Tamworth Baseball Association have thrown the first pitch towards rejuvenating their junior representative program.
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On the weekend, the blue and yellow colours returned to the NSW Country Baseball Junior Championships mound for the first time in around 15 years with a team of 13 youngsters travelling across to Coffs Harbour.
Ranging in age from five to 12, they competed in the Zooka League division and far exceeded coach Richard Bullock and assistant coach Jeremy Bird's expectations.
"We didn't really know what to expect playing against kids that are all playing competition baseball," Bullock said.
"All of our kids all they'd done is train together."
But they ended up beating Newcastle in two of their games to pip them on for and against for second spot, and just got better every day.
A few of the older players even caught the eye of the NSW Country development coach.
"He wants them to consider nominating for the development squad for the Country under 14s," Bullock said.
They also won the Spirit of Baseball award for the whole carnival, and have been approached by Far North Coast about bringing up a juniors team for a game at some stage.
"We had every club represented from Pandas, to Warriors, to Cougars and Armidale, and it was just really magic," he said.
It was though only the first step in their push to try and reinvigorate junior numbers.
The next step is a summer competition.
Open to anyone from five to 14, Bullock said it will be a six to eight week program and most likely run of a Sunday afternoon.
"[The weekend] Sort of really lit the fuse with everyone's enthusiasm," he said.
"Everyone's really excited about it."
Keen to "strike while the iron's hot" they are looking at doing it before Christmas.
Bullock said they're hoping to get about 40 and would love to see a lot of kids that aren't already involved in baseball. That's really the main idea of it - attracting new players, who will then hopefully see what a "really good sport it is to get into".
"I mean the simple fact is that none of us are getting any younger and we need to look towards the future," Bullock said.
The stark reality is that if they don't have any juniors to fall back on, in 10-15 years they "might be looking at some empty fields".
