Field of Dreams

Local men to host baseball camp in Lennox Island

Ryan Quigley

Journal Pioneer

Many people have fond memories of their time on the baseball field. Whether it be chasing down a fly ball to the center field wall or the sweet small of freshly cut grass just before the game, a smile comes to those remembering childhoods spent running the bases or hitting the game winning home run.

Blair Creelman wants to bring that to the Island’s Aboriginal you.

On Saturday Creelman, child and wellness family coordinator for Lennox Island, with the help of Mike Cameron, a teach at Summerside Intermediate School, are holding a baseball camp for aboriginal children ages seven to 12 on Saturday at the Lennox Island baseball field.

The camp, which is sponsored by the Mi’kmaq Confederacy of P.E.I., is the first of its kind for Aboriginal youth. Attendees will run through drills on hitting, running the bases, throwing the ball correctly and catching the ball correctly. They will be having another camp on June 18.

Creelman said he has been drawing a lot of interest from kids in the community and hopes it translates into starting a minor baseball team.

“There’s a lot of younger kids in the community now so hopefully we’ll get enough to field our own team eventually,” he said. “We have a beautiful facility up here, a beautiful ball field with lights and stuff so we got to use that more too.”

He said though they will be focusing on the mechanics of playing baseball they will be doing some fun activities for the kids too.

“We’re going to implement a lot of fun games as well. With the kids, at the end of the day, we’ll have a fun ball game, we call this game the Tater Cup,” he said. “Our major focus is just making it fun for the kids.”

Creelman said he feels the camp will be successful because of the support they get in the community and expects 15-25 kids.

“Every program we run with the kids up here, we get all the kids.”

Even though one of their goals is to see the program become a long term one, they never lose site of the number one goal, said Creelman.

“Just to see them enjoy themselves, that’s our number one goal,” he said. “Mike Cameron and I, we’ve been doing Mosquito and Peewee camps indoors for years and that’s always been our major goal.”