Westlock’s senior men’s baseball team, the Grey Lions, are set to suit up for the 2015 Alberta West Central Baseball Association season.
The team, which is comprised of players 30 and over, is celebrating its fifth season in the league and is looking for its fourth-straight league title. Grey Lions co-manager, Keith Szautner, said his team is eager to take the field May 7 to defend their 2014 league championship.
“The guys seems pretty keen,” Szautner. “We’re the three-time defending champs, so I guess we’re trying to repeat that.”
With many of his players returning from last year’s championship-winning squad, Szautner said he’s confident in the roster.
“Currently we’ve got about 16 or 17 guys on the roster, so it looms like we’ve got a full slate,” he said. “It’s pretty-much a full roster with everybody coming back from last year.”
The majority of the Grey Lions previously played together with the Red Lions of the North Central Alberta Baseball League, meaning players have a lot of familiarity with each other, and a lot of baseball knowledge.
“We call ourselves the old Red Lions and I’d say 95 per cent of these guys used to play for the Red Lions when they were younger, so they know baseball,” Szautner said. “We have about five or six former Red Lions managers, so we have a lot of baseball knowledge in the dugout. It’s a lot of fun to get together with the guys.”
While the team likes to be competitive on the field, playing baseball together is also, and most importantly, good fun.
“All the guys really enjoyed hanging out when we were younger and a lot of those guys are back together again giving it another run now that we’ve gotten older and matured,” Szautner said. “The baseball is a lot of fun, but hanging with the guys again, it leads to success most of the time … we’re pretty confident in what we can do and if we do it, great, if not oh well.”
Over the course of the season Szautner said the Grey Lions would like to see fans pack the stands.
“We would love to see as many people come out as possible,” he said.
Their first home game of the season goes May 12 at 6:45 p.m. as they host the Edmonton Blues at Keller Field.
