A love of sport starts young, and the Yorkton Cardinals have met to teach young kids about baseball and connect with the youth in the city. Team members were at St. Paul’s Elementary School to teach basic skills to students.
Derek Marshall, player with the Yorkton Cardinals, says that the team wanted to give back to the community in new ways, and by meeting kids in the community they hoped to get more young people interested in the sport and into playing it themselves.
“That’s what it’s all about, teaching kids that baseball is a fun game to play.”
The afternoon focused on teaching kids different skills, including catching, pitching and hitting, before the day ended with a quick game between students.
“Teaching the fundamentals is always the best as early as possible. It makes it easier to become elite as you get older if you want to continue playing baseball. I have found that the fundamentals of baseball can help in a lot of different sports as well.”
This was a homecoming for Marshall, who spent his elementary school days in St. Paul’s, and he hopes that baseball can be important to today’s kids as it was when he was their age.
“I know since I’ve been younger, baseball has declined a little bit, I want to try to get it back to being a big sport in town.”
The plan seems to be working, as even kids who were not always baseball fans were excited by the visit and by learning about the sport. Alle Shivac was one of the kids at the event, and admits that she was nervous about playing, if only because she didn’t know very much about the sport.
“Once I started, it’s really fun.”
Shivac says that now that she’s had more experience with the sport, she hopes to get down to some Cardinals games in the near future.
Kaleb Larsen celebrated his birthday on the day that the Cardinals came, and says it was exciting to have the team come down on the day.
“I was excited that they were going to come and wanted to learn new things about how to play baseball.”
Larsen says that one of the highlights was learning how to pitch properly. He says that after learning more he is a bit more of a baseball fan and wants to keep closer track of the sport in the future.
