Lightning can strike long before it starts raining! In fact, many lightning strike victims are hit before rain begins. Lightning can strike over 10 miles away from a thunderstorm, so action needs to be taken before the wet weather arrives.
Whenever thunder is heard or lightning is seen, there is a risk present and play should be suspended. The field should be evacuated immediately.
Players, Managers/Coaches, Umpires and spectators should take shelter in a fully enclosed building that has plumbing and electricity. If this isn’t an option, seek shelter in a hard-topped vehicle with the windows up. While in the vehicle, don’t touch anything metal, or any electronics.
Everyone should wait at least 30 minutes after the last flash of lightning or clap of thunder before returning to the field.
To all potential new umpires. We will be hiring approximately 12-15 new umpires this year. You must be 14 years or older in 2021 and have a general knowledge of baseball and attend a clinic in late April (date to be determined). To apply for consideration please send your name, age, phone number and email contact to: paull@starship.ca.
Orleans Little League Baseball is operated entirely by VOLUNTEERS. The League relies on the efforts of over 150 volunteers each year to ensure the organization runs smoothly.
Kindly consider giving your time to Little League this season. Volunteer today!
All volunteers, whether it’s your first time with OLLB or you have volunteered previously must fill out the 2021 Volunteer Form.
Please see below for key information related to the 2021 Baseball Season. OLLB continues to work with Ottawa Public Health and the appropriate levels of government, to ensure a safe season. As we learn more about the upcoming season we will post updates here and through social media channels. Before registering we encourage you to read the information below.
2021 Season OLLB is planning for a normal baseball season in which we plan to offer, Spring, Summer and Fall. At this time only registration for the Spring Season is open. To register you must login to LeagueGM. To get to LeagueGM click here. Information on Summer and Fall will be made available as we know more about their timelines.
Start of Season OLLB is planning for a mid-May start to the season. As in previous years, the start of the season is greatly influenced by the weather we have during early spring and weather fields are ready for play. In addition, we anticipate that the start of the season could be impacted by COVID regulations and therefore the official start date and opening of fields will be co-ordinated with the City of Ottawa and Ottawa Public Health.
Levels of Play OLLB is planning to offer all levels of play, registration is open for T-ball, Coach Pitch, Minor, Major, Junior, Senior, U19 and Challenger.
Fees OLLB is happy to advise that we have held all playing fees to the 2020 levels.
Game Play For the 2020 season games were played with modified rules. The 2021 official rules for game play are still under review with respect to COVID safety protocols in consultation with the City of Ottawa and Ottawa Public Health.
Sort Outs For the 2021 season sort-outs will not be done indoors and will be done outside and later in April/early May. Additional information will be sent regarding sortouts as we get closer to the start of the season.
Questions For additional information regarding the season, please contact Cynthia Beaudin, OLLB Registrar at orleansbaseballregistrar@gmail.com
Registration Information Age Determination & Fees Levels of play are set by Little League International. Visit the League Age Calculator to determine your child’s level of play for the 2021 season.
Baseball Canada media/public relations coordinator Adam Morissette, shown here as a young catcher, was fortunate to have former NHLer Lou Nistico as his baseball coach in Orleans, Ont., in 1994. Photo: Adam Morissette
December 9, 2020
By Adam Morissette
Canadian Baseball Network
“Love is the most important thing in the world, but baseball is pretty good, too.”
Yogi Berra
My Little League Coach from 1994, Lou Nistico, passed away suddenly on November 27 and I wanted to write about his influence on a 12-year-old kid who loved nothing more than competing with his friends on sandlots in the Ottawa area, enjoying a game that would shape my future.
I’m extremely fortunate to make my living today working in the game of baseball and having people like Lou who helped me foster a love for the sport through their own passion and love for the game.
Since his passing, many tributes, and rightfully so, detailing Lou’s contributions to the hockey world have poured in, including a tweet from current Toronto Maple Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe from their time in the Central Canada Hockey League (CCHL) together.
But I’m writing today to explain Lou’s ties to the baseball community here in Ottawa and his influence on dozens of players, including me, in Ottawa’s east-end, Orleans, in the 1990s.
A huge fan of the New York Yankees, Lou represented Canada for his hometown of Thunder Bay, Ont., at the Big League World Series in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in 1970, just days before reporting to the London Knights training camp for his rookie season in the Ontario Hockey Association.
Lou went on to an extremely successful junior hockey career with the Knights, becoming a crowd favourite where he earned the nickname “Leapin’ Lou.”
After a pro hockey career that included 186 games in the World Hockey Association and three games with the NHL’s Colorado Rockies in 1977-78, Lou settled in Ottawa with his family in 1984 where he began to lay roots in the region that he called home for the last 36 years.
With hockey taking precedent for Lou and son Justin with one of the most successful minor hockey teams in Ottawa’s history, the Cumberland Barons “79” squad in the winter months, the Nistico’s turned their attention towards baseball in the summers with a program on the rise, the Orleans Little League Red Sox.
