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Your 2025 GPMSL champion Hogs: Front row (from left): Luis Gustavo Savon, Jason Brumm, Shaffin Datoo, Mike Wang. Back row (from left): Amal Mitha, Rob Bell, Terry Mousmoules, Keiran King, Navaz (K) Keshavee, Joe Lauria, Alvin Luk, Vik Kahwajian. Absent: Faiz Madhani, Luis Savon Jr.

The way the Hogs began the final night of playoff play at Goulding Park on a summery Monday evening, one had to wonder if they weren’t going to implode right then and there in a morass of infighting and four-letter lasers.

Alas, it was all part of what has for years fired up the Green Shirts who, by the end of a long and eventful night, were hanging medallions around their necks as the 2025 Goulding Park Men’s Slopitch League champions … mere seconds before the lights clicked off.

The Hogs turned the Cinderella Jays’ late-season chariot back into a pumpkin in the final with a closer-than-it-appeared 15-8 victory, denying the league’s first expansion team its first championship in its first appearance in the final. For the Hogs, it was their first title since 2021, the first post-COVID season and the first year the Jays entered the league to fill out the four-team contingent.

A couple of hours earlier, the Hogs ended the Hustlers’ bid for the league’s first three-peat since the Trappers from 2016-18, posting a thrilling 9-8 victory that went nine innings — marking the longest game in league history.

Where to start? Well, let’s try the first inning of the semi-final as the visiting Hogs went scoreless in their first at-bats, leadoff man and team captain Shaffin Datoo meekly grounding out to second — setting the stage for an eventual and highly uncharacteristic 0-for-4. Were it not for the team’s turnaround, he would surely have been mocked for years in the Hogs’ unforgiving online chat room. (Heck, he might still.)

Then, late arrival Navaz Keshavjee and teammate Jason Brumm got into it, launching some very loud and highly colorful language that had nearby residents slamming their windows shut as the Hustlers jumped out to a quick 4-0 lead. 

Fortunately, for the Hogs, pitcher Terry Mousmoules was able to limit the Hustlers attack after that, allowing his team to get back into it and send the game to extra innings with the score tied 8-8. 

Even with a runner placed on second base with one out to start each inning in extras, neither team could score in the eighth. Hogs designated runner Alvin Luk did come around to score the eventual winner in the top of the ninth, before Luis Gustavo Savon — who’d homered in the sixth — raced over to flag down Joel Colomby’s liner into left-centre to end it in the bottom half.

That sent the Hogs up against the Jays in the final, a matchup of probably the league’s two most volatile squads. Umpire Jack was perhaps nervously anticipating a repeat of a previous Hogs-Jays encounter, when both sides nearly came to blows over a reaction to a home run. 

Turns out Jack’s fears were real. Twice the closely contested game was delayed while both teams took to enforcing their own interpretation of the rule book, each incident spiced with blood-curdling invective, player scrums and the ever-present threat of an all-out brawl — much to the delight of the Hustlers sitting in the stands watching.

This, of course, was all playing out against the backdrop of time running out before the fields were  plunged into darkness while the commish anxiously looked at his watch and exhorted the teams to shut up and finish the game, hoping it wouldn’t have to be shortened to six innings. 

By the time the seventh inning started, around 11:05 p.m., and the Hogs up five, both teams were told that if the lights went out while play was still going on, it would revert back to the sixth inning. So a version of speed-slopitch ensued, with most guys swinging at the first pitch. As the two sides raced toward a projected 11:15 lights out, the Hogs tacked on three more runs. The Jays managed to load the bases with one out in the bottom of the seventh, but could plate only one more. 

Ironically, the final out of the season, a force-out grounder to short, was made by the final guy to pay up this season. 
Medallions were hurriedly handed out to the Hogs and the traditional team photo taken just before the lights did go out at 11:16. Whew!

Datoo made amends for his 0-fer in the semi-final with some terrific glovework in both games while driving in a game-high six runs in the final as a first-time cleanup hitter. Keiran King was splendid defensively at short while third baseman Vik Kahwajian did his best Addison Barger impersonation by snaring a hot shot down the line to prevent at least a couple of runs. Luk and K both went 3-for-4 with three runs scored.

Andy Qaqish, Steve Calabrese and pitcher Nick Berardi each drove in two runs for the upstart Jays, who trailed only 7-6 after four innings.

More to come on the annual season wrap-up and looking forward to 2026 …