Day 242: Ultimate Mondays

As if a weekend full of softball wasn't enough, there's also the usual Ultimate Monday, although this game would be the closer for the summer season.  More after the break.

Day 241: Community

The end of the line: CCSA finals.  Had you asked me at the beginning of the season whether or not this team was going to make it all the way, I'd have answered no given the new influx of player.  However it seems the exact opposite happened, and the good chemistry between the younger and older players were certainly a significant contributing factor in the team's success.

Standing in their way though would be the Beatitudes, the veteran team from a few weeks back that has consistently been finishing in second place the last few years.  Standing behind Ekklesia though would be the massive ET community, many of whom came out to support their beloved team (as illustrated in the photo below).

In the interests in speeding this up though, I'll spare the gory details and just go on to say that Ekklesia got pulverized.  The team managed to hold their own the first two innings - long enough for the first score update via twitter had them in the lead - but failed to produce any significant results during the mid-game.  A late-game surge did occur with Ekklesia managing to string together a couple of runs together, but by then it was too little too late, as the Beatitudes had already built up a considerable lead.  Below are a few additional frames from the third-base line, where I camped for most of the game.

If you ever look at most second place teams in the sports world, you'll often be met with an array of disappointed faces and tears.  Not the case with Ekklesia.  On the contrary, if you showed up to the field right as the game ended and only had the fan reaction to gauge off of who won, you might've thought that Ekklesia had finished on top. 

Despite the loss, the Ekklesia fans erupted in a series of loud cheering and chanting that seemed to go on forever.  Hugs, waving arms, high-fives.  All from a community brought together via their support for one another.  The cheering and such eventually also culminated in a makeshift mosh-put near the dugout.

I barely had time to even fire off a team photo.  LOS issues were preventing good ol' CLS from working out, so I had one severely underexposed photo to work with of just the team (hurray post processing), before the fans literally charged home plate en masse.  Below is the result.  Organized chaos, but to be honest I don't think I'd have it any other way.

And yet, after all was said and done.  There lay an empty field.  Albert Kong and I were the last ones to leave.  Another season over, as we left the lights at Wigmore Park one last time for the summer.

Day 240: Swinging For The Fences

T'was the last CCSA weekend of the summer.  A double-header the "only" thing standing in the way between Ekklesia and a shot at the finals. 

Unlike the previous week, the weather decided to be cooperative with nothing but clear skies and bright sunshine, which meant for a dry field no fear of a sudden downpour drenching my equipment at the hands of Mother Nature (I suppose someone could still empty their cooler or water bottle on me).Both opposing teams played quite well, and made for some very fun shooting.  The high-noon sunlight seemed to work out pretty well - part of me likes to think that the light-greyness of the gravel helped to fill in some of the shadows caused by said sunlight.  In any case, it made for some very clean shooting.  Hovered around ISO 200 the whole day and managed to maintain 1/800ish to 1/1000th shutter speeds (often times even faster) that I liked, all at f/4.  Both games were pretty seesawish for a few innings, though eventually Ekklesia managed to pull through both games with a fairly decent lead.  With that, they'd be advancing through to the finals - a first for some.

During the lull between the games, the team took some time for an "awards ceremony" in which every member of the team was handed a certificate (such as the one with team member Hazel and her niece Noriko) highlighting some sort of an inside joke or reference during the season.  Work on the certificates was spearheaded by Grace and John.  They were also kind enough to make one for me as well, much to my amusement.  Hurray for the "My camera is worth more than my butt" award! :~)  

Lots o' sun, lots o' photos too.  Shot around 650 frames on the day, condensed to a little under 200.  As there are way more photos than I could possibly write about, I shall keep this post condensed and leave you with a bunch of photos throughout the day.

Day 238: Practice Thursday

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/2.8, 1/30, ISO 1600)

The last Practice Thursday post for the year.  It's been a good run, and a long one at that.  The usual practice with folks going over their drills and some such.  Once again, I shifted towards doing some video stuff rather than shotguning in more photos than I really needed to have (I promise I'll get around to editing that soon).

