More players, great season ahead for Moose Jaw Little League
If you want to watch some local baseball this spring, pick a weekday, any weekday and head down to any little league baseball diamond in Moose Jaw. Someone will be playing. Tournaments more your thing? Pick a weekend, any weekend and head down to Bell Park. You can bet there will be plenty of action and plenty of games to take in.
And if you’re up for a little volunteering, why not?
That’s where Moose Jaw Little League baseball stands heading into the coming campaign – the opening day slate of games is this Saturday, May 12 – with more than 410 players signed on for the season across their six age classes.
Most impressive, for new Little League Moose Jaw president Gord Bruce, is the number of players taking the field in the two youngest age categories, with 60 in Learn-to-Play (four and five year olds) and 140 in Rookie (six to eight), comprising almost half their total enrolment.
“So it’s really encouraging to see all the young kids coming out and that’s just going to filter up into the older baseball levels as they age up,” Bruce said. “It’s going to be interesting to see for sure.” Bruce attributes part of the increased interest to a change in the fee structure for the entirety of the MJLL – where fees started at $75 for the youngest classes and rose to $280 for the Senior division, the decision was made to level it out to $150 across the board.
“We kind of found a middle road and it works out pretty close to touch football or lacrosse,” Bruce said. “That seems to have helped and as long as it’s kids getting out and getting some fresh air, we’re happy.” Along with the increase in player numbers has come another surprising positive number: the total of umpires the league has do draw upon.
“We’ve actually have a bit of a spike in interest in umpires, and it’s been kind of known over the last couple years that we were having trouble finding and keeping umpires,” Bruce said. “So it’s great to see some new people come and help out and even get a little bit of cash in their pocket for the summer.”
League action begins May 12 and continues throughout the May and June, with leagues playing three nights a week at diamonds throughout the city.
The house league tournament dates have also been set, with the Senior, Rookie and Minor divisions May 25-27, Major and Junior June 2-3 and Minor, Major, Senior Rookie playoffs beginning on June 16. And once the final pitch of the regular season is thrown, things aren’t done yet. That’s when the All-Star campaign begins, and Moose Jaw will be well represented on that front with AAA and AA teams in the Minor and Major divisions along with a Junior AAA team.
Based on turnout and the calibre of players from previous seasons, it’s possible that all three AAA squads could be in for banner years.
“That’s what we’re hoping for, anyway,” Bruce said. “There were a lot of kids who came and tried out for those teams and a lot of kids who moved up that are pretty good, so we’re hoping we’ll give the Alberta teams a pretty good run this year.”