Welcome to the Mountie Nation
Mountie Nation is an independent website that provides an open forum for anyone to post their opinions regarding baseball.  This website has no affiliation with Baseball Canada, Baseball BC, BC Minor Baseball, Vancouver Community Baseball or the Vancouver Mounties Baseball Club.  Mountie Nation invites all to post their views in the forum section on baseball events in British Columbia. 

TOO BAD? CFL Fires Referee after Bad Call!
Kudos to the CFL, a league considered second tier by many but a league that had the courage to investigate a horrendous call in the last minute of the game last week, between the Montreal Alouettes and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

CFL director of officiating Tom Higgins wrote on the CFL Website on Monday that the call was "absolutely terrible".  "The Winnipeg receiver grabbed the Montreal defender and fell to the ground in an obvious attempt to draw a [pass interference } call and succeeded.

Replays showed Laybourn the Alouette player defending in the endzone against Blue Bomber receiver Greg Carr when Carr put his arms around Laybourn.  The play drew an interference call.

In a sports world where Players and Coaches are always held accountable by their leagues, owners and fans.  Kudos to the CFL for also holding their Officials to the same standard instead of sweeping their mistakes under the rug.  Too many times officials are not held accountable which severely impacts the integrity of the game.

One must now wonder if the referee fraternity will be looking unfavorably on the Blue Bombers after Carrs antics got a collegue fired, and embarrased the brotherhood?  Nah that would never happen would it..............?  


Mountie Nation Forum Section heating up!
Just minutes after the article below was written 2 people have entered their views on the Mountie Nation forum section.  Also circulating throughout the email waves an opinion offered by B.C. Minor's Coaching Development Chair and Pee Wee AAA Director Mike Kelly.

"They took out 6 starters and took out 8 pitchers already.  Its like they planned ahead of time, "Let's get an early lead, then we'll slowly throw the game and it will take every Red Sox fan three innings to realize it We will WRECK THEM." Its working."  

Kind of Deja Vu of a similar tactic in a game Mike witnessed on May 22/10.  

STRATEGY or TRAVESTY?
Internet chat boards are all asking the same question, "Did the Yankees intentionally try to lose last night's game against Tampa Bay?"  There are all kinds of theories out there.  Although the Yankees did not seem to physically try to lose the game, one could certainly argue that their roster, and roster moves certainly did not give them the best chance to win the game! 

The first 3 Yankee pitchers had not started a game for the Yankees all year and 10 of the 11 only had a combined 20 wins in the 2011 season.  According to the BC Minor Rule book "Travesty of the Game" rule 15.09 what the Yankees did was legal.  So this begs the question, "why would physical errors be a travesty, but how can putting inferior players into the lineup, and not making roster moves that would give you the best chance of winning not be a travesty?"

11 pitchers and the Yankees never even threw their best closer Rivera.  Surely some would suggest that if they were trying to win they would have brought him in to the game.   Others suggest that they were resting him for the playoffs?  But what about the unwritten rules of baseball?

The Yankees clinched a playoff spot did not need to win the game and fielded a lineup that rested certain players.  The Yankees did what was best for the Yankees.  Everyone has their own opinion on what is right and what is wrong in this situation but until the unwritten rules of baseball get clarified these debates will go on forever.   

The unwritten rules of baseball is a familiar phrase thrown the Mounties way throughout the season.  Were the Yankees wrong?  Are the Mounties wrong?  One can only go by the rules provided and until someone writes a book on the unwritten rules or B.C. Minor adds the unwritten rules to the 91 pages of rules that it already has.  There will only be one set of rules. 

So the next time someone talks about the unwritten rules please do everyone a favor and hand them a pen and paper and tell them to get writing!  

Hemer's Heroes defeat Lichel's Lonesome Losers!
It was supposed to be a  practice about bunt defence and sac bunting but team leaders held a meeting and decided that since the Mounties had no games on the weekend, it would be beneficial to be a bit more competitive in practice.  What could be more competitive than a couple of games of Good ol American Ping Pong.

The first game started out friendly enough, but the Heroes dominated and taunted Lichel's  Lonesome Losers throughout the contest.  The game ended with the Losers on the wrong end of a 13 - 6 thrashing. 

