While there is still snow on the ground, baseball players are looking forward to the spring, green grass on the diamonds, and relaxed restrictions.
Drumheller Minor Baseball has already opened their registration, and President Rob Visser says they are getting healthy numbers.
“Our registration numbers are not too bad, especially considering it is winter. I have talked to a number of the other associations who are slow,” said Visser. ‘We definitely need some of the older groups numbers to pick up, but at the younger groups we’ll have multiple teams.”
Baseball has enjoyed a resurgence in the valley over the last few years and the players are benefiting from the growth. This season they are launching a provincial AA baseball program.
“We are optimistic we will have two teams at the U11 level, our goal for the future is to be able to field AA level teams at all age groups if we continue to build momentum,” he said
Despite the restrictions in place last season, Drumheller Minor Baseball was very active. While other associations decided not to play, Drumheller had 80 players registered.
“We did a lot more than a lot of associations, we were actually pretty proud of how much we played,” said Visser. “We started in mid-June and went to July as a starting point. We had a few user groups that wanted to play more into the summer. We went well into August and even for some of the younger groups. We actually played a tournament in Olds on September long weekend.
In July, 75 players signed up for a baseball camp, in partnership with the Drumheller Dragons, with instruction from Les Mactavish, from the Vauxhall Baseball Academy.
A great change for the association last season is they rebranded the teams as the Drumheller Miners, an homage to the past. With support from local sponsors, they were able to purchase seven new sets of jerseys.
The association also launched its new website and can do all its registration online.
“We applied for and received our official association status, we are now in the process of applying for our AGLC casino license which we hope will pave the way for funding that can help contribute to future facility upgrades,” said Visser.
For more information or to register go to www.drumhellerminorbaseball.com. The association is in need of umpires, and are open to sponsorship opportunities. For more information email dmbaregister@gmail.com
