Baseball registration soars

Baseball Manitoba set a new registration record this summer with more than 13,000 players signing up.

Jason Miller, the organization’s executive director, gave a giant tip of his cap to the Toronto Blue Jays, who made it all the way to extra innings in Game 7 of the World Series before falling to the Los Angeles Dodgers on Nov. 1.

“I have to give some credit where it’s due with the Blue Jays and their World Series run,” Miller said. “All the thoughts we had about how that might have affected registration in the past kind of came true this year.

“We believe it to be true that when they have a season like that, and even though they fell short, they did everything but win and it had a positive impact on people wanting to play baseball, people talking about baseball and people eventually signing up in the spring.”

The organization hit the previous peak of just under 12,000 player in 2018, but like all sports, look a giant step back with COVID. They were back up to 11,000 players in 2023 and 11,900 in 2025.

He said Manitoba’s volunteers also deserve a piece of the credit.

“Scott Preston, Glen Simard back when he was still involved, Dustin Asham in Brandon, those are just the Brandon folks but there are people like those people all over the province who are pushing it, creating opportunities for people, upgrading facilities and making new facilities so that we can handle this growth and make sure that the kids have success and enjoy their experience and want to come back,” he said.

Another bounce came in the number of umpires. Many sports lost officials coming out of COVID, but baseball has rebounded nicely from around a contingent of 400 after the pandemic. They like to have at least 500 umps, and hit that mark again in 2024. With a lot of work promoting the need for even more game officials, they have had 700 umpires in 2025 and 2026.

“I don’t think we’ve seen an increase in level 3s and 4s,” Miller said. “It’s the new level 1s where we’re seeing massive increases. We’re really hoping that translates into them becoming level 2s, and we’re going to be doing some data crunching on what that looks like and how many are staying in the program for one, two, three years or more.

“We know there is a lot of turnover. New people sign up and quit after one year and then new people sign up.”

Miller said there is a good number of umpires working higher levels like AAA, and he hopes that leads to more Manitoba umpires at national events.

TOURNAMENTS

Miller, who grew up in tiny Creelman, Sask, went to Minot State to play baseball and get his degree, moved to Winnipeg in 2005.

He started as Baseball Manitoba’s program director in 2010, and was promoted to the top job in 2018 after longtime executive director Morgan de Pena retired following 24 years in the job.

He has a soft spot for tournaments like the 75th edition of the Clearwater Annual Ball Tournament.

“I grew up in small towns myself and went to the local fairs and there was a baseball tournament involved,” Miller said. “Along with the parade where they’re throwing candy, I think about the different rodeo and agricultural aspects of those fairs: That was a huge part of my childhood and something that Clearwater’s day is really a magical time for people.

“It’s something that I hope teams will continue to support.”

He’s also appreciative of the Triple Crown Showdown, the massive event that will run at Simplot Millennium Park. The tournament, which is organized by Faron Asham, features more than 50 teams playing over two weekends.

“Tournaments are so important when it comes to developing kids and getting kids into the games that they need to be able to be successful,” Miller said. “And not only that, to create memories. When I remember things about my childhood playing days, tournaments are where it’s at. Provincials provide that but what the Triple Crown Showdown does is it provides it at a different level.”

Manitoba’s 16U provincial girls team is entered in the 15U AA division, and his son’s team is also playing, so Miller expects he’ll be at Simplot Millennium Park all weekend.

“I’m really looking forward to it,” Miller said. “What those guys do out there hosting that tournament is great for ball in Manitoba.”

The Triple Crown Showdown will be previewed in next Friday’s edition of The Brandon Sun.

SPORTS HUB

Baseball Manitoba is part of Sport Manitoba, which has a building in Winnipeg on Pacific Avenue, just north of the Manitoba Museum and Centennial Concert Hall. It brings together the executive directors of all the provincial sports bodies with staff, and has become a hothouse for best practices in Manitoba.

“The building itself is a hub and we’re all in there,” Miller said. “Sport Manitoba does their best to provide opportunities for us to collaborate, and we do have a monthly partners meeting. They have driven, certainly on the Safe Sport side, some initiatives that help all sports and help make it as easy as possible when they roll out something like the Protecting Youth In Sport Act.

“They offer things like group services for people who need help with bookkeeping, or they do all the payroll. Sport Manitoba has certainly provided some leadership and support to all sports.”

The organization works with 75 different sports organizations in the province.

Miller said he speaks regularly with other executive directors, including Softball Manitoba’s Susan Lamboo and Golf Manitoba’s Jared Ladobruk, plus his colleagues in similar jobs across Canada, and will happily incorporate their great ideas.

WOMEN’S BASEBALL

The women’s national baseball team has been in existence since 2004, so the sport isn’t exactly new for females. What is different is how it continues to grow.

“Today it’s much more prevalent and being promoted a bunch more,” Miller said. “There are more legs behind it, so to speak, and the female game continues to grow at the grassroots level. We introduced a 12U girls league and worked really hard on a 14U girls league that didn’t quite get the traction it needed, but again, the more times we stack 12U girls playing with and against each other, the more inevitable that a 14U girls league will come and then a 16U girls league.

“We continue to offer high performance opportunities for those seeking that in the female game at 14U, 16U, 19U and senior women, so we have four provincial team program operating this year.

“We’re very proud of the work we’re doing and very happy that the girls and women are coming out and playing and participating. Things are going well.”

While Zoe Hicks of Boissevain is currently busy coaching and isn’t on the national team roster, Ally Neufeld of Boissevain and Olivia Hagen of Stonewall played with Canada in 2025.

Miller also points to women such as Amber Baker of Strathclair, Jamie Johnston of Arborg and Katie Heppner of Winkler as longtime members of the provincial team who are now helping build the sport as coaches.

A busy summer certainly lies ahead.

After a July 1 event in Lundar that will draw all the 12U teams and provincial team players, Baseball Manitoba is hosting the 2026 national championship from July 9 to 12 at Optimist Park.

When a previous host fell through for the women’s nationals, Manitoba stepped up in late November.

“There will be eight teams with the best female players from across Canada, and a dozen or so who were drafted into the Women’s Pro Baseball League (WPBL) and start their season on Oct. 1,” Miller said. After the event ends, the national team will stay in Winnipeg to train for a couple of days and then have an intrasquad game at Blue Cross Park, courtesy of the Winnipeg Goldeyes and general manager Andrew Collier.

They’ll also have a girls camp there that day.

“That’s going to be about seven days when we’re celebrating women’s baseball and the best women’s players in Canada right here,” Miller said. The organization will certainly be rooting for the WPBL’s success.

The new league will have teams representing Boston, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, with all games played this season in Springfield, Ill.

It’s the fifth women’s professional baseball league in the United States, following the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, which ran from 1943 to 1954, the National Girls Baseball League (1944-1954), International Girls Baseball League (1952-1953) and Ladies League Baseball (1997-1998).

The sport of baseball can only hope the WPBL has the same impact on its game that the Professional Women’s Hockey League made on female hockey.

“That’s the dream,” Miller said. “That’s the way we all hope it goes. I know from me being an observer, I watched different varieties of women’s professional hockey start and not have success right away. This Women’s Professional Baseball League, with people like Justine Siegal and the people they have backing it, I see them getting it right the first time.

“I see how they’ve structured the league and brought it all into one area for the first year, and they’ve had the draft and all the promotion and excitement it created on Instagram and other platforms, and I really do seeing it having success.”

» pbergson@brandonsun.com