It looked painful just to walk, but Gueph Royals first baseman Josh Garton just didn’t want to leave Saturday’s Intercounty Baseball League championship series game at Hastings Stadium.
Deep down he knew he had to and as he left the game, he embraced many of his teammates on an emotional jog back to the Guelph dugout.
“You know, he had struck out the at bat before,” Royals manager Dino Roumel said. “I had said to Sean Travers and Paul Ante that if he (Garton) gets on base I’ll pinch run for him and have the fans acknowledge the fact that he's playing so hurt and he's such a huge impactful guy in the city when it comes to baseball. I just wanted to make sure that he got recognized for it and I thought that was the best way to do it. You know, have him go out on the field and walk off in front of everybody and have all his teammates congratulate him on a great season and playing the way he did as injured as he was. I'll do anything for my players and I want them to get the recognition they deserve without question.”
And Garton got cheers from Royals and Barrie Baycats fans alike for his effort this season, especially in the final when he was obviously in pain.
“It's bleak, hip flexor, groin,” Garton said. “We're not 100 per cent sure, but feeling-wise, throwing=wise, it was great, but every time I took a swing, it felt like my insides were tearing apart. It's the only unfortunate thing that I couldn't put on full swings, especially in the last series here. You know, I toughed it out during that Welland series, but I have no idea why it just massively flared up.”
The Baycats fans made the trek down from Barrie to hopefully see their favourite team hoist the IBL’s Dominico Trophy as champions of the league. They got their wish as the Baycats tripled the Royals 6-2 to complete the four-game sweep of the locals in the best-of-seven final. A Royal flush, the Baycats supporters were calling it.
Barrie batters struck for 13 hits while the Royals had 10. The Baycats left nine on base while the Guelph side left 10.
For the Royals, they took little immediate solace from the fact that they did play in the championship series and that they had won a playoff series, two actually, for the first time since they won the league title in 2004.
“Our goal wasn't to get here, though,” Roumel said. “Our goal was to win. But I'm proud of the way we played. We just got beat by a team that played better baseball than us. I think we scored one run in 27 innings. We didn't score, we were in the scoring position. We didn't execute defensively. They did a great job offensively. They just had great at bats and their pitching staff did a great job against us. So, you know, it was a situation where we just got beat. It's not like we played awful. We just got beat by a better team.”
For all purposes, the Game 2 loss at Hastings Stadium when the Royals stranded 15 in losing 3-0 was the pivotal game of the series.
“It really was,” Roumel said. “You know, Game 1 we were out of it and we came back and it showed the resiliency of our team. And then we lost in extra innings, but we put up a great fight and we had a lot of momentum going into Game 2 coming home. And we had some great opportunities. And again, you leave 15 guys on base. But it wasn't just 15. It was actually more. We had two guys make a bad base-running decision. So, you know, it could have been 17 or 18. And when you have that many walks and seven stolen bases -- you look at the numbers and you can't get out and score. I think that was a real pivotal turn in the series.
“When we went back (to Barrie for Game 3) and again they jump out to a lead. And we had the bases loaded and we didn't score again. Then it's almost like facing a hot goaltender in the playoffs, right? You're clenching the bat too tight. There's certain parts of the game that you want to be relaxed and we weren't because we were trying to force the issue because things weren't going our way.”
For Garton, he completed the season lamenting another campaign that ended with him nursing an injury or two or three.
“It seems like I always end the year on injury right now, the last couple of years,” he said.
The power-hitting Guelph native is 36, but feels older.
“I feel like I'm 60,” he said. “It's putting a toll on me, the amount of games I played when I was playing pro, and the work that I do in construction and then also trying to play here. It's just long days, sleep deprived, and you know, I'm burning the candle at both ends.”
Garton had a pretty streaky season as he started with seven homers in 10 games, then never hit another one in the regular season. However, he found his homer swing when the playoffs began and he ended up clouting five more in the post-season.
“It was a good start,” he said.
And when the home runs disappeared, stolen bases showed up as Garton stole seven in the season, every one of them after his seventh homer.
“You get on base, you gotta do something, you know,” he said. “If the home runs weren't coming, you had to help the team try and win a game whichever way you could. You gotta be aggressive on the base paths, but know your opportunity to steal. If you're not hitting home runs, you gotta help your team win in a different way.”
No player in the league appeared to have more fun than Garton. He’d sprint to first whenever he was walked, talked to any opponent who ended up at first base with a hit, walk or was hit by a pitch. And he’d often join the kids when they ran the bases in the fifth inning of home games.
“If you're not having fun, what do you have? You know what I mean? I'm just there and I try and be the most humble, fun, spirited, joyful person out there because these games are limited,” he said. “And that's basically how it feels right now.”
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