Over the weekend has seen the yearly Wangaratta Rangers Lucky ticket draw. Once again the busy bees at the baseball club have put on a show second to none. There was plenty of food drink and frivolity had by all in attendance. It was great to see many old and new faces at this years function. This included many past players from years gone by. They still speak with passion for the great game talk fondly about their days playing baseball in the North East. It shows there is still a community out there who love this great game. Thank you for coming out to The Ranch. hope everyone enjoyed themselves.

     For the last few years one of the King Valley’s finest Angus “GusBus” Young has held the mantle of top dog of lucky ticket selling. His ability to sell tickets and the amounts has been unrivaled. Until this year. GusBus still got rid of twenty tickets for the club but has been overtaken by “The Skipper”. Mick Wyatt stepped up and sold over fifty tickets off his own back! A wonderful effort Skipper. It was great to have all the tickets sold before the night. Well done to all who sold tickets for the club.

     It must be said that the Lucky Ticket draw went off without a hitch. This is no small part to the planning, organization and willingness of the members of the club to get in and help out. Everyone who was there last night did their bit. From cooking the barbecue to serving in the bar all night, to helping out on the door, writing numbers down, calling the wheel and keeping the fires going in the wet, every little bit helped for the evening to be the best one yet. The willingness to get in and help out is something that the club should be very proud of. Working together as a club is what it is all about. To all of you out there thank you and well done.

     During the week Brendon “Frenchy” French posted o picture of Rob “Butts” Seymour practicing his coin toss. He was supremely confident of defending his crown at this years event. Unfortunately this year’s field was red hot. There were some very professional coin tossers and Butts was unable to retain his crown. Never mind Butts, better keep practicing.

     Wednesday night last week saw the gents finally get a run on the ground after adverse weather conditions had canceled training in the past few weeks. Once the boys got out there and down to business all looked a little rusty. However new Ranger Alex Gouveia look pretty sharp. He had not played in a couple of years and was looking for a place to have a game and came across the club online and in the newspaper. Welcome Alex. There may be only a few games to go in the season but hope to see you for the rest of the season.

     It has been a tough five weeks for the North Eastern Baseball Association. There has been very little action on the field to report. The weather has been at it’s wintery best, especially over Friday, Saturday and Sundays. Sadly this week like last week and the week before washouts have been par for the course. This has caused much frustration for the boys. However at the end of the day there is nothing that can be done about Mother Nature is there? Hopefully next week for the final round of the season the weather plays nice. All games for the North Eastern Baseball Association final round will be played at Targoora Park Wangaratta.

     Multi-sport aficionado and all round nice guy Dylan “Dylpickle” Cowan invited  Cam “The SOAK” Scott for a round of golf on Saturday. While the wether forecast looked pretty good on Friday morning it certainly changed by Friday night. However Dylpickle assured The SOAK that it does not rain on Saturdays in Wangaratta. The SOAK took Dylans word for it and set off under light rain on Saturday morning. By mind round the rain had settled in for the day much to the displeasure of The SOAK who was saturated. No rain on Saturday’s? Golf is hard enough in the dry but in the rain, a whole new level of difficulty! On a side note Dylan, have a great trip back home.

     The starting field for the 2015 Ranger Ramble to Bendigo has been finalised with a great mix of personalities and characters heading to Bendigo for their annual weekend away. The brains trust of the Double Daniel have been hard at it planning and working out where to stay and where to go. From what this scribe hears it will be a great fun trip with plenty of laughs along the way. AFL Grand Final weekend is when it is. Hopefully the lads can get on the park before the trip to hopefully (or hopefully not) give the trip a little monetary kick along.

     Last week saw round six of the most hotly contested cooking competition in North Eastern Baseball. Dylpickle Cowan put his hand up and served up some very tasty pulled pork rolls. However it was not enough to usurp Dan “The Griff” Griffin from top spot. At this late stage in the competition is there anyone out there who are willing to step up and knock him off the perch? 28 out of 30 is a tough score to beat. Still think there is someone who can top that. If there is throw your hat into the ring and good luck!

• Trip away is AFL Grand Final weekend. See Dan and Dan for more details
• Training Wednesday night from 6pm Targoora Park. All welcome
• Final round games are at Wangaratta come down and have a look
• Follow us on twitter @wangrangers and look us up on team app Wangaratta Rangers oh and Facebook too.
• http://www.wangarattarangers.baseball.com.au
• Presentation date is to be confirmed
• Well done Pres Spinner and Kev Pool on all the work they do. it appreciated by all.
• Thanks to all our sponsors for your support.

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Oh and most importantly

Go Rangers