{"id":4985,"date":"2013-12-18T13:22:16","date_gmt":"2013-12-18T18:22:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=4985"},"modified":"2014-01-15T14:32:21","modified_gmt":"2014-01-15T19:32:21","slug":"mackinnon-is-first-aurora-player-to-win-pitching-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/mackinnon-is-first-aurora-player-to-win-pitching-award\/","title":{"rendered":"MacKinnon is first Aurora player to win pitching award"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jeff Doner<\/strong><\/p>\n

Aurora Minor Baseball had quite the year: Tournament wins, broken records and the successful season for the town\u2019s first ever minor midget AAA baseball was all capped off when Alexander MacKinnon recently became the first Aurora player to win the Ferguson Jenkins Award for adult pitcher of the year.<\/p>\n

Playing for that talented minor midget AAA squad, MacKinnon starred on the mound and was a big part in his team\u2019s overall third place finish at that level.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels good being the first player in Aurora to win it,\u201d he said. \u201cI want to thank Dave Giroux, because he is the one who nominated me in the first place and through the weeks going up to it I was a bit nervous, but when they said my name I was pretty happy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aurora Minor Baseball president Dave Giroux nominated MacKinnon for the award, which was announced at the Westin Hotel earlier this month.<\/p>\n

He knew he had a good season, but wasn\u2019t expecting to win the prestigious award that goes to some of the top baseball players in the province.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a great season and everybody played well,\u201d he said. \u201cI had great support from my teammates, so it kind of helped me perform to my best and it led to a great season.\u201d<\/p>\n

MacKinnon is currently in grade 11, so he has one more year to play at this level. He has yet to decide what his future will be, but he admitted to having a few plans in mind.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m hoping to go and play somewhere in the States, like Notre Dame preferably, but I\u2019d go anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

The goal to make something of his baseball career isn\u2019t a new thing, however. MacKinnon has been pitching since he was eight and has been playing the game since he was a young lad.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember when I used to go to [Toronto] Blue Jays games when I was younger, instead of looking at the scoreboard I\u2019d be watching the guys who were throwing 95 miles an hour,\u201d he recalled. \u201cI always wanted to be able to do that and there are not many people who can. It\u2019s one of the hardest things in sports to do. I always wanted to be one of those special athletes that could throw 95 mph.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was at those very Blue Jay games in Toronto where he watched one of his idols with a close eye.<\/p>\n

\u201cI use my dad for inspiration, but [former Blue Jay pitcher] Roy Halladay was an inspiration to me,\u201d he said. \u201cI want to be like him when I get older.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also admitted to getting a little excited upon hearing news that Halladay recently signed a one-day contract to retire as a Blue Jay.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy dad and I were just talking about him. I didn\u2019t really understand why he signed a one day contract at first, but I realized it was so he would retire as a Jay and go in the Hall of Fame as a Jay. It was a classy move by both sides.\u201d<\/p>\n

His dad and coach, Ian MacKinnon, said he was glad to see his son\u2019s hard work and determination pay off.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was very thankful, like Alexander, for Dave Giroux taking the time to submit his name,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m proud of the effort that Alexander has put into it. He\u2019s a good team guy and out there on the mound sometimes you\u2019re by yourself. He\u2019s dug deep over the course of the year and over all the years he has pitched.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the first Auroran to win this award, Alexander is aware that he might have an effect on some of the young baseball players that he works with during the summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope it inspires other kids to play, so that they\u2019ll say, \u2018he did well in this organization, maybe I can do what he did,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cThey said things like they hope they can play like me when they grow up. It makes me feel happy that I\u2019m known to them and they respect my talent and that I can help them get there.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aurora Minor Baseball had quite the year: Tournament wins, broken records and the successful season for the town\u2019s first ever minor midget AAA baseball was all capped off when Alexander MacKinnon…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4941,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/2013-12-18-10.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-1ip","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-04 13:46:21","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4985\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}