On the night of Aug. 25 at Westminster Park, the hometown Lac St. Louis Cardinals had just defeated the visiting Lanaudière Riverains 5-4 to even their best-of-five peewee minor (first-year players) Montreal Metropolitan Baseball League final series at two games apiece. Many Riverains players’ parents who had been watching the game from the sidelines were visibly upset. They felt their team been cheated by so-called ‘hometown’ calls by the two young umpires, both of whom were midget-level players for the Lakeshore-Trois Lacs Yankees. Several of the Riverains parents then tried to physically attack the two umpires, officials said. However, Robert Litvack, vice-president for inter-city baseball for Dollard baseball, along with the game’s scorekeeper, got in between the angry parents and the two umpires. Litvack said he was physically pinned up against a fence, but suffered no harm. After a lengthy stretch of time, the group dispersed.
“Stuff came out of those parents’ mouths I hadn’t heard in 20 years,” said Cardinals head coach Terry Roberts. “Some were yelling racial slurs against Anglos and Jews. Some had been drinking, as we found a whole bunch of beer cans on the ground afterward. They then said, ‘just wait until we get back to our home park for the next game. We’ll take care of you. We know where you park your cars.’ It continued to be nasty for quite a while, before the parents eventually left.”
Out of fear for his own players and their parents’ safety, Roberts decided it would
be best to cancel game five, scheduled for the next afternoon in Mascouche, and re-
schedule it for a later date at a neutral site. He decided to notify league officials as such, but the league refused, insisting game five be played as scheduled. With Roberts sticking to his guns, game five — and the championship — was forfeited to the Riverains by a score of 6-0.
Roberts has filed an appeal to Baseball Quebec on the ruling, and is still waiting to hear an answer. If Baseball Quebec rules in his favour, game five would have to re-played sometime in the near future.翿
Incident mars recent inter-city baseball game
Incident mars recent inter-city baseball game
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Published on
September 5, 2007
- Published on February 6, 2010
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Michael Piasetzki
The West Island Chronicle
Post-game brouhaha features racial slurs, physical and verbal taunting by visiting parents
BY MICHAEL PIASETZKI An incident involving visiting team players’ parents marred the conclusion of a recently held inter-city baseball game in Dollard des Ormeaux.
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