Canadian Lawyer

w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m O C T O B E R 2 0 1 5 17 building up the team, Fireman decided to take a break and left fast pitch until a few years ago. "I thought it would be nice to see a lake now and then and not just a dusty field, so I took a few years off," he says. In 2013, the World Masters Games were taking place in Torino, Italy, and a friend mentioned it to Fireman a few years before and planted the seed for his return. "They asked if I had considered tak- ing a team there so I decided to take the players who had been on my two world championship teams in the '90s and took them all to Torino. We won the World Masters championship," he says. That reignited his interest in the sport again as Fireman says he was "gearing down substantially" his practice in terms of his per- sonal participation in legal matters. "I decided why not go back to the hobby I enjoyed so much. So I returned full force two years ago and again this year." His love of the game started when he was at Osgoode Hall Law School in the early 1960s and asked to play in a law lob-softball league. Then, later in his career, the sport came along again, this time fuelling his desire to really build a winning team. "A bunch of litigation firms put teams together in the early '80s and we did very well, which got my competitive juices going. I decided to move up a couple of notches and eventually some people approached me about getting involved at the open level — the world championship competition," he says. In 1993, the Gators won everything that year and became the national champions, the first Canadian team to win the world championship in 47 years, and the Pan American champs as well. "Not a bad first year," says Fireman. It was the same year the Toronto Blue Jays won their second World Series. Fast pitch is, however, dif- ferent from baseball in that the pitchers pitch in a windmill fashion or underhand rather than overhand. The Gators won at the 1993 Pan American Games in Mexico City. Softball Canada decided to send the Gators as a team to the Pan American Games trials that year because they were world champs. This year for the Pan Am Games, Canada sent an all- star team. "My pitcher and catcher on the Gators were the pitcher and catcher for Canada, who won not just the Pan Ams but the International Softball Federation World Championship, which is a quadrennial competition," he says. In the first year Fireman was involved with the Gators, the players had already been selected for the team. "They were a very mediocre team," he says. "I decided if I was going to stay in this sport it was going to be to win it. I went out and started recruiting in 1993 and we won it." He believes the greatest players in fast pitch are from Canada and New Zealand, and in Canada, they primarily hail from Ontario. "You prefer to have Ontario players — most were from Ontario in the '90s. It's a lot less expensive — you don't have to fly them here or put them up here, but when I got back into it I found those good players were gone," he says. He began building the team up again and this year nine play- ers on the Gators were from New Zealand, four from Newfound- land, two from Nova Scotia, one from the United States, and two from Ontario. "We really had to shop around the world to put a team together," he says. Fireman says being part of the winning Gators has been good for his law firm because his profile "is reasonably good and it has brought in a fair bit of business, especially with people involved in the sport. It's been a net break-even thing for me," he says. Fireman Steinmetz Daya is a firm of 11 lawyers, including Fireman's son James. While Fireman loves being a litigator, he has been backing away from regular trial work over the years. He hesitates to say it, but he is semi-retired. "If someone needs me on a mediation or trial, I will do it, but I'm not up to my eyeballs in it anymore, which is good at this stage of life — it's nice to do other things. I got to a point where I realized I don't have to do seven or eight trials a year and blow my brains out. I loved it — I probably did more trials than anyone — but enough was enough. It takes a lot out of you to do a trial if you do it right. . . . I would promote the business and keep the lawyers busy and be around to help whenever they need me." He says being involved with the Gators over the years has given him the opportunity to see many places he probably wouldn't have travelled to otherwise. "I don't think I would have seen every province in Canada, which I have, except New Brunswick. We've played in 11 U.S. states as well as South and Central America, New Zealand, and Australia. It has been great that way, and I'm not a very good tourist, so for me tourism along with ball works." For Fireman, the induction into the ISC Hall of Fame is the "the cherry on top of the soda." "It was nice to be recognized," he says. "I had my kids and some of my grandkids there. It was very gratifying." For now, he is giving consideration to whether he wants to stay involved in fastball, but he hasn't ruled it out. CONNECT WITH IN-HOUSE COUNSEL COLLEAGUES AT LEXPERT.CA/CCCA Check out in-house counsel's best networking tool! The 2014/15 Lexpert CCCA/ACCJE Directory & Yearbook online edition is a user-friendly, outstanding key resource for all in-house counsel. Access more than 4,000 listees, more than RUJDQL]DWLRQV´QGIUHVKHGLWRULDOFRQWHQW and information on deals and links to important resources. ANYWHERE. ANYTIME. ON ANY DEVICE. Untitled-5 1 2015-02-09 10:18 AM

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