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ ~200mm, f/4, 1/1600, ISO 200)

Took note of the nice clouds towards the latter end of practice.  Did not take note of my ISO rating.  D'oh.  Well, still looks pretty.

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/2.8, 1/2000, ISO 1600)

Shortly thereafter, we departed Warden Park for the last time this season.  Big weekend posts coming up  soon.

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/2.8, 1/2000, ISO 1600)

Day 235: Ultimate Mondays

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ ~130mm, f/2.8, 1/250, ISO 3200)

First playoff game of the summer season, though it felt like a regular game to me.  As always, games would either be at one of two places, Sunnybrook Park during the evening, or Cherry Beach at night.  You can probably tell where the game took place judging by the picture, or looking at my Aperture/Shutter Speed/ISO settings. ;~)

 (Nikon D60, 35mm DX, f/2, 1/250, ISO 800)

This week's team was a rather interesting bunch.  Tall hulking folks that liked to make long passes and - in the case of a few of them - trick throws.  It was kind of like a "David and Goliath"-esque match up... physically. 

 (Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ ~130mm, f/2.8, 1/250, ISO 3200)

Early on the Quick Dumpers got stung pretty badly by said long passes, but after team captain Lawrence called a time out to outline a solid defense (as pictured above, with Lawrence showing how it's done) the team began to stop the bleeding and start clawing back with a few points.

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ ~130mm, f/2.8, 1/250, ISO 3200)

In the end QD ended up losing, but not before putting on a wicked show of blocks and interceptions.  In my mind, they won, although the scoreboard would disagree with me... but who cares about that right?  Scores are overrated.

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ ~185mm, f/2.8, 1/250, ISO 3200)

Day 234: The Home Stretch

(Nikon D90, 18-55 VR @ 18mm, f/8, 1/500, ISO 800)

This weekend was the first week of playoffs for the CCSA Senior Division.  The first two rounds would be played during this weekend with two divisions playing on Saturday and two more playing on Sunday.  Since Ekklesia finished at the top of their division, they received a bye to the second round of playoffs and thus were only required to play one game out of the whole weekend.  They would be squaring off against Missisauga Chinese Baptist Church Messengers who were able win their first game earlier in the day.

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/4, 1/640, ISO 200)

There was one snag however.  One of the parks - Parkway - got hit hard by the bad weather over the weekend and was pretty much knocked out of commission for the day.  All games scheduled at that park were thus bumped to the park that Ekklesia was playing at, leading to twice the number of games being squeezed into the same amount of time.  Despite the extra hecticness though all teams managed to take it in stride.

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ ~145mm, f/4, 1/800)

If you recognize a familiar face on the other team, then you're correct.  Joanna (above two photos) from Quick Dumpers was playing on Messengers - pitting her against her own church.  All in good fun of course. 

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ ~82mm, f/4, 1/800)

For the most part Ekklesia managed to keep things under control for most of the game, though the Messengers did rally during one of the later innings in which they scored six of their seven runs.  Quite the inning where everything seemed to go right for them, including some big hits, nice runs, and capitalizing on some Ekklesia errors.

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ 70mm, f/4, 1/800)

After that inning though, Ekklesia managed to stop the bleeding and rebuild on their lead, eventually winning the game.  Good time was had by all, and there was a ton of support from ETCBC too.  Afterwards most of the team as well as several of the fans headed off to our beloved season-long pub: The Owl and Firkin.  

A good start to the playoffs.  On paper the playoff road favoured Ekklesia going to the finals, but of course no one was taking anything for granted.  Still, a win meant that the season was extended at least one more week for the team meaning that you, the reader get at least one more weekend's worth of softball blogging.  

More to come.

