Greetings and welcome to this weeks edition of Rounding Third. Wow what a weekend the Wangaratta Rangers Baseball Club have had. It all started on Saturday night with the successful running of North Eastern Baseball function of the year; Wangaratta Rangers Silver Circle. The successes continued on into Sunday with The Rangers Black squad a few players down getting over a determined and dogged Benalla Bandits. The end score was not a true reflection of how competitive this game was. The Rangers Orange squad had he week off. Hope they had a nice day on the couch wherever that may have been. Next week It’s finals time at Springdale Heights Lavington. More about that later. What else is news? I hope you keep reading!

     Over the past weekend saw the holding of the annual North Eastern Baseball function of the year; Wangaratta Rangers Lucky Ticket Draw. There was a good crowd in attendance once again and Rob “Butts” Seymour thinks it was was the best one yet. Plenty of fun was had on the microphone, in the coin toss, and of course on the lucky ticket draw. All members of the club chipped in and lent a hand when it was needed. This enabled the night to be another runaway success. The roast beef rolls supplied by Londrigan Butchers was extremely well received. The bar staff led by The Pres Tony “Spinner” Smith were outstanding behind the jump. Now onto next years event where the club will be looking to keep the good vibe of the evening rolling.

     Once the draw was done and dusted, the lights were dimmed and many of the Rangers faithful let their hair down with some very amusing dance moves. Brad “Undies” Murdoch and Cheyne Gilmore were very impressive with their moves to Darude “Sandstorm” which left the crowd cheering for more. Kelsey “Burderonthedancefloor” Burder did not disappoint with his great rendition of Peter Garrett dancing. Very hard to top that. When the Club shut up for the night the Kelsey kept the good vibes rolling by playing Lowrider by War. A classic! Good taste in music Kelsey

     Late on Saturday night when the good folk down at Targoora were having a wow of a time Tetsu “IronChef” Kamiyama appeared out of nowhere! Sadly he missed the end of the draw but was enjoying himself at the wonderful dance moves that were out on the dance floor at Club Targoora Saturday night.

     Last Sunday While the Orange boys had the week off, the Wangaratta Rangers Black squad traveled down to Benalla once more to take on the Benalla Bandits. Benalla’s home ground has held up probably the best in the association this winter and once again thank them for their hospitality in getting a game of baseball in. Rangers Black only had eight players of varying fitness at their disposal after the previous nights festivities down at Targoora Park. However it did not seem to have any effect on the men as they hit and ran and played with greater intensity. They did not have it all their own way as Benalla hit the ball and made Rangers Black earn their win. Travis “Iceman” Frost was so relaxed in the batting box that he sent his bat into orbit over the fence and almost collecting a few spectators with it. For the record it was strike three too.

     Seems to not be a week that goes by that Mick “The Skipper” Wyatt does not seem to get plugged by the ball. It happened twice on the weekend. There is one person who can solely sympathise with him being one Rob “Beaker” Barbour. Beaker can get hit by a ball when not even playing. Try that for luck.

     A couple of weeks ago known Peter Garret fan Kelsey Burder decided to spice things up and bit and thought pitching looked quite easy. So he wrote the team sheet out and started himself on the hill for the Orange squad. After an inning where he failed to achieve an out for 40 minutes Burder decided to throw the ball to The reliable one Jason “Gamer” Jonker . This did not go unnoticed by ranger legend Kevin pool who is his weekly write up in the Wangaratta Chronicle was savage on his thoughts about Burder’s pitching abilities. When asked what he though of KP’s remarks, Kelsey in his usual laconic way said he agreed and Kev did not miss with his opinion that he should stick to catching. Check out last Friday’s edition of the Chronicle for the writeup (5/8/2016)

     The season is done and now two weeks of finals. Rangers Orange will play Porepunkah Panthers at Springdale at 11:30am Sunday while Rangers Black will tackle Wodonga Warriors White at 2:15pm. Both must win to progress. These two games will not be easy and once again will be played in good spirit by all teams involved. If you go nothing to do Sunday come up to Springdale Heights near the Springdale tavern and come see some baseball North East style! Best of luck to all competing clubs.

     This Saturday all the Ranger legends will be cooking a snag and saying hello at Bunnings in Wangaratta. Drop in say hi to the friendly Ranger folk grab a snag. Everyone loves a Bunnings snag. The season may soon be over but here at the ranger land there are many great plans in the pipeline for the club to improve upon. All are welcome.

      Coming soon new ranger merchandise. Most notably stubby holders. Everyone loves a Wangaratta Rangers Stubby holder don’t they!  Man of action Rob Seymour will be sourcing these from a good place soon. Look to get one. They always go quick!

     Watch this space ladies and gentlemen. Bryan “Moose” Wilson is already thinking of drills and skills the young future Rangers are going to develop this spring and summer time down at the Ranch. So sweet new Ranger tops are in the pipeline and more details about this will follow in upcoming editions. Make sure you keep up to date on Teamapp, Twitter and Facebook.

Ranger Club News

Well that’s it for this weeks edition. Big weekend ahead. Thanks for reading

Go Rangers