Competition was steep at Anne Hathaway Park diamonds with a litany of baseball games taking place from dawn to dusk.
The games were part of the Amy Matheson Memorial Tournament, in honour of the late Matheson, and the five year anniversary of her passing.
In the words of the organizers, 19-year-old Brooklynn Lange and Emma Johnston-Matheson, 18, Matheson’s daughter, it was something that Matheson would have loved.
“She coached ball for Stratford and Tavistock,” Johnston-Matheson told StratfordToday, in between a few games. “She helped out in the community a lot, did the best she could as a coach and leader … a lot of people really admired her.”
Matheson died by suicide on July 29, 2018 due to ongoing complications with mental health challenges. Although some time has passed since her death, Lange and Johnston-Matheson felt last weekend was the right time to celebrate her life and legacy.
The idea came from a dream Lange had one night, to put on a ball tournament in her memory.
In the two months that followed, Lange and Johnston-Matheson got everything together, through “a lot of endless, endless hours,” as Lange described.
Cassie Burnett is Lange’s mother and was a close friend of Matheson. She was feeling a lot of emotions the day of the tournament, though one of the most intense was pride.
“I'm so impressed with Brooklynn, Emma, and everybody else that contributed,” Burnett said. “There's a lot that goes into it and having to buy everything and get sponsors and prizes and insurance like all of that stuff, too. (Lange) was so busy and I know that she was really stressed out about it, but they pulled it off and it's been amazing.”
Both Lange and Johnston-Matheson were quick to say that there were many people who contributed, a ballpark figure of 30 people being integral to the tournament’s success.
“We were still getting things brought to us today,” Lange said. “We had no idea and they were just showing up … It was endless amounts of support from everywhere.”
Aside from the games, sponsors provided items to be sold off in a silent auction. All money raised from the teams and the auction is going to the Canadian Mental Health Association, Huron-Perth Branch.
With games going across all fields at the park, emotions and the competitions were high and the overall mood was good.
Ultimately, Burnett said that is what Matheson would have wanted.
“She is on my mind every single day, all day long,” Burnett said. “But when you actually have an event or something like this it hits you and hits you really hard.
“She would not have wanted us to be sad. She would have been up there giving us s***.”
