Kennedy: Resilient, ageless Gora still employing vast arsenal of pitches in slo-pitch at 80

Kazimierz “Kaz” Gora, 80, is a veteran slo-pitch pitcher who has four pitches and an unparalleled passion for the game.

November 9, 2026

By Patrick Kennedy

Canadian Baseball Network

Like all long-in-the-tooth pitchers, Kazimierz “Kaz” Gora, an aging righthander, still believes in his 'stuff,' an arsenal spotlighted by his ability to throw strikes with maddening consistency, complete with spin rates, changing speeds, locations and, yes, altitudes.

Kaz's game is slo-pitch, and he's more than a tad passionate about it. Up until last year he played year-round. He may do so yet again, if the stars line up and his health holds up.

“Playing slo-pitch keeps me young,” explains Kaz, who's as comfortable on a ball diamond as Chuvalo in a ring, Astaire in tap shoes.

He plays his sport with a competitive spirit and boyish-like enthusiasm that belie his age – which is around that time in life when most men start checking out – or into– a suitable rest home.

“I've never seen Kaz walk anyone,” says Bill Grimmett, a retired lawyer and local slo-pitch teammate. “He's incredibly dedicated, especially considering all his medical issues. Sometimes he'll come to a game straight from the hospital.”

Before I can even ask anything, Kaz commences the interview by delivering a detailed breakdown of his pitches, complete with the inside scoop on the different grips he uses. I'm skeptical. Although unfamiliar with the sport, I always assumed it featured only one kind of pitch – the lob. Stupid me.

Not so, Kaz points out.

“I got my four-seamer, my two-seamer, my slider, and of course my curveball, which is a good one,” he says. “Down in Florida, that curveball earned me the name Dr. Hook.”

'Dr. Hook' turned 80 this past summer. More than a hundred people turned out for the new octogenarian's birthday bash at Legion 560, among them a crew from the local senior slo-pitch loop that Kaz and Mike Grosney formed more than a decade ago and which today features an over-60 travel team. (Guess who's the 'ace' of the staff?)

“Kaz loves the game and lives to play it,” says teammate Eric McLean, who runs the senior travel team. “He's also a great organizer for tournaments and other things. Kaz once organized a slo-pitch tournament years ago that had about 100 teams and used almost every ball diamond in the city.”

Kazimierz “Kaz” Gora has battled cancer in recent years, but he is still determined to pitch.

That was an unlikely feat for someone who was born in 1946 in German labour camp that had not yet been liberated by the Allies following World War II. His parents, Edward and Dominica, were captured during the war in their native Poland and placed in the camp. Kaz was the first of the couple's seven children.

“The work camp was located close to a munitions factory,” Kaz says. “I remember my parents saying that towards the end of the war, the Americans bombed the factory during the day and the British bombed it at night.”

Three days after Christmas in 1948, the toddler and his mother arrived at Halifax's Pier 21 after a seven-day transatlantic voyage aboard the converted troop ship SS Marine Jumper.

Kaz learned and honed his organizational skills during his 25-career at the busy old Alcan plant here in Kingston.

“When I started in 1965, Alcan had about 3,500 employees,” says Kaz, whose duties also included setting up sports teams and leagues.

“Our in-plant softball league, alone, had 16 teams,” he recalls.

After retiring from Alcan, he started Kingston Fishing Guide Charters Inc., taking anglers on half- and full-day outings as well as evening charters on the lake. The winner of the 1996 Loyalist Fishing Derby landed his prize catch while fishing from Kaz's boat.

Kaz's forte is collection – namely: prizes and gifts to be handed out after tournaments. He's pleasant, polite, persistent, and charmingly persuasive when making the rounds of local businesses and sponsors to solicit goods for post-tournament prizes.

“When Kaz walks into a grocery store or a car dealership, managers hide in their office and lock the door,” quips McLean.

Kaz's secret? “I don't give up,” he says with an impish grin.

Maybe not, but he may have to give up year-round slo-pitch, something he did for 26 years before sitting out last season due to concerns over venturing south of the 49th while the current U.S. administration is running the show.

“The way those ICE guys are rounding up people, who knows? I could end up in Venezuela,” says Kaz.

During his winters in Florida, Kaz played in two and sometimes three different leagues, pitching on average 10 seven-inning games a week.

“If you play in two leagues, that ties up five days a week right there. Slo-pitch keeps you busy,” he says, quoting a golden rule of retirement.

Gora has played for the legendary Kids & Kubs Senior Softball Club in St. Petersburg, Fla.

While wintering in the Florida panhandle, he spent some memorable years as a member of the legendary Kids & Kubs Senior Softball Club in St. Petersburg. Kaz took home the MVP President's Cup following his most recent season, the 2025 campaign that also celebrated the 95th anniversary of the renowned ballclub that began in 1930 as the Three Quarter Century Softball Club, so named for the mandatory minimum age of the players. An estimated half-million fans have watched the team play over the decades. In the 1930s, 40s and 50s, big leaguers such as Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Phil Rizzuto, Lefty Gomez and several other Yankees – St. Petersburg was New York's spring training home – occasionally took in games in support of a charity. Kaz's mustachioed mug is pictured inside the team's 95th season pamphlet while the cover features a 1933 photo of the Bambino in his Yankees uniform holding court with the old ballplayers.

As for whether he'll rejoin the K&K club's this winter, Kaz is undecided. First and foremost he needs his health to cooperate, “then we'll see,” he says.

“They think I might have colon cancer now, so I'll have to get that fixed before I do anything,” says Kaz, who in the past has gone toe-to-toe with prostate cancer and undergone triple-bypass surgery.

Eighty years after drawing his first breath in a German labour camp, Kaz continues to loft his array of arching, spinning spheres, although these days it's from behind a protective screen. He remembers all too well the days when a screen wasn't always available and his only protection against screaming line drives from a few dozen feet away was a glove and his own quick reflexes, which sometimes weren't quick enough.

“I've been nailed plenty of times,” Kaz says, recalling one painful clothesline drive in 2002. “I took a liner right in the chest, that one stung a bit.”

There may be one other factor driving Dr. Hook's longevity and success.

“I pitch nasty,” he admits with a game face, channelling his inner Don Drysdale. “I'm a very competitive person who likes to win, and sometimes you just have to pitch mean.”

“Pitch mean” in slo-pitch? Maybe the ageless lobballer is on to something. Drysdale would certainly approve. It was ol' Double-D who once stated that he'd knock down his own grandmother "only if she was crowding the plate."

Patrick Kennedy is a retired Whig-Standard reporter. He can be reached at pjckennedy35@gmail.com