The longest-serving Barrie Baycat is hanging up the glove and calling it an Intercounty Baseball League (IBL) career.
Midland's Brad Bissell said there are a number of reasons he has decided to retire, but it wasn't necessarily just about family.
“My kids were crushed when I told them yesterday; they love being at the games so much. This is definitely a baseball family,” said Bissell. “My wife loves baseball and it has been a big part of our life.”
Bissell cited an ever-changing locker room as one of the main reasons he was realizing that, at the age of 37, it was just time.
“I struggled with it since the last game of the playoffs last year,” he said. “Then when I started seeing so many of my friends either going to another team or just retiring, it was hard to picture walking into a locker room that wasn’t my team anymore.”
Bissell leaves the Barrie team as the franchise’s all-time leader in several categories, including seasons played (17), games played (161), games started (108), innings pitched (748.1), wins (62), and strikeouts (612).
The Midland resident finished his IBL career with a 35-17 record and a 4.11 earned run average (ERA).
The left-handed pitcher was part of all seven IBL championships in Baycats history (2005 and 2014-2019), was a four-time all-star, and in 2018, was named as one of the top 100 players in IBL history.
Of all the championship moments, Bissell, who's now a local high school teacher at Innisdale Secondary School, said he remembers the first one in 2005 for how he couldn’t be there.
“In 2005, I was supposed to pitch Game 6 (against Toronto), but we got rained out. I had already taken too much time off school and had to leave before our actual game,” said Bissell, who was studying in the United States at the time. “I was calling like crazy trying to find out the score while I was laid over in Buffalo.
"This was before smartphones and social media were big, so I couldn’t find out too easy," he added. "I later called from a payphone when they were celebrating in the locker room.”
Bissell's other great championship memory was the win against London in 2014, the first in the current run of six straight.
“We would have rather beat Brantford, because it was the championship win after losing four of the last five to them,” he said. “Then we went on our run, and honestly, now what happened to them is happening to us. Commitments for their players changed and they started retiring or leaving. It's the same here with our team.”
Slugger Jordan Castaldo, the IBL's 2019 MVP, recently announced he wanted to play closer to home and will suit up for the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Also leaving the Baycats after last season were manager Angus Roy, catcher Kyle DeGrace and outfielder Glenn Jackson, all of whom retired.
