Whether you’re looking to be diving into the dirt for a home plate finish after batting a baseball towards the Rocky Mountains, or being the rocket-armed pitcher who would never let that happen, there are several exciting youth baseball roster spots to fill in the Columbia Valley Little League.

“It’s a good team sport and yet they still have to learn individual skills,” said league president Brendan Donahue. “At the first three levels, they play mostly in town just against each other. We may have a team play in Cranbrook this year with older players, like 13 and up, but we struggle with older kids.”

The youngest athletes, ages 4, 5 and 6, begin with T-ball, where the ball is teed up rather than thrown from the pitcher’s mound.

“T-ball is very non-competitive; they just go out there and have some fun, they don’t keep score or anything,” Mr. Donahue said.

Kids age 7 and 8 move up to the coach pitch level, where their coach lightly pitches them the ball.

“It’s real baseball, just with the coach pitching.”

Following that age range, the players begin pitching against their peers.

The league runs from April 29th until the end of June.

To find out more about the Columbia Valley Little League, contact the co-ordinators by division.

For T-ball, which covers ages 4-6, phone Mark Schuit at 250-270-0601. For coach pitch, contact Jay Wilisky at 250-270-0209. For Kid Pitch, meant for ages 9-12, contact co-ordinator Kevin Nelson 250-342-6467. For the Bantam Boys level, ages 13-15, contact Bob Powell 250-342-5093. For Girl’s Fastball, which covers from ages 13 to 18, contact Renice Oaks at 250-342-6253.

More information can be found at www.cvrec.ca .