With spring just around the corner, Thorold Minor Baseball is gearing up for another successful season.
And this year they will be receiving a little help from the Toronto Blue Jays, as the league is hosting a Blue Jays Academy Development Camp at McMillan Park on June 23.
“The Blue Jays bring down their development team and they work with players aged 8 to 12,” Thorold Minor Baseball's president, Chris Green, tells ThoroldToday. “They run them through three or four hours of different drills: hitting, fielding, pitching — all those things. It’s really cool.”
Registration for the event opened up two weeks ago, but has already completely sold out.
Green is not surprised that Thorold was chosen as one of the 17 cities in the province hosting the camp.
“I think we have really good ballparks,” he says. “While we're a smaller community in the baseball world, we do some really big things. I think we've built ourselves a pretty good reputation with the Ontario Baseball Association (OBA).”
When it comes to the league's upcoming season, it's already going to be a record-breaking year.
“We’re closing in on 300 players being registered, which would be the most that I've seen in the last 10 years,” says Green. “ We’ve got a full complement of all of our rep travel teams back, which is great. We’re still looking for some volunteers and coaches but we're full steam ahead.”
To keep up with demand, the league is creating a fourth 9U team this year, alongside the already existing 9U Thorold A’s, Anchors, and Aces.
To build excitement, the league have asked the local community to name the team.
“We thought it'd be a good idea to kind of put it out to our social media to see what kind of ideas that they had,” says Green. “A lot of folks have liked the word ‘Attack’ or the ‘Thorold Aviators.’ There is also the ‘Thorold Anteaters’ but I don’t think we’re going to go that way. “
Keeping up with the growth of the league is a full-time job, says Green.
To help support the organization, City Council recently earmarked $25,000 in the city budget.
“It’s great to see that they're standing behind us and that they see the positive direction we've been taking,” says Green. “We couldn't do this without the support of the City Council or with the parks department. They’ve been incredible with us.”
Although the growth has been exciting, Green warns that the city is eventually going to run out of space.
“We need another diamond,” he says. “We’re getting really creative with how we’re putting teams together on the field and trying to squeeze in any time we can, either at Sullivan, Port Robinson, McMillian or South Confed. We’re pretty close to bursting at the seams.”
One thing's for certain: with the recent spur of warmer days, Green is getting excited to kick off the season.
“We have our fingers crossed for a really dry March and April to make sure that the fields are ready to go for May,” he says. “I think it's going to be a really good season. Now we just have our fingers crossed for good weather.”
Registration for the upcoming baseball season is still open. Select try-outs will be held in the next month. For more information, go to the league's website.
If you would like to suggest a name for the new 9U team, head over to the league’s Facebook page.
