Jarvis, ON - End of a fastball era in Jarvis - Without much left to accomplish and many original members long gone, the latest version of Jarvis' highest ranked softball team has disbanded.
 Townsend native Ian Fehrman was a member of the Jarvis Travelers fastball team. An era of fastball Jarvis has ended after the high-ranked team disbanded. (File Photo)
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ORIGINAL STORY by Jacob Robinson, Simcoe Reforner
Without much left to accomplish and many original members long gone, the latest version of Jarvis' highest ranked softball team has disbanded.
The Jarvis Travelers had competed under the Kitchener Hallman Twins label for the past two years, and while the group included one local player in Townsend's Ian Fehrman and two area coaches, Fehrman's dad Daryl and Springvale's Fred McKeen, the writing was on the wall this summer following a 17th place finish at the International Softball Congress (ISC) World Championship. Sponsor Jim Hallman announced in August he would be supporting just one area squad - the Kitchener Cubs - the same team that knocked the Twins from the 2015 ISC tournament. A handful of members from last year's roster has already committed to other clubs in Toronto, Scarborough and New York.
"I just think it got too expensive and we really underachieved last year and I don't think that sat too well with him either," said Twins manager Steve Kooser.
"We had some guys (Fehrman and Ryan Wolfe) that were retiring and I guess all in all it seemed like a good time if someone was going to call it quits."
The decision brings to an end a colourful and illustrious era in Jarvis fastball history.
Back in the early 2000s, coach George Ryder was brought on to lead a group of locals hungry to make their name on the Canadian fastball scene. In 2002, the Jarvis Juniors won the first of back-to-back national junior (under-21) titles.
"They really progressed in senior and high calibre ball really quickly. That's a real rarity in the game," said Ryder, a Port Dover resident.
"All I can really say is how thankful I was to work with them. They were always great, great athletes and just good quality people to be around and very easy to coach."
With a pair of junior titles under their belt, Jarvis – now the Merchants – set their sights on the Canadian and world title.
It didn't come easy.
Jarvis would fall to powerhouse Kitchener in extra innings in the national championship in 2009. That winter, it seemed the group may never get an opportunity to accomplish those lofty goals as the purse strings began to tighten. That's when a white knight appeared in the form of sponsor Ron 'Doc' Simmons of Broken Bow, Nebraska.
"We had kind of set aside a low-budget team and we were going to roll with it and next thing you know, within 12 hours we had a team together," general manager Clark Staats recalled.
The revamped Jarvis 'Travelers' welcomed a number of elite internationals led by the world's No. 1 pitcher, Aussie Adam Folkard.
"The list went on and it was like, you go from being one of those teams that are trying to knock off the top dog to feeling like you're actually there," said Pat Graham, a Jarvis native who signed with his hometown squad in 2004.
Everything seemed set for Jarvis to capture the 2010 ISC crown until Folkard was injured partway through the World Tournament in Midland, MI.
"Some teams may have stumbled after that, but there was some real veteran guys around that pulled things together and said, 'it's OK, we can get through this'," Graham recalled. "As fate would have it, you have Andrew Phibbs coming in."
Phibbs and his brother Allan, of Hagersville, were mainstays on the roster. Though the right-hander hadn't thrown a pitch all week, he was thrust into a starring role, including the final few innings of the championship game versus Kitchener.
"The final out of the game with Andrew pitching, Ian picking up the ground ball at short and throwing to me at first, there was something magical about it," Graham said.
Folkard was fallen again in 2011, but Jarvis rose to the challenge to become back-to-back champs. The group would fend off the hard-charging Hill United Chiefs a year later, tying the record for most consecutive world titles. By that point, many of the team's locals had hung up their gloves. The win would be Jarvis' last on the world stage.
"It's just the way it goes, everybody is getting older, the guys have young families with them now and ball doesn't have the same priority it had when they were younger," Staats said.
Few took more pride watching the club than Staats, whose son Chad was part of the team's rise and son-in-law Fehrman finished his career as one of the best players Canada has ever produced.
"I got to watch those guys grow up from t-ball all the way through to senior men's world champions," he recalled.
"They were rewarded for lots of years of hard work - it was all pretty special. It seems like it was just yesterday but it's been a few years now."
Staats and Graham credited the team's sponsors and executive for laying the groundwork to an unprecedented run, one that will be looked at fondly.
"There's not enough thanks to the folks that helped us out over the years," Staats said. "I think we knew at some point it was going to come to an end and I guess this is the end, but a lot of good memories, we met a lot of nice people and made a lot of good friends over the years."
Jacob Robinson
519-426-3528 ext. 529112
jacob.robinson@sunmedia.ca
twitter.com/JacobReformer
