By Cecil Wright, Sports Columnist
The weather is finally starting to turn the corner with summer right around the bend. For me, that means baseball, baseball, and even more baseball!
The Nova Scotia Senior Baseball League (NSSBL) recently kicked off their new season after suffering through the covid reality, just like everybody else in the world. However, the new year allows for hope to spring eternal with no rainouts and the smell of freshly mowed grass throughout Nova Scotia during the summer months.
This will be a magnificent summer of baseball activity in Nova Scotia as the Canadian Senior Men’s Championship will be held in Sydney from August 25- 28, while the 22U Men’s title will be decided in Dartmouth and Halifax from August 4-7.
This will be a marvelous opportunity to witness the best teams from throughout the country and gauge how our local squads measure up against them. That means the Sydney Sooners will be the host team for the senior tournament, with the perennial threat, Dartmouth Moosehead Dry, also representing Nova Scotia as the league champion from last season.
The other news surrounding the NSSBL is the inclusion of the new Metro Golf Central Brewers franchise which has begun play bringing the loop to five teams. Like any other team playing their inaugural season, I expect there will be a few small growing pains, especially going up such against established teams as the Sooners, the Dry, the Kentville Wildcats and the Halifax Pelham Molson Canadians.
In addition, the Nova Scotia U17 Selects, who are preparing to represent Nova Scotia at the Canada Games in Niagara, Ontario from August 6-13, are also participating in the NSSBL. The competition they will be facing should give them tremendous opportunities to work the kinks out before departing to Ontario.
All in all, I feel this will be an excellent baseball season and am personally ecstatic that the season has begun. I, like thousands of other baseball junkies, have my fingers crossed that the weather will cooperate. I’m already cringing at what I’ve heard will be an active hurricane season in Atlantic Canada, which could obviously throw a monkey wrench into some of these highly organized events.
Finally, I want to send a huge shout out to Larry Barton, and Andrew and Jack Abraham for realizing their dream of another senior team within the Metro area, as well as Kevin Harvey for assuming the reins of the Metro Marlins, a team consisting of players who were formerly associated with the Hammonds Plains and Tri County programs. It’s refreshing to see more youth playing baseball.
Photo credits to https://www.facebook.com/NSSBL.ca/
