TAMWORTH Baseball Association (TBA) was taking small steps at the Field Of Dreams Saturday morning on the road to rebuilding its once flourishing junior ranks.
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About 40 juniors, ranging in age from four to 12, turned out for the first day of the new junior season while eight teams played the first round of the senior first and second grade season.
Robert “Shakey” Handsaker is the TBA president.
He and another Tamworth baseball stalwart, Dave King (vice president), have stepped up to take major administrative and organising roles.
Renae Madams, they both said, is the brains and brawn of the operation.
Madams has been the driving force behind re-forming the TBA junior competition.
She’s been playing baseball for 27 years and “loves the sport”.
“Someone had to step up to organise it,” Madams said of her junior co-ordinating role.
“We had about 40 kids sign up today. We’ve got to start somewhere.
“This is good for the game. The seniors need a good junior comp because we’re struggling for senior numbers too.”
She said having a junior competition “up and running” is the first priority.
“It’s going to take four or five years to get back where we were.”
At this stage it appears the TBA Juniors will have a four-team competition, Handsaker said.
“We have four teams in the first grade and four in B grade too,” he said of a senior competition that started Saturday afternoon.
Cougars have got two teams in both the A and B Grade, Warriors have an A and B Grade side and Gunnedah Giants have an A and B Grade side too.
“Jamie Eveleigh (Gunnedah manager) said they have something like 20 players signed up,” Handsaker said.
“We even have two coming from Moree.
“They have had 14 or 15 coming over to train in Chan’s (Robert Chandler’s) batting tunnel.
“They also have a few of the Knights guys playing A grade for them.”
Handsaker has been playing baseball for at least four decades.
“I couldn’t step away,” he said.
“I’ve been around too long to let it all fall apart.
“Renae has done a great job getting the juniors going, worked her backside off to get them going.”
“Yep, Renae is certainly the brains behind it all and the worker too,” King added.
“It’s going to be an interesting year.
“Renae has got about 40 kids so far. They range in age from four to 12 .”
“We’re hoping we can all grow it.
“We had something like 30 junior teams in the old days. Teams in Under 6,8,10,12,14 and 16 age groups.”
It would be nice to reach that level again but, as Madams said, that might “take four or five years”.
Gunnedah Giants started their senior season with huge win over the second Cougars side.
The Eveleigh-led Giants won 27-2 while reigning premiers Warriors had a 12-2 win over the Cougars number one side.
