Once upon a time Barrhead’s baseball star shone brightly in the sporting firmament.
Names like the Orioles, the Blue Jays and the Yankees were spoken with pride and almost a certain reverence.
An Orioles game would bring crowds flocking to the bleachers with high expectations of success.
After all, this was a team which carried off the North Central Alberta Baseball League championship series in August 2003, dethroning the mighty Westlock Red Lions.
Yet while the Lions regrouped and continued to roar in the NCABL, Barrhead failed to build on its victory. Instead, the game began to shrivel as commitment lapsed: players found it hard to fit the sport into busy schedules, they couldn’t find time to practice and travel distances to play in league games.
After 2007, Barrhead dropped out of the NCABL and hasn’t fielded a team since.
Now, however, there are signs that the game is being revitalized at the grassroots level. This season 69 children have registered to play, enough to make up five junior teams.
It is heartening to see this growing interest in the game among our youth. That is where it must be developed and encouraged.
Hopefully, the interest can be sustained as children get older and move through the ranks, so that Barrhead will be able regularly to put together high calibre teams to compete with the best in the NCABL.
All of us should applaud the efforts of people like Rod Callihoo and Warren and Ryan Warehime to revive the local baseball scene. They have gone about their work quietly and without fanfare.
How good it would be to see Barrhead in the NCABL again. For as we know, success breeds success. As we also know, baseball was born in rural communities.
Perhaps one day soon the mighty Os will be back, pitching and hitting before huge crowds.
That indeed would be a home run for Barrhead.
