Ellingham Finally Rested, Game 5 May Now Resume

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Earlier today, the NCBL announced the suspended Tier 4 Championship game between the Rideau Valley Reapers and the Orleans Mavericks will resume this Sunday after an unprecedented 10-day mid-game layoff.

The first 4 outs of the deciding Game 5 took place all the way back on Wednesday, October 13th.  The visiting Old Sox were up 3-1 on the Ferda Baseball Club with one out in the bottom of the 1st, at which point the game was stopped due to “poor field conditions”.  In the regular season, the game would’ve been postponed and restarted from the beginning, but because of some shenanigans in a Cubs-Athletics playoff game a couple years ago, this game was officially suspended, not cancelled.

Common sense tells us this game should’ve been continued at the next available opportunity, which sources deep within the Beelen Administration say could’ve been the very next day at either Sportsplex or Kinsmen, but for whatever reason that never happened.  If I had to take a shot in the dark, I’d guess the Reapers wanted to wait until Game 2 & 4 winner Brendan Ellingham was fully rested didn’t have enough available players.  I’m not sure which Tier President was overseeing this series, but I know it wasn’t Brian Samuel, no way he puts up with this for that long ??‍⚖️.

After nearly a week of unsuccessful negotiations, we were at a standstill and the SweatSox accurately reported that declaring both teams “co-champions” was being discussed.  The NCBL, furious that this potential scenario was leaked to the media, finally put their foot down and demanded both teams get back to the bargaining table, aka E-mail chain, STAT.

It was a contentious back & forth, but eventually the Mavericks agreed to wait until Ellingham was fully cocked, locked, and ready to unload; and in exchange the Reapers would allow the Mavs to retroactively add their former Tier 3 MVP Jeremy Pluym to their roster, and let him pitch the rest of the game.  So we had an agreement in principle, we just needed a ballroom for this dance.

The usual diamonds weren’t an option, as the City of Ottawa fields had long closed for the season, and the NCBL does not practice or play games on a closed field.

Unrelatedly: there will be NO NCBL Fall Ball in 2021.

While looking for a venue, the league realized they could kill 2 birds with 1 stone. (Note: the SweatSox do not condone the killing of birds by stones). They could schedule the game in Winchester, the closest available/open “field”, while simultaneously debunking the crackpot conspiracy that the league doesn’t want to pay the umpires, by paying them the usual travel premium to go there!  The money is so good Umpire-in-Chief Mark Keeping may actually assign himself to this game (actually, it’s not that good).

The Mavericks and Reapers should be happy this game is only in Winchester, if the league really wanted to mess with them they would’ve sent them somewhere even more silly, like Cornwall, Kingston, or Brewer.

So here we go. This Sunday, we #finishthegame and get the true champion we deserve, unless Ellingham gets hurt at work or something between now and then, and then we do this all over again in November or December, or whenever he’s cleared to play.

Good luck to both teams; I, Shaun Keay, will not be there cause you know, it’s Winchester, but you’ll all be in my thoughts.

PREDICTION: Reapers 13 – Mavericks 3.

✌?

Yours,

Shaun Keay