After Little League with Dunbar, Little Mountain, Kerrisdale, Jericho, Hastings Park or South Vancouver clubs, teenage baseball players sign on with Vancouver Community Baseball to play recreational ball or advance to the elite AAA Mounties.
The amateur sports league for boys and girls aged 13 to 18 counts Hillcrest Park as the location of three home diamonds, but none of the 280 players on 22 Peewee, Bantam and Midget teams play at a designated Vancouver ballpark. In other words, they share their outfield with soccer, rugby, ultimate and cricket games at various times of the year.
In the meantime, the club's president and a staff of dedicated volunteers meticulously tend to their diamonds, particularly the infields which they've laid with eye-catching red shale.
"The day-to-day maintenance, from weed-whacking all the fencing to cutting the infields, cleaning out the dugouts and painting. It's all the time," said Bill Robinson. "We take it on as an internal project for our league. It just works very well that way with the park board. They lend a hand when we need specialty things like a pitching backstop and to extend fences."
Unlike Little Mountain Little League with its own Hillcrest diamond exclusively for baseball at that age group, Vancouver Community Baseball doesn't have a designated ballpark. "We'd love to see that happen one day. But let's keep our fingers crossed," said Robinson.
To complicate the chances of a designated diamond, the league's three different age groups play on different sized fields. Peewee (kids aged 13 and 14) play on 70-foot base paths with a 220-foot outfield, while Bantam play on 80-foot base paths and Midget use 90-foot base paths, the same as the Vancouver Canadians at Nat Bailey Stadium and all Major League teams.
A designated field could mean players remain active through October.
Vancouver Community Baseball has reason to celebrate, however. Five high-profile medals at Provincial and Western Canadian Championships cap off a successful season of fundraising.
"We had 30 sponsors this year, growing from only six a few year ago," said Robyn Robinson, a volunteer who operates like the league's executive director and is married to the president.
"We've really worked hard on developing our league," she said, taking time to thank sponsors and acknowledge the "wonderful young men" she has the privilege of supporting.
The AAA Bantam and Midget Vancouver Mounties finished their season with three silver medals, bringing in hardware from the provincial tournament and the Western Canadian Championships.
The AA Bantam team hauled in two gold medals, one each at Provincials and the regional western finals.
The season-champion AAA Bantam roster, with players aged 14 and 15, earned the best B.C. regular-season record with 33 wins and six losses. Although they'd beaten the Victoria Eagles in all four meetings this season, the Mounties fell 8-5 to the Island team at Provincials. "We were beaten on that day by a better team," said head coach Ted Pawlick.
"The main thing is to provide development for youth to play baseball at a high level."
For more information, visit vancouverbaseball.com.
Twitter: @MHStewart
