The sport of baseball continues to grow in Carman, and with it, the need for added facilities. Carman Minor Ball is again pushing for more diamonds to be built in the community. Members met recently with the local Executive Committee, a group made up of representatives from both the Town of Carman and R.M. of Dufferin, and stressed the need for the extra facilities, noting it is fielding 23 teams this season with 199 kids registered. Currently teams are being shuffled around and playing on more days in order to accommodate this growth.

Mayor Bob Mitchell chaired the meeting and says these discussions have been happening for a while now. "Minor Ball came up with a plan five or six years ago but it didn't work, they had some pretty expensive diamonds that they wanted and the town wasn't prepared to spends hundreds of thousands dollars on a few ball diamonds." He explains those plans then got pushed aside. "What the plan is now is for a really scaled-back plan and to put in usable diamonds."

He confirmed that a residential developer working on a plan for the former Grundy land is doing a switch of property that would put ball diamonds north of the existing soccer pitches.

Currently there are four diamonds on the Dufferin Ag Society grounds in King's Park, two at the soccer complex on Sexsmith Road and two within the local race tracks. Carman Minor Ball is requesting four diamonds for fastball and two for hardball in addition to the two diamonds already in place within the race tracks. Mayor Mitchell says the plan is for the four diamonds in Kings Park to be replaced.

"The ones that are there are fine, they serve the purpose, but our goal is to just them on our own property so we can control it. There's been some changes at the DAS and they seem quite amicable to having the diamonds there, they don't use the property at this stage and we're good for a while but it's just nice to have it on our own property."

Meantime, Carman Minor Ball is also asking for some updates to be done to the current diamonds in order to create the best environment possible for teams. The list includes general maintenance and changes such as different sizes of pitcher's mounds, foul ball lines, etc. "The kind of stuff that's not there now," noted Mitchell.

According to meeting minutes provided to PembinaValleyOnline, the Executive Committee agreed to contact the local developer and move forward with the switch of property so that Carman Minor Ball can proceed to develop a plan for the ball diamonds. The group has been given a $1,000 grant from the Carman Area Foundation to hire a consultant. The Executive Committee also agreed to purchase a portable pitching mound using money from the Joint Tax Sharing Fund between the Town of Carman and R.M. of Dufferin.