With wet sloppy field conditions the rematch turned out to be an all out WAR!  Both teams held nothing back in the second game including a trade that brought Kevin Sengara over to the Losers with the Heroes picking up overage baseball legend Jeff Sengara.

The game was a slobber knocker mud bowl with both teams looking like something out of a tide commercial.  Defence was solid in this one and the Heroes went into the bottom of the last inning holding a 6 - 4 lead.  With 2 out and 2 on the Losers brought Kevin Sengara to the plate who hit a walk off homerun to seemingly win the game.

However before the ball had cleared the park the Heroes were protesting that Sengara was the improper batter and that the Losers had illegally juggled their batting order to get the long ball hitting Sengara to the plate.

Since the American Ping Pong game did not come under the jurasdiction of B.C. Minor rules.  A free protest was allowed without the protesting team having to put up a $50.00 fee.  Also as in past BC Minor Protests involving the Mounties video replay would not be allowed in this protest. 

The Rules Committee conferred and had to decide if the protest would be allowed.  Although the Heroes had followed correct procedure by waiting until the at bat was done before protesting, the question for the protest committee was, "Could the protest be granted since the game was over after Sengara's homerun cleared the fences?"  After much deliberation it was decided that since Sengara did not officially round the bases (even though there are no bases in American Ping Pong) the game was not officially over so the protest could be heard. 

The protest was upheld and it was decided that instead of calling the batter out and ending the game the Losers would be given a chance to redeem themselves and the proper batter would have to go up to the plate.  After much delay by the Losers in figuring out who the proper batter was Hirakawa Kao came to the plate, and with 2 strikes on him the game was suddenly called because of darkness.  The game ending abruptly and the Heroes held onto a controversial 6 - 4 victory to sweep the Losers in the doubleheader.

After the game Baseball Legend Jeff Sengara who played great defence but went an embarrassing 0 for 7 in the contest was quoted as saying "When the team wins we all win."   

  
HOW BIZZARE Mounties Shutout!
In a BIZZARE series of events the Vancouver Mounties will have this weekend off.  The Mounties originally thought that they would have drawn into the Tri Cities Tournament after they were told on August 24th that the tournament was full but if Aldergrove did not go in the Mounties would be slotted into that spot.  Since that time period two of the teams that were entered in the tournament Van. Minor and Surrey dropped out but the Mounties were never contacted or asked and the spots were filled. "I'm not sure what happened." a befuddled Pawlick said when answering how these series of events could have unfolded. "We seemed to have things in place but they didn't work out, it's just unfortunate that the boys don't get to play."

This Monday the Mounties were informed by Ridge Meadows that they had some injuries and would not be able to commit to Saturdays scheduled double header and on the same day Richmond cancelled their doubleheader against the Mounties explaining that they were originally told the Tri City Tournament was a different date and just found out on Sunday that it had been changed to this weekend.

The Mounties tried to line up games with several other teams but due to the short notice of the cancellations no other teams were able to accommodate the Mounties request. 

Mounties DOWNES Tri City in Off, On, Off game!
After the Vancouver Mounties watched the weather clear up and their chances to get two fall ball games in earlier in the day squandered,  the Mounties were horrified to find their game against Tri City was on the verge of being canceled because of bad field conditions.

Mountie parents took charge and went onto the field and did an outstanding job of getting the field ready.  The game was able to go ahead as planned on a night which turned out to be a beautiful night for baseball.  "The Mountie parents helped convey a message that the Mountie coaches preach to the players" coach Pawlick said, "and that is you only get out of something what you put into it and if you are not prepared to do the work, you will not be successful".

The Mounties scored 4 in the top of the 1st inning to take a 4 - 0 lead.  In the bottom of the inning the Mounties made 2 physical errors and a mental error along with a couple of walks and handed all 4 runs back to the Indians.

The Mounties scored again in the 4th inning and added 2 more in the 6th to take a 7 to 4 lead.  In the bottom of the 6th the Mounties surrendered another unearned run, their 5th of the evening.

With the Mounties leading 7 - 5 and the 7th inning about to start, Tri City took the field and in an all too familiar occurrence at games being played at Bird Park, the lights mysteriously went out.  Before the lights could be turned back on the Tri City Team did their cheers and lined up for the hand shake.  Game Over Mounties 7 Tri City Indians 5.