Elliott: Remembering coach Al Boyle
*Former Pickering, Scarborough, North York and West Hill coach Al Boyle passed away Dec. 19, 2025. As a tribute, we have resurrected this story we published about him in 2004.
A TRUCK LOAD OF EXPERIENCE
Originally published June, 19 2004
By Bob Elliott
Canadian Baseball Network
It’s 20 minutes to game time and only one team can be seen.
Fear not.
The Pickering Red Sox minor bantams are not far away.
They could be on a soccer field, another diamond or an open field, but they are nearby.
They are anywhere coach Al Boyle can back up his truck to wide-open spaces. This is not an ordinary truck. Two sets of strings with plastic whiffle balls are attached to each side.
“We can have two kids getting in their swings on each side of the truck, like hitting off a tee,” Boyle said.
The key component of the truck is a pitching machine hooked up to its own generator, which fires fly balls and ground balls out the back door.
“The other night in Clarington, we must have fired 500 balls out of the back before we had infield, you couldn’t hit that many fly balls with a bat,” said Boyle, 69, “I didn’t get out of the truck.”
This is his 41st consecutive season coaching on Ontario sandlots, the previous 10 with Pickering. Before that, he was West Hill for 31 summers.
Boyle grew up in Esterhazy, Sask., (pop. 1,000) home of the prairie province’s first potash mine and not far from Melville, Sask., home of Canadian Hall of Famer and former Houston Astros outfielder Terry Puhl.
In the early 1960s, an amateur loop put together an all star team, with Boyle at third, to play future Hall of Famer Satchel Paige’s barnstorming team.
“He struck me out,” Boyle said and then paused, as it was obvious he had told the story before, “and ... I was a good hitter back then. They said he was in his 60s.”
At West Hill, Boyle’s teams were a force. One age group won 27 tournaments from tyke to midget, led by shortstop Robbie Pratt.
A few years ago Boyle coached the gold-medal winning Ontario Summer Games team which included RHP Kris Dabrowiecki and C Joel Collins, who both were drafted.
“Kids today are bigger and stronger,” said Boyle comparing his 2004 team to the teams he had in the 1960s.
“They still want to practice, as long as you make it fun. Coaching is much better today than it was 40 years ago.”
His best players this season are LHP Shawn Tomlinson, OF Peter Colicio and 3B Matt St. Kitts. The Sox lost in the final of the Vaughan tourney recently.
IT’S NEVER OVER: Jared Picchiottino hit a walk-off grand slam to give the Team Ontario 17s their first win at the Junior Sunbelt Classic in McAlester Okla.
Picchiottino also hit a three-run homer in the seventh to give him a seven-RBI game. Jeff Cowan (North York) tied the game with a two-run single. Team Ontario trailed 11-2 in the bottom of the sixth inning and were staring at an eight-run mercy rule, but rallied for four runs in the sixth, five more in the seventh to tie and four more in the first extras. Kyle Adair (Richmond Hill) picked up the win.
1-1 AND DONE: And they say that youngsters can’t field the ball. The Brampton Royals and the Mississauga North Tigers played a mosquito game (11 years of age and under) to a 1-1 tie, without an error to either team.
Patrick Carrigan pitched three scoreless innings, allowing one hit for Brampton, while Kevin Walker gave up one run in two innings and Barinder Rakkar pitched two scoreless innings.
For the Tigers, Michael Spezza gave up one run in three innings pitched, while Jason Freeman tossed three scoreless innings, allowing one hit and Kyle Thacker pitched a hitless inning.
AROUND THE HORN: The Canadian Thunderbirds Blue 18s dealt the Niagara Rebels their first loss of the year, a 9-8 decision, throwing out the tying run at the plate in the seventh. Steve Baldinelli hit a two-run homer for the Rebels ... Adam Garrett pitched the Rebels to a 7-5 win over the Thunderbirds, allowing two hits, as Joe Ambrous had a pair of singles ... Ben Wilsack’s triple off Ivan Rusova led the way to 6-2 Rebels as Aaron Boag pitched 5 2/3 innings for the win.