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Provincial Preview: Ontario

With the 2013 baseball season right around the corner Baseball.ca will visit with each of the 10 Provincial organizations during a 10 week period. This week we meet with Baseball Ontario’s Mary-Ann Smith.

A busy summer of baseball is right around the corner in Ontario, and preparation has already begun with coaches and umpires taking advantage of the many clinics available.

“In 2013, to date, Baseball Ontario has hosted 92 NCCP (coaching) Workshops with more to come,” said Baseball Ontario’s Mary-Ann Smith. “It is a very busy spring for Baseball Ontario!

“In addition, Baseball Ontario has hosted 86 Umpire Clinics for level 1 and 2 umpires. Our 700 level 3 umpires can take advantage of the online certification process in this 2013 exam year.”

“We are proud to say that the online exam was created in collaboration with Baseball Quebec, as we continue to enjoy a prosperous working relationship with our neighbours to the east!”

In May, Baseball Ontario will be hosting their annual Level 4/5 Umpires Clinic for 65 National Program umpires.

Speaking of umpires, Oshawa native Trevor Grieve represented Ontario and all of Canada very well at last month’s World Baseball Classic where he was the only Canadian umpire to work the event.

Trevor worked the first two rounds of the Classic in Asia and was in San Francisco to work the championship round.

“Baseball Ontario is very proud of Trevor, the only umpire to work all rounds of the 2013 World Baseball Classic,” said Smith. “Trevor worked both the semi-finals and finals at this tournament and we’d like to congratulate Trevor for his history-making performance at this prestigious international baseball event!”

In 2012, Baseball Ontario achieved success at the National Championship level that was unmatched among competing provinces.

Ontario teams won seven medals in the seven championship events that they competed in including gold medals at the Baseball Canada Cup, Bantam Boys and Senior Women Invitational events.

The Ontario Youth Team is the two-time defending champion at the Baseball Canada Cup and will be looking to compete again for the gold medal in August when the event is being played as part of the Canada Summer Games in Sherbrooke, QC.

“Baseball Ontario is looking forward to the annual Ontario Cup Showcase, which is the start of the selection process that determines the players for the Ontario Youth Team” explained Smith. “We anticipate having 175 players from across the province attend for a chance to represent Ontario.

“The Ontario Cup takes place at Vaughan Grove Sports Complex, May 24-26.”

Two National Championships will be contested in Ontario this summer as the Senior Men’s event takes place in Windsor August 22-26, while the Bantam Boys Championship will be played in Vaughan for the fifth consecutive year.

“We look forward to welcoming teams from across the country to Ontario in August,” added Smith.

Over in grassroots, Smith says that between 2011 and 2012 the province saw an upswing in registration numbers.

“(We) realized an increase in player registration of just over 4% from 2011 to 2012,” she said. “We attribute this to the wonderful grassroots initiatives taking place in Ontario such as Rally Cap and WinterBall.”

Rally Cap is certainly making its way around the province as more and more associations are adopting the program into their development systems.

“It has been a great year for the Rally Cap Program,” explained Smith.

Baseball Ontario doubled the amount of Rally Cap hats distributed in 2012 compared to 2011 and tripled the amount of Rally Cap books sold in 2012 compared to 2011 which bodes well for the future of the program.

Some exciting news came out of Burlington Minor Baseball recently as they have jumped on board with the recently adopted Challenger Baseball program.

According to Smith it looks as though some more associations will be looking to implement the program soon.

“We’ve had a number of other associations that have expressed an interest in joining Challenger Baseball.

For more information on Baseball Ontario, please visit www.baseballontario.com


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