Right in the middle of Ontario’s corn belt, little Wyoming is so flat it seems you could smack a high fly ball to centre field and watch it soar forever.

It’s here in this tiny farming village, right off Broadway Street, you’ll find an increasingly rare sight: Prime green space in the heart of the town that is reserved for baseball diamonds. The soccer pitches, meanwhile, are tucked out on the edge of town, behind the big metal barns on the agricultural society grounds.

That makes Wyoming charmingly out of step with its neighbours in Ontario.

Most municipalities in the province, and indeed, across the country, are increasingly choosing soccer over baseball when it comes time to build or maintain their sports fields. And no wonder: minor league soccer is a growing sport, and minor league baseball simply, and sadly, isn’t.

That was spelled out clearly at a city council meeting this week in Cambridge, where councillors approved without debate a sports field master plan that would plow under old baseball diamonds and replace them with new soccer pitches.

Further down in the article …

Guelph is no different from Cambridge, and there are calls for similar decisions here. On many weeknights, our baseball diamonds lie quiet and overgrown with weeds, while our soccer pitches are full of running tykes and proud parents.

It goes on to say more, but I just can’t bring myself to even think about this!!

The article can be read in it’s entirety at the GuelphMercury.com website.

When: Sunday, April 19/09 @ 10:00 am
Where: Bridgeport Rod and Gun Club

Anyone wishing more information can contact Dwayne Scott by cell at (519) 841-3225 or email at dewyscott21@yahoo.ca.

Note: Anyone wishing to umpire for this season, this is the clinic at which you will be carded!

Perhaps you’ve missed us over the past couple of weeks (or not!).  While you kids have been playing with your new toys you got for Christmas, I’ve been playing around trying to get us set up with a new web server and new-look website.  As you may have noticed (… or not!) there were a few “technical difficulties” along the way (apparently our old host didn’t like being told they would be our “Old Host” and, since they still held the DNS information for our site, things were just a little slow getting resolved.  I believe we’re now past the difficulties we were having, but there is still much to be done to get us back on track for the new season.

There will be many changes in the next while to the appearance of this site, but first and foremost I need to bring back the functionality of the old site.  Look for all the “year-over-year” content to appear shortly (such as the League Constiution and Playing Rules) as well as a new feature - a user forum to improve interactivity (Free Agents, Buy & Sell, Lost & Found). 

The membership is currently suspended to allow me the freedom to work on the site, but check back over the coming weeks for updates to the site and further information about how you can become involved.  I’m excited about the potential of this new format and I’m sure you will be too as it starts to take shape!