Series triumph over the St. Louis Cardinals.
A month earlier in the Prince George Senior Baseball League, the Queensway Auto Body Red Sox wrapped up the best-of-five city championship in four games over the Shooters Gladiators. Queensway led the season from start to finish, compiling a 17-1 record and ending up 6-2 in the playoffs.
The off-season wasn't kind to either Red Sox team. Boston lost starting catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia to the Miami Marlins and all-star outfielder Jacoby Ellsbury signed as a free agent with the New York Yankees. The lure of work elsewhere has also hurt the Red Sox of Prince George, who will be starting the season next week without their Jeremy Kral, their pitching ace.
Kral was also the second-ranked hitter in the PGSBL among those who played 10 or more games in 2013. He hit for a .556 batting average with 16 RBI in 12 games. In the playoff final against the Gladiators, Kral opened with a 1-0 shutout, striking out 17 batters over seven innings, then blanked the Glads 1-0 again in the championship game.
Kral's departure for a job in Grande Prairie leaves a big hole but the Red Sox still have a team quite capable of winning it all again. Batting champion Brandon Hunter is a pitcher's nightmare when he takes his usual spot third in the batting order. He led the league with 31 RBI last year in 18 games and his .566 batting average and eight home runs were also tops in the PGSBL. Hunter plays outfield, shortstop and pitches and his defence is almost as impressive as his hitting.
"When you have the best player in the league it always gives you a chance," said Red Sox veteran Paul Wilson. "Just the runs he scores... you don't need great pitching when you're going to score 10 runs."
The Sox will welcome the return of lefthanded pitcher Curtis Sawchuk, now playing college baseball in his senior year at Missouri Baptist University. The No. 5-seeded Wildcats are involved in the NAIA national championship this week in Kingsport, Tenn. In nine starts with the Wildcats this spring, Sawchuk compiled a 5-0 record with a 3.38 ERA and 28 strikeouts. He doesn't bat for the Wildcats but Wilson says he'll hit second in the Sox order.
Outfielder Garret Belanger, the Red Sox leadoff hitter, is playing this season at Douglas College. The Royals are just finishing off their spring season, preparing for the NWAACC championship starting Thursday in Longview, Wash.
Cleanup hitter/catcher Bucky Schmidt is back as catcher and the Red Sox have a strong array of veterans in Wilson (who played two seasons with NCAA Div. 1 Oklahoma), Jason McCarron, Joe Flavel, Marcel Belanger and Amanda Asay. Voted Canada's top female baseball player in 2005, Asay was a scholarship athlete for three years in hockey and softball at Brown University in Rhode Island before transferring to UBC. She's been away all winter playing baseball in Australia.
"She doesn't run quick but you're never going to strike her out, she's just smart," said Wilson. "When you watch her swing, she's so talented."
The PGSBL season-opener is set for Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. at Citizen Field, featuring the Red Sox against the Inland Control & Services Tigers.
From top to bottom, the Red Sox appear to be the team to beat again in the five-team PGSBL. Here's how the rest of the league stacks up:
Dawn Till Dusk Contracting Titans
The good news in the land of the Titans is virtually everybody is back from the team that finished second in the standings with a 12-6 record. Their goal this year is to win the playoffs, something they've never done before.
Jon Bourassa and Garrett Cumpstone and Jesse Dill are also capable of great things with their gloves and will get the bulk of the pitching starts. Kim Callander is the Titans' starting catcher. The Titans can always depend on the ageless Craig Horswell, whose baseball smarts go well beyond his years. He hit .450 in 14 games last year and still has enough power to clear the fence. When it comes to hitting, nobody on the Titans does it better than Kalen Kirkpatrick, who played all 18 games in the regular season and led the team with a .534 average while batting in 24 runs. Dill also packs plenty of wallop, averaging .512 in 2013, and Jay Cook, a powerlifter, is also dangerous with a bat in his hand.
Inland Control & Services Tigers
The Tigers capped a disappointing 6-12 season with an early playoff exit, losing in four games to the Red Sox. They say pitching is 90 per cent of the game and it's not hard for Tigers veteran Adam Norn to pinpoint how much that aspect of the Tigers' game contributed to their demise in 2013.
"We have guys who can throw the ball but we don''t have that one dominant guy who can win a games for us," said Norn. "We have guys who can hit the ball but we need someone who can step up with their arm. We haven't won the league in a long time just because we don't have the pitching."
The Tigers pick first in the draft and will likely use that to select Cole Laviolette, an NAIA freshman in 2013-14 at Taft College in California, who would fill a hole at catcher. Justin Fillion is back from Michigan Tech, where he plays Div. 1 hockey, but won''t be available for playoffs. His athleticism is obvious at shortstop and he has home-run power. Norn is a former league home run champion but was limited to two round-trippers last year. He led the Tigers with a .444 batting average with 20 RBI. Other keys in the Tigers' cage are Angelo Desantis, Scott Atherton, Lyle Boutin, Chris Clark, Jody Hannon, James Haviland and Cory Therrien. Atherton is the Tigers' best pitcher.
Shooters Gladiators
They're getting a bit long in the tooth compared to the rest of the league, but as long as Graham Allard has his pitching hand on the ball the Gladiators have a chance of winning. He went 4-1 in 2013 with a 2.68 ERA in 2013 (third -best in the PGSBL). But Allard can't throw every game and the Gladiators will be missing several key weapons on the mound who served them well in their run to the final last year. Connor Whitely, has left the city for work reasons, Chris Allard (Graham's brother) will be a part-time player this season and Ryan Yorston has retired from the league. Third baseman/outfielder Brandon Graham is staying put this summer in Kelowna, where he just wrapped up his sophomore season playing for Okanagan College Coyotes of the Canadian College Baseball Conference.
Shortstop Doug Clark led the team with a .301 batting average last year and first baseman Devon O'Brien is also a tough out at the plate. Pitcher Cody Cole and outfielder Gare Kobsar, both Quesnel imports, will find steady employment for the Glads this season.
"I think everybody's going to be a pitcher this year," laughed Clark. "Everybody makes playoffs and anything can happen in the playoffs."
Total Tops midget Knights
See Saturday's Citizen for the Knights' season preview.
Cook, the league president, is still waiting for word on whether the Prince George Grays will get to play in the Okanagan Major Baseball League along with Kelowna, Kamloops, Vernon and Trail. The Grays are an all-star squad picked from the best of the PGSBL. As a member of the Okanagan league, the Grays would get to host at least one weekend series at home and would make two road trips prior to the senior provincial championship tournament in Trail, Aug. 1-4.
The league is planning its all-star game/home run derby for late June or early July.