After Justin and the Red Sox “Major All-Stars” brought Orleans its first provincial championship and subsequent Canadian championship appearance in 1990 (won by future MLB All-Star Jason Bay and Trail, BC) Lou took over the 11-and-12 year-old squad in 1991 and so began a string of six consecutive District 6 championships for Orleans that included three straight appearances in the Ontario final from 1992 to 1994 with an Ontario championship in 1993.
Justin moved on from the Major division after the ‘91 season, but Lou kept on coaching other people’s kids because he loved it and they loved him for it. He loved being around the game, the families that came with it and teaching life lessons through baseball like hard work, commitment, what it meant to work towards a goal, competing, failing and learning from those failures. But most of all, he taught us to have fun, respect your teammates, coaches and respect the game itself. Because at the end of the day, that’s what baseball was and always should be for a 12-year-old, just a game.
The season before I made the Major Red Sox, Lou led the squad to an Ontario championship on home soil at Gardenway Park in Orleans in 1993 where they defeated LaSalle Turtle Club in front of hundreds of local fans. I knew right then and there where I wanted to be the next summer.
Did I mention that Lou was scared of flying? He drove the entire 10 plus hours to the Canadian championships in Saint John, N.B., from Ottawa that summer while the rest of the squad flew.
It was an all-star team on the field in ‘93 and they had an all-star coaching staff to go with it including former Ottawa 67’s star and NHL’er Peter Lee handling the assistant coach duties while Lou was the manager. Imagine having two former pro hockey players as your Little League coaches? Amazing!
The squad got out to a 3-0 record in Saint John but lost its last two round robin games to finish third while a team from Lynn Valley, BC won the national crown and represented Canada in Williamsport at the Little League World Series.
Orleans was led on the field in ‘93 by future Los Angeles Dodgers’ draft pick (selected by legendary Canadian scout Claude Pelletier in 1998) Marc-André Lagacé who took the ball every second game (pitch count restrictions were virtually non-existent in those days) and overpowered hitters from the left side while swinging a mean stick as the Red Sox three-hole hitter.
I knew I stood a good chance of making the all-star squad in 1994 and indoor workouts started in school gyms during the winter months before we hit the field at the beginning of May.
If you didn’t know Lou and were a young hopeful to play for him, you were intimidated by the man who had a presence when he came to the ballpark. I quickly learned that it was all business when we were on the field with Lou and if he didn’t like something he would let you know about, in fact, he’d likely let everyone know about it, parents and whoever else was in earshot included!
But behind the rough exterior was a man who cared deeply about all his players. He believed in outworking your competition, repetition and being prepared for your opponents.
Adam Morissette, third from the right in top row, played for the Orleans Major Red Sox in 1994 coached by former WHA and NHL hockey player Lou Nistico (top row, first on left). Photo: Adam Morissette
We were the envy of other teams in the city with legit, button-up jerseys (a rarity at the time!) and all of the top-of-the-line equipment including brand-new, white Louisville TPX bats that Lou bought himself prior to the season.
We had a swagger to us knowing that we could win every game we played and reeled off 44 wins and just 4 losses that summer.
We backed that attitude up with hard work and that was a direct result of Lou’s commitment to us and our commitment to him and the team. We practised from 9 a.m. to noon everyday at Gardenway Park and often played games in the evenings. When Lou’s van rolled up to the field for practice, players would sprint to the vehicle to unload equipment or the whole team would be running laps before a ball was taken out of the bag.
When we faced Marco Disalvo from Canterbury Little League and his 70 mph fastball in the District championships, Lou brought in a 19-year-old to throw us heaters for batting practice from the 46 foot Little League pitching distance. We were playing for keeps because Lou was and we were having a blast doing it.
We breezed through the district playdowns that year with my best buddy Mark Bunker dominating at the plate and on the mound while I caught all of our games. Our team was tight, best buddies who spent days and weeks at a time together.
It was off to Dundas, Ont., for the Ontario championships where it was a three-headed monster of Orleans, LaSalle Turtle Club featuring one-time Junior National Team player and future Baltimore Orioles draft pick Ryan Brnardic, and Toronto’s High Park who had future pro and Canadian Olympian Jonathan Lockwood as their ace. In fact, Lockwood had dominated us two seasons prior in leading High Park to the Ontario Minor (9/10) crown.
Lou had us ready and made sure all of the players were comfortable with our billet families before the tournament started. We hit BP on a backfield before each game and walked over to the game field as a team ready for action.
I can still recall pregame in-and-outs where Lou was a surgeon with the fungo bat, never missing while hitting lasers to infielders in setting a tone for our team as the ball zipped around the field for 10 minutes.
He had us ready and we responded after an early tournament loss to Brnardic and the Turtle Club by coming through the “losers” bracket in the double elimination tournament to face High Park and the task of beating them twice.
Lou kept our focus. I know it’s a cliché, but one win at a time, one pitch at a time was what he stressed. When all of our parents were literally pulling their hair out in the stands each game, it was Lou who guided us with a calm hand, never letting the moment get too big in front of us.
Bunker pitched masterfully in the first game of the final as we squeaked out a 4-3 win to force the deciding game but it was Lockwood who dominated that contest as High Park took the Ontario crown in a one-sided victory.
