The London Badgers will be conducting their peewee indoor try-outs at Centre Field Sports starting on January 3rd from 12:00pm to 2:00pm. Theindoor try-outs will last for 11 weeks where all players will then be evaluated outside from April 1st to April 15th. Players must register via e-mail to Badger Chair Mike Lumley at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it . The Cost of the try-outs will be $175.00 payable to the London Badgers.

Larry Fisher coached many years for Oakridge Optimist Baseball and in doing so drew the attention of many as an exemplary coach. In memory of Larry and his contributions to coaching, The Oakridge Optimist Baseball Association created the Larry Fisher "Coach of the Year" award. The Larry Fisher “Coach of the Year” Award is an award presented to an Oakridge Optimist Baseball Association coach by the Executive Committee on an annual basis. From year to year nominations are welcomed and considered when selecting our recipient. 

The criteria for this award has been established as follows:

• The Coach must have been a coach in any program for at least 3 years.
• The Coach emphasizes participation from all players on the team.
• The Coach emphasizes participation from other members of the coaching staff and parents on the team.
• The Coach attempts to give equal playing time for all players with exposure to as many playing positions on the field as possible.
• The Coach promotes learning while having fun is a major component of the practices and games.
• The Coach shows respect for members of the team, the opposing team, parents and umpires.
• The Coach promotes sportsmanship at all times.

The following is a list of past "Coach of the Year" recipients:

• 2000 Glen Copplestone
• 2001 Eric Riley
• 2002 Clive Bowden
• 2003 Bob Stark
• 2004 Derek Campbell
• 2005 Bob Caron
• 2006 Mike Jewison
• 2007 Colin Chisholm

This year, the Executive Committee received 8 nominations for this award. Each nomination was carefully reviewed in relation to the established criteria. OOBA is very proud to have so many dedicated coaches within our organization and thank all our coaches and volunteers for their efforts!

This years winner is a non parent coach who dedicated countless time and effort for his players on the Major Mosquito competitive team. He has coached with OOBA for over 6 years from blastball all the way up to Junior. He had three of his ex-Junior players on his coaching staff who also dedicated their time as non-parent coaches. This year he organized a trip for his team to Baltimore to participate in the Cal Ripken Classic. He also organized a tour of the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in St Mary's followed by a couple of exhibition games at their facility. Our coach of the year met or exceeded all of the award criteria and while doing so brought his team to the finals of the LDBA playoffs. He also represented the LDBA and Oakridge as the Head Coach of the 2008 Midget All Star team.

In 2008, the Executive Committee unanimously selected Chris Devlin as the recipient of the The Larry Fisher Coach of the Year Award! Chris, you should be very proud not only of this deserving award, but of the life long memories you have given to your players as you taught and showed them by example the enjoyment of the game of baseball.

Congratulations Chris!