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Fastpitch league gets on deck

Not since the '90s has a baseball been thrown in league competition in Whitehorse. On Sunday that will change.

Not since the ‘90s has a baseball been thrown in league competition in Whitehorse. On Sunday that will change.

Baseball Yukon announced this week three teams have been drafted and will begin play this Sunday at the Pepsi Centre in Whitehorse.

“We’ve done the draft and we have three solid teams with about 14 players on each team,” said league organizer Greg Cowman. “We might have more guys coming, but this weekend is the start up.

“It feels great; we were really grateful for the turnout. We were targeting 60—we wanted to get four teams of 15—but I have a feeling once guys find out that the league is actually swinging, we’ll get some more applications.”

Currently the league is unsure whether a fourth team can be added to the schedule midseason, but has not ruled out the possibility. Also, Cowman is encouraging latecomers to register to fill a few present vacant spots and ones that may pop up in the future.

“We still have a half-dozen spots we can fill up on teams because one team has 13, another team has 12 and the other team has 13,” said Cowman. “But if a few guys want to join up there may be injuries, guys are always away and we may be looking for replacements later on.

“I don’t want to say we’re done with (three or) four teams. If we get 20 more guys come out of the woodwork I’m not going to turn them down. We’ll just redo the schedule.”

Although hardball, the league will operate under Canada’s softball-fastpitch rules, as was seen last summer when Whitehorse hosted the ISF Junior Men’s World Fastpitch Championships.

To help avoid one team dominating, league organizers shuffled around pitchers so each team has similar skill on the mound.

“After the teams were initially made, we swapped a few guys around to even out the pitching a bit, based on our initial assessment of a few guys,” said Cowman. “Each team has at least two pitchers and we’ll see how they do. It surprised me: a lot of the guys were hitting off the pitchers yesterday.

“So we have some good ballplayers.”

The season opener will feature the Roadhouse versus Casa Loma at 5:45 p.m. followed by the former against Cinderwood at 7:45 p.m. Admission if free and the concession stand will be open.

Contact Tom Patrick at

tomp@yukon-news.com