For a slo-pitch tournament outing that the team organizer didn’t think would happen due to a lack of interest, things went pretty darned well.
First off, the tournament took place more than 5,000 kilometres from Chatham-Kent.
Second, not one, but two teams from C-K attended.
Third, both squads placed second in their respective division in the mid-July tournament.
Jordan Sinclair floated the idea of taking part in Dustball 2024, a slo-pitch tournament in Whitehorse, Yukon with her Chatham-Kent Maple City teammates after being asked last year by a friend up there if she might be interested in bringing a team.
“I didn’t think we’d get enough people, but quite the opposite happened,” Sinclair said. “We really were going up for our women’s team but then so many partners and parents and brothers went up that we decided to put in a co-ed team as well.”
Both finished second. The women lost in the final to a team from Juneau in the open division, falling in an 11-inning classic. The co-ed squad took part in the C-division.
With a diverse group attending from Chatham-Kent, Sinclair said that led to some special moments on the diamonds.
“We did have a couple of mother-daughter combinations. And also in the co-ed, we had some father-daughter combinations there,” she said. “We had so much fun playing with each other. It was a pretty cool experience.”
Along the way, the players from the deep south of southwestern Ontario – the only team from the province in the tourney – had to deal with unexpected realities of the far north.
“I had been there, and one other girl on the team had been up before. About 30 of us went,” Sinclair said. “Only their two main parks had grass in the outfield. It’s very difficult to grow grass at that latitude. The majority of the fields were just dirt.”
And day never really turned into night. During the summer, the sun doesn’t truly set that far north. Sinclair said at best day became dusk…sometime in the early hours of the morning of the next day.
“The sun didn’t set. It was really crazy,” she said. “You had to remind yourself to go to bed.”
With the looong days, there are no lights on the ball fields. Some games started at 8:45 p.m. without issue.
As Chatham-Kent experiences the hot humid days of July, with temperatures hitting 30C, Sinclair said in Whitehorse, the highs were maybe 16C.
“It was a big difference. We had to remember to pack layers,” she said.
Most of the Chatham-Kent contingent stayed up for a week, despite the fact the tournament ran over four days. Sinclair said they played tourist, did some kayaking and hiking as well.
