Staff photo by Lizz Bottrell

Our home teams, the Kipling Knights, Eden Valley and the Windthorst Pirates

Staff photo by Lizz Bottrell

First year team the Windthorst Pirates, in grey, played veteran team, the Dinsmore Kings, in blue, during the opening game in Windthorst on July 4.

By Lizz Bottrell, Citizen Staff

Last weekend Kipling and Windthorst came together to host the 2008 SBA Twilite Division Provincial Championships which organizer, Susan Hengen, deemed it a success. With 21 teams competing, including three home teams, a good number of spectators ventured out to cheer on their favourite teams.

The local teams, the Kipling Knights, Eden Valley and first year team the Windthorst Pirates, may not have come out on top in any of the events but they surely had a fun time playing ball. For the Windthorst Pirates, the event held extra anticipation as it was the team’s first year playing in the Twiliter Division. The guys’ main reason for starting a team was because Windthorst was one of the host communities, however, there were other factors. “A few guys are hitting the magic number so it’s time to get a team going and hopefully it will keep going for many years,” said Trevor Parley, team manager. “For some of the guys it’s been 15 years since they’ve played and the town put a lot of work into cleaning up, so we had to have a team.”

For anyone unfamiliar with the Twiliter division, any male aged 35 and over can play. The next division up, Twiliter Masters, includes any male 40 years and over. “There are guys in their 80’s in Masters and in their 70’s in Twiliters,” said Susan Hengen, event organizer.

Holding the event between Kipling and Windthorst showed just how well small communities can work together to put on larger events. “It speaks highly of the work of the volunteerism of the two communities,” said Don Toth, Moosomin MLA.

Both towns completed a lot of work in order to ready the ball diamonds for the event, making the communities a possibility for future championships.

As for those who came out on top at the end of the weekend, some games were close, especially the C Event between Sask-Alta Twiliters and Kipling Knights. Sask-Alta ended up defeating the Kipling Knights 12-11 to take the win. For the B Event, the Parkland Padres defeated the Regina Drifters 9-6. First place win in the A Event went to the Lockwood Twiliters for defeating the Dinsmore Kings, 5-2.

The Homerun Derby, a crowd pleaser, also turned out to be a huge success with 11 entries. Local resident, Darrell Beattie, who played for the Kipling Knights won the derby with eight home runs. Second place went to Phil Greenwood from the Lampman Legends with three home runs.

Other events throughout the weekend included a pancake breakfast on each morning, karaoke and a KFC supper on Friday in Kipling, and of course beer gardens. Hengen sends a huge thank you out to all the volunteers who helped make this event possible.

Throughout the weekend, anyone who happened to catch a game in Windthorst likely saw a very tall and skinny umpire working hard to officiate the games. For the last 37 years, Craig Savill spent much of his time umping baseball games throughout the province. The Manor resident, who umped his first game at 15-years of age, looks forward to baseball season every year. “I love baseball,” said Craig Savill. “Baseball is the greatest game in the world. It’s winter training for summer sports.”

Savill’s spent the better part of his life playing baseball and umpiring for the game he loves. But he does it more than just for the love of the game. “The kids, we love the kids,” said Savill. “We do it for the kids, or at least I do - the eight-year-old kid to the 60-year-old kid.”

Spectators who took in games in Windthorst may have found Savill just as entertaining as the baseball because he has an outgoing and fun personality. His personality definitely helps to keep him going when in the field, a place he plans to be for as long as he can. “I’ll be doing this until I can’t either see or walk anymore and then I’ll probably still have something to do with baseball.”