The Nanaimo Hub City Paving Pirates hope to take a leadoff on the competition.
The city’s B.C. Premier Baseball League club heads down to Tucson, Ariz., today (March 8) for 11 days of spring training.
The premier Pirates, plus a few junior Pirates and a handful of Victoria Mariners players, will start with a week of two-a-day practices and will finish with a tournament. The trip will be spent alongside U.S. junior college teams, and there are sure to be some Major League Baseball scouts hanging around.
So it’s a great opportunity for the Pirates, said manager Doug Rogers.
“It’ll be a good test for them. They’ll get to see what junior colleges do, how they operate, how they practise, the intensity, the size of the players,” he said. “Instead of the coaches telling them what they need to do to get better, to get bigger and stronger, now they’ll actually see it.”
The purpose of the trip is two-fold, Rogers said.
“Obviously it’s a great showcase for the kids for the future,” he said.
“But for us as a team, that week of two-a-day practices is really going to get the kids into game shape for the regular season.”
The BCPBL schedule gets underway April 9 and the Pirates are expecting to field one of their strongest teams in years.
“Usually the early part of the season will tell, because confidence is everything,” Rogers said. “If they start out well the first couple doubleheaders, you never know what could happen.”
sports@nanaimobulletin.com