Day 233: United

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/2.8, 1/1600, ISO 200)

Lazy Saturday.  Headed out to the nearby CCSA diamond to catch a game that Themelios was umpiring.  Also playing was TCAC United, a team whom I shot for the season prior. 

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/2.8, 1/2500, ISO 200)

Didn't really shoot much during the game.  Left the house light, with only a 35mm and D90 in a small shoulder bag and periodically ripped some frames from the first base side of home plate.  Kept mostly on the low, pretty much chatting with Elijah in-between innings.

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/2.8, 1/640, ISO 200)

Was interesting to watch United.  Though most of the team remained the same as last year, it looks like they've spent a lot of time honing their skills.  Plays were smoother, and hitting - especially from their girls - a lot more consistent.  Below are a few more frames from the day.

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/2.8, 1/800, ISO 200)

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/2.8, 1/400, ISO 200)

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/4, 1/125, ISO 200)

Headed out to dinner with some of the folks from Themelios afterwards.  Then proceeded to York Mills park with Elijah to catch the very end of a Dunamis game.  Capped off the day with Elijah and JT with some evening gaming.  Great start to the weekend, and it's only going to get better with Ekklesia playoffs scheduled for the next day.  More to come!

Day 231: Practice Thursday

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/2.8, 1/50, ISO 1600)

Thursday as usual, though not as many pictures.  Decided to give shooting some video a shot and wound up spending most of practice locked down on a tripod.  Though far from being perfect, it's fun to toy around with manual focus and shallow depth of field.  Now if only the D90 had a dedicated microphone input...

Video still in the raw stages.  Probably won't be getting around to it for a couple of weeks.  More to come soon.

Day 228: No Ultimate Monday

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ 92mm, f/4, 1/320, ISO 800)

No Ultimate this week, as opposing team defaulted.  Well, at least the Quick Dumpers win! :)  So... not much to talk about.  Just hung around with them as they did drills (I was not aware of there being a game until I got to the park).  One point of interest though was the kite eating tree shown above.  Sorta reminded me of the one in all those Charlie Brown cartoons.  

Good times.  More to come.

Day 226: The Beatitudes

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ 145mm, f/3.5, 1/640, ISO 1600)

This is it.  The final game of the regular season... after the break.

Day 224: Sara Chan Thursday

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ ~200mm, f/4, 1/800, ISO 200)

It's actually Practice Thursday... with a twist!  Sara Chan came back!  Who's this you might ask?  Well, in her own words she'd describe her self as:

She is Sara Chan, and she plays catcher. 

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ 160mm, f/4, 1/400, ISO 400)

Ekklesia's top-notch catcher left the team towards the end of the season last year, to go teach English in China.  She was back in town and decided to drop by (rather unexpectedly for most of us) during practice.  Woot!  The good news is, she would be around for the next two weeks.  The bad news was that she'd be leaving again for another year to resume teaching. 

Despite having not playedsoftball for over a year, she seemed to grasp things together pretty quickly, once again taking the field in the position that made her famous: catcher.  Just another practice, made a little bit more special by her presence.  Alas, at the time of this post, she is probably back in China where internet access is somewhat restricted, so she may not read this post for quite some time.  Hopefully, we'll see her on the field in the next few years!  It's hard to replace a spirited player like her.

Meanwhile, also hung around shooting the infielders as they went through a drill on dealing with short grounders.  Pretty much sat in the same position and just ripped bursts as they went through the motions.  Some pretty interesting results, to say the least.  Photos below:

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ ~140mm, f/4, 1/500, ISO 400)

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ 130mm, f/3.5, 1/400, ISO 500)

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ 145mm, f/4, 1/400, ISO 500)

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ 160mm, f/3.2, 1/500, ISO 640)

Both infield and outfield were drilling pretty hard in preparation for this Saturday, in which Ekklesia's rescheduled game was due to take place against the long-time CCSA veterans from Bridle Trail Baptist Church (BTBC - That's right, the same church as Themelios!) Beatitudes.  More on that soon!