UPDATE: Baseball Alberta gathering Feb. 11

UPDATED: Feb. 7, 2017: Baseball Alberta has set a date to host a meeting in Red Deer from 1 to 5 p.m.

“The idea of the meeting is to bring together various senior men’s teams (and) associations to see if there can be some common ground to work together and build the strength of our programs,” said Baseball Alberta’s Brad Wolansky in an email to teams last Wednesday.

The PBL has not set a date for the spring meeting. It’s unclear what the PBL has to gain from such discussion, and or, if a representative will attend. The season is set to start again in May.

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With a new president on the way and the league coming off another exciting year, it was bound to be time for more interest in the league yet again. After many many years of rumours, it appears the league will finally expand to Sherwood Park again. The town had a team in the early 90s and made the final in 1992.

Craig Neufeld is stepping down as President so what better time for a new person to attempt to jockey the new schedule, which will sure take some fine-tuning after many years with 6, 7 and 8 teams.

Also happening quietly was Baseball Alberta’s continued attempts at wrangling A/AA Senior Ball in the province. Brad Wolansky reached out with this message in January:

I am looking to have a sit down meeting with the various groups of Senior Men’s baseball in Alberta and am hoping that one or more members from your team would be willing to attend. The idea behind this would be to see what we can do to work together to grow the game across the Province for Men’s baseball. Some of the items for discussion would be for growing and strengthening men’s baseball at the ‘AAA’ and ‘AA’ levels for both regular season play and Provincial Championship play. We would also like to discuss the possibility of hosting an open tournament for Men’s baseball during the September long weekend sponsored by Baseball Alberta. I think it is really important for us to get together and see how and if we can connect and help each other grow men’s baseball. I would like to meet on Saturday, February 11th in Red Deer.

It’s not known if PBL reps have reached out yet or will attend.

As always, until March rolls around, things can dip and turn as numbers come together, but for the first time in this writer’s knowledge, the league will expand to nine, creating potential new issues for scheduling and potential playoff expansion.