‘Rebuilding’ Wildcats experience growing pains

The Kentville senior Wildcats are off to their worst start in many years: a 3-12 record in the Nova Scotia Senior Baseball League entering play this Wednesday.

The Wildcats have not played all that badly - several of their losses have been by one or two runs - but more than anything, their lack of overall success has been due to an inability to come up with hits at key times.

This kind of thing, not surprisingly, tends to be symptomatic of a team in the midst of a rebuilding process.

Some might argue Kentville isn't really “rebuilding” because it's gradual instead of all at once but, the truth is, the Wildcats have been “rebuilding” for the past several years - and, to their credit, have done so and stayed relatively competitive.

The Wildcats have managed to integrate new, younger players into the mix to the point where, in any given game, there can be four or five players under the age of 25 in the lineup: Wildcat starters June 20 against Halifax included Kevin Benjamin catching, Ryan Brothers at second base, Nick Hill at third base, Rob Shepherd in centre field and 17-year-old Alex Tufts as the starting pitcher.

When an “era team” begins to reach the end of its time together - and that is where the Wildcats find themselves at present - there are bound to be growing pains as older, established players are replaced with younger ones. It happened to the Wildcats in the late ‘80s, when the Youngs, Oakleys and VanBlarcoms began to call it a career; and it's happening again now.

Many long-time followers of the Wildcats would probably tell you there was a time they had doubts Kentville would ever replace the likes of Bill Young, Bob Oakley, Sandy VanBlarcom, Peter Goucher or Ian Mosher in his prime. Make no mistake, the core group that has made up the bulk of the Wildcats' roster over the past 10 years or so has, in my opinion, been just as much an “era group” as the Wildcats of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s.

I never had the chance to see the 1977-1987 Wildcats play, but I'm told they were the most talented and most successful team in the league. They didn't always win, but they were almost always at or near the top of the standings.

Unlike those Kentville teams, the Wildcat squads of, say, the past 10 or 12 years have never been the most talented or the most successful. That distinction has to be given to Dartmouth which, since 1990, has won 13 of 17 league titles as well as numerous national medals.

At the same time, only three teams other than Dartmouth have won NSSBL titles since 1990. The Wildcats, who won back-to-back championships in 1999 and 2000, are the only team to do it more than once.

I'm not too concerned with the here and now of the Wildcats. Once the current younger players hit their stride, the team will be fine.

I am, however, a bit concerned about the future. There just doesn't seem to be the commitment to baseball.

Part of that is the competition from other sports like soccer, but that's not the reason there isn't a junior baseball team in Kentville this summer - a vital part of consistently fielding competitive teams at the senior level. I know junior age players are busy with a lot of things, including education and jobs, but the ongoing commitment to the sport is a big part of what forged Kentville's long baseball tradition. It would be a shame to see that lost.