Another “A” for All-Star Saturday

For many years now, All-Star Saturday has been one of the very best highlights of the baseball season for the AAHA.  Players, coaches and parents eagerly awaited the 2014 edition of the Mosquito Skills Competition and All-Star Game. The only thing that failed to live up to the hype was the weather!  And even that wasn’t so bad!  The rain mostly held off, giving the players the chance to show off some outstanding skills and talent.

More than 120 Mosquito players and hundreds more family and friends gathered at Lions Park for All-Star Saturday. Every player was entered to compete in at least one of 5 events in the Skills Competition. In the team events, the Pirates won the “Round the Horn” throwing relay while the Blue Jays took the Baserunning Relay.  (Full list of medalists to be published soon.)  In the individual competitions, Jack Taylor of the Nationals was impressive in winning the Catcher’s Throw competition.  Ronan Sexton of the Orioles took 2nd and Conner Krahn took 3rd for the Braves. Trey Smith of the Blue Jays won his 2nd consecutive Home Run Derby, taking the title over strong challenges from Jack Niell of the Dodgers and Quenton Kobes of the Royals. The most closely fought competition was the Fastest Pitch. Brady Fehlauer of the Mariners took 3rd, while Dakota Janzen of the Orioles and Micah Bucknam of the Jays had to go to mulitple overtime rounds to settle it.  Ultimately Micah prevailed and took the 2014 Fastest Pitch title.

The 2014 Mosquito All-Star game followed.   It was an exciting affair with some outstanding pitching, defence and hitting all taking turns in the spotlight. The American League prevailed, led by the MVP performance of Trey Smith, who went three for three with three doubles at the plate. Jack Taylor was outstanding in a losing cause and was named National League MVP for the game. The M’s Levi Kropp was named the Most Sportsmanlike Player. There were many notable performances, as you would expect from an All-Star game, but special mention also needs to go to Aiden Cuttrell of the Braves, who was a Commissioner’s Selection and turned in a solid performance.   The game was hard fought, with the American League winning by a score of 9-6.

An event as wonderful as this doesn’t happen without a lot of people working hard behind the scenes on the day and in the weeks leading up to it.  Thanks to all the parents who helped out and made it a fun and memorable day for the kids. Thanks, as always, to all the coaches, who give up so much of their time for the benefit of the players.  And an especially big thanks goes to Richard Rabinovitch, who once again was the Chair of the Organizing Committee.  Richard put in countless hours to spearhead the organization of this event and he did an outstanding job!  Finally, thanks and congratulations to all the players!  All-Star Saturday is a chance to show off the many great things about baseball, with great skill, sportsmanship, team work and competitiveness on display.  Best of all, the smiles on the faces of the players demonstrated that they were having fun, which in the end is what it is really all about.