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VIDEO and story: North Coast Baseball season opens

The season opener was held last Monday, after the District of Port Edward prepped McKeown Sports Field for play
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Coach Ken Veldman teaches kids how to swing last week in Port Edward.


Baseball is back for kids on the North Coast.

The season opener was held last Monday, after the District of Port Edward prepped McKeown Sports Field for play.

There were 130 kids between the ages of three to nine on the field with parent spectators close by. After the drills and basics of the games were laid out there was a hot dog and a bag of chips for all kids, provided by Save-On-Foods.

“Today we’re just starting with some drills because we haven’t had baseball in Prince Rupert for so long that a lot of kids don’t know anything about the game. Everybody is starting as beginners from square one,” said President of the North Coast Minor Baseball League Emily Kawaguchi.

In the back corner, six teams with players aged three to five-years-old learned how to play Blastball, a modified version of Tee-ball. Basically, as explained by Mimmo Ciccone, the director of the Blastball division, the player has to hit the ball off the tee beyond a yellow strip about two metres away from the plate. The players on defence stand behind the yellow strip and field the ball.

“Once the player hits the ball they run to one base and as soon as they touch that base there’s a honking sound that goes off,” Ciccone said, adding that they don’t keep score it’s just to teach the rookie baseball players how to hit and catch the ball.

The games officially begin on May 19. For more details visit www.northcoastball.ca