We were broken as kids, but it was Lou and our assistant coach and fellow Thunder Bay native Lyle Stencer who kept things light, because, as you know, it’s just a game.
Lou went on to coach the Major Red Sox for two more seasons that included two more trips to the Ontario championships before ending his Orleans Little League coaching career with the Junior (13 year old) Red Sox in 1997.
A family man, you’d have to think that Lou’s favourite memory in baseball took place at that Junior age group in 1992 when as a parent he watched son Justin win a national championship at home in Orleans when they took down powerhouse Glace Bay, N.S., the previous year’s representative in Williamsport, for the Canadian title and a trip to the Junior Little League World Series in Taylor, Mich. Orleans Little League’s first national title was led by another local coaching legend in the late Louis Riopelle while an undersized left-hander named Erik Bédard pitched beyond his years on the mound.
Lou Nistico (left) is pictured here with his assistant coach Lyle Stencer. Photo: Adam Morissette
I lost touch with Lou over time but ran into him a couple years ago at a local hockey rink where he was scouting and I was bringing my then six-year-old to hockey lessons. He didn’t recognize me at first (it had been over 20 years!), but after saying my name it quickly became old times with Lou asking what I was up to while also asking how my family and parents were doing.
I’m sure I speak on behalf of many former Orleans Little Leaguers and their families as I offer my condolences to Lou’s kids Lori-Anne, Justin and Niki along with his eight grandchildren, according to many his pride and joy.
Now that I’m a parent and youth sports coach myself, I realize that it’s not the wins and losses that matter, it’s the memories, the life skills learned and most importantly the people you meet along the way that matter most. Lou was one of those key influencers in my childhood and I hope I can pay him back by being that person to someone else.
I hope this message finds you all well. As you may have guessed, this recent lockdown has delayed the start of our season and more importantly left many questions unanswered as to what we can accomplish this year.
I can tell you that we have every intention on having a ball season this year. As much as we would have liked to have spring and summer programs, due to this recent delay, we are likely just looking at having one season which will run from July into mid/late August.
With this in mind, we are looking at starting modified sort outs between mid June and the beginning of July to get all teams set for play.
We have been working hard with Baseball Ontario (our governing body), Little League Canada, Ottawa Public Health, other leagues in the city to ensure a safe return to play and a successful season.
Please stay tuned for further direction, as more information will be released in the near future.
Hello families and participants of Orléans Little League Baseball,
I hope this message finds you all well. This pandemic has taken a toll on alot of businesses, activities, schools, and individuals in general. Unfortunately, as you may have guessed, we will be unable to start our Spring season in the next couple weeks. This is due to lockdown protocols put in place by the Ontario Government and Ottawa Public Health. With this news, and information from the City of Ottawa parks and recreation department, we are hoping to have league access to fields by the end of May. Therefore we are anticipating starting up fully by the second week in June at the latest. Should circumstances change, we will be sending out an appropriate message. It is our every intention to have baseball this Spring/Summer. We are working very hard with the other organizations in the city to ensure we are following protocols across the board, and enhancing them where neccessary. Should you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact us. Thank you for your patience and understanding.
1. The OLLB Education Scholarship is designed to assist OLLB players and ex-players with educational expenses and to promote the OLLB as an organization which fully supports the combination of sports and advanced education. The scholarship has a value of $500.00 and is paid from interest earned on OLLB reserve funds.
2. Monies which were transferred to OLLB in trust from the Hitmen Baseball Club on its demise will fund a second identical scholarship, entitled the Hitmen Baseball Club Education Scholarship.
3. It is anticipated that the two scholarships will be awarded each year, capital permitting. To be eligible to receive a scholarship, applicants must meet the eligibility criteria outlined below.
ELIGIBILITY
4. The following are the criteria for Applicants to be eligible for an OLLB Scholarship:
a) Applicants must be have been Player Members of OLLB for a minimum of two seasons.
b) Applicants must be entering their first year of post-secondary education.
c) Applicants must be enrolled in a university/community college recognized by the Association of Universities or Colleges of Canada (www.aucc.ca) or Association of Canadian Community Colleges (www.accc.ca) . OLLB may also consider first year attendance at a foreign university or college.
APPLICATION
5. The following items make up an application:
a) An official transcript of marks from the most recent or last completed year of education. (40% of total score)
b) A 750 – 1000 word essay on the effects that Little League Baseball had or will have on the applicant, his/her motivation and his/her achievements in life. Essays will be judged on content and presentation (40% of total score)
c) A statement by the applicant explaining why he/she should be awarded the scholarship and discussing his/her goals for future education and career path. This statement will be evaluated on content and presentation (20% of total score).
6. Applications will be accepted up to and no later than December 18, 2020 by email to Manager – Scholarship Program.
Successful candidates will be chosen by the OLLB Board of Directors and notified by telephone from the Board. An award cheque will be presented upon the successful applicant enrolment at a recognized post-secondary institution. Applicants will not be informed of their specific ranking, and the decision of the OLLB Board shall be final. There is no appeal process.
