For many local baseball players who spent time with the Red Lions, getting older and starting a family can often spell the end of their baseball career.
Now, thanks to the work of Rick Sereda, players who have hit the age of 30 have another chance to lace up their cleats, put on their gloves and get back out on the field shagging flies.
In 2010, Sereda came across the Alberta West Central Baseball Association (AWCBA), an Edmonton-based league for players aged 30 and beyond.
After a 17-year career with the Red Lions, he spent 11 years away from the field.
“I thought I’d never play again,” he said.
That’s when he found an ad about the AWCBA. He called to inquire more about the league, and things just went from there.
“It was really one of the better things I’ve done,” he said.
He played on a team from Stony Plain last year, along with Keith Szautner, and decided that it would be a more fun experience if he would be able to put together a team of former Red Lions to play in the league in 2011.
“I started making phone calls back in January,” he said. “I thought before I commit to this league I want to make sure I have enough guys that I’m not going to look like a dummy walking into the league meeting with only six or seven guys.”
As it turned out, that worry never came close to becoming reality.
“As a matter of fact, I had to stop asking before I got to the bottom of my list,” he said, adding he can’t believe how easy it was to round up enough players who were eager to get back on the diamond.
All the men on the roster know each other quite well, he said, and he considers the vast majority of them to be his friends. He said he thinks that familiarity was a factor in how quickly they said yes to being asked to join.
His roster currently stands at 15 players, but it might increase by one or two more as he said he’s a bit thin at the catcher’s position.
The AWCBA season has not been formally scheduled yet, but Sereda said it will run from early May until the middle of August. The season is 17 games long, has almost no weekend play, few practices and a season-ending tournament.
While the quality of play in the AWCBA is not at the level of the North Central Alberta Baseball League (NCABL), the league the Red Lions play in, Sereda said it’s still fairly high.
“It’s one small notch down from what it was in the NCABL when I played,” he said.
The pitching is good, he said, but not fantastic. As is the case in any league, there are some dominant pitchers and some who are more hittable. To hit .300 or .350 in the AWCBA is still quite an accomplishment, he said.
He has confidence the team will perform well when the games start. They won’t be at the top, but they won’t be at the bottom either, he said, predicting a regular season finish in the upper middle part of the standings.
“We don’t run as fast, chase down flies or beat out infield singles like we used to, but we’ll do fine,” he said. “We won’t embarrass ourselves.”
