Part of the culture

Times Reporter       

 

Numbers are consistent from last year for Strathmore Minor Baseball – roughly 225 for the Strathmore Reds boys, and 90 for the Strathmore Thunder girls. However, President Daren Kennett says that Strathmore is doing much stronger than the larger city centres.

“Strathmore’s got about 12,000 people, roughly. About 315 kids play ball here,” he said. “If you took that on a per capita basis and compared it to Calgary, a city of 1.2 million people, they’re basically 100 times larger than Strathmore, and should have about 31,500 kids playing.”

Instead, Calgary has roughly 3,000 kids enrolled in fastpitch and baseball. This makes ball in Strathmore about 10 times larger.

“I think it’s a bigger part of culture in Strathmore. It’s good skill and good organization,” Kennett said.

Under the Strathmore Minor Baseball umbrella, there are house-league teams, Baseball Alberta AA teams, and a boys midget AAA team that will be playing strictly tournaments. The AAA’s will be traveling to Alaska and Montana this summer.

“Some of the teams have been training in the gym since January – girls and boys,” Kennett said. “They’ve been doing various basic skill developments – fielding, pitching, hitting.”

The mosquito Reds won Tier 2 Provincials last year.

The league begins mid-April for most teams – the midget AAA boys have their first tournament in Medicine Hat on April 6 – and finishes in July.