OTTAWA – Baseball in Alberta is beginning to hit its stride. Since 2005, Baseball Alberta’s registration numbers have been on the rise and the forecast for 2010 is no different.
“It’s been going up for five straight years now,” says Baseball Alberta Program Coordinator Dan Curtis. “We’re hoping to hit the 10,000 mark this year. We were just off it last year, so we’re hoping to hit that mark this year.”
A major reason for the recent success in registration can be the success of the Baseball Canada grass roots programs Winterball and Rally Cap.
Of the two programs, Winterball has been especially successful in the province because Alberta launched a new educational and sport specific consultation service for schools. They hired Paul Riopel to support and assist with the ongoing delivery of Winterball within the schools.
“We’ve also had former major leaguer Lou Pote help out, going into schools and launch the program. That’s been huge so far,” adds Curtis.
Rally Cap has been growing steadily in the province as well. But not unlike the other provinces, there are still some hurdles to overcome.
“Change scares people,” admits Curtis. “A lot of the associations have a T-ball program that they know how to run and say ‘why change something we already know how to run?’”
“For our part, we’ve taken the word ‘T-ball’ completely out of our vocabulary and everything at the grass roots level is all Rally Cap,” he adds. “We’ve had some of our bigger associations jump on board already and it looks like one of our biggest associations is joining this year which is nice to see.”
When it comes to high performance, Alberta has had its ups and down over the years. They field competitive teams in most divisions, but have come up empty handed in most recent events.
The Senior Men’s and Women’s divisions are the most consistent. Sherwood Park captured the Baseball Canada Senior Men’s crown last season, while the women have finished in the top three for the past four years.
The midget and junior divisions are where the province has had some issues over the last few years. Both those divisions haven’t captured a medal for the province since 2004.
The midget division has seen some improvements in regards to the quality of competition within the province, but the junior division has been almost non-existant. So as a remedy, Baseball Alberta has decided to add two 19-year-olds per team in the midget division to help further the depth of competition.
“We’ve sort of modeled that idea to what the BC Premier League does,” says Curtis. “It’s a pilot project for this season. We’ll see how it goes and if it’s successful we’ll probably stick with it.”
Baseball Alberta has had its share of struggles over the years, but with hard work and creativity they have picked themselves up and have put themselves back in the company of the baseball elite in Canada.
