NCABL Celebrates 50th

An Alberta baseball league that got its start in Morinville celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, and its founder wants everyone to join the party.

North Central Alberta Baseball League commissioner Paul Riopel invited St. Albert and Morinville councils this week to participate in the league’s 50th anniversary celebrations, which involve both communities.

The league originated out of a meeting in Morinville in 1967, and was formally established in 1968.

“Baseball is part of our folklore,” said Riopel, a founding member of the league and its commissioner since the beginning, and is just as much part of Canada’s history as it is America’s.

To honour that history, the league has planned a six-part celebration this year in Morinville, St. Albert and Westlock.

Part one is the official opening of the league’s Hall of Fame this April 6 at the Musée Morinville Museum. The new permanent exhibit will house the league’s trophies, records and newspaper clippings, as well as a selection of artifacts from the last century of Alberta baseball.

Riopel deposited one such artifact at the museum Sunday: his old 1960s NCABL Morinville Manufacturer’s uniform, complete with the original red athletic socks.

“I was pretty skinny back in the day!” he said, and he barely fits into it today.

Part two is an all-star game this July 16 at St. Albert’s Legion Memorial Ball Park. It will have “the biggest tailgate party you’ve ever seen in St. Albert,” Riopel said, as well as clowns, an outdoor stage, and an on-field pre-game show.

The last four activities happen this August in Westlock. League officials will present the top 50 players in league history (10 per decade) with customized reproductions of their team jerseys at a meet and greet night Aug. 18, and hold a banquet, golf tournament and sports and leisure expo the next day.

Riopel said the expo is modelled after the all-star game pre-show run by Major League Baseball, and is meant to be a salute to the communities that support the sport. In addition to panel discussions on baseball and autograph signings by famous local athletes, there will also be kiosks where governments can talk about how they promote sports in their communities.

Baseball has been a part of Alberta since the province’s beginning, with residents forming formal teams as early as 1900, said Morinville Museum co-ordinator Donna Garrett.

It was the game of choice for families at a Sunday picnic and a significant part of the evolution of leisure activity in Alberta, Riopel said.

There was initially no organized play for baseball in around Sturgeon County, with community teams meeting only at invitational tournaments, Riopel said. But as players grew in skill, so did their desire to compete.

A small group of fans, including Riopel, met at the Cunningham School in Morinville in fall of 1967 with the idea to establish a league for organized play. The league formed the next year, with Riopel as commissioner.

The league organized skills competitions, training camps, scholarships and tournaments to help players build skills, Riopel said. Some 63 clubs and 2,000 athletes from almost every community in north-central Alberta have joined the league over the years, and it’s still going strong today with nine teams.

The league today continues to flourish thanks to a dedicated group of enthusiastic sports fans, Riopel said – fans that have kept him energized all these years.

“I hope that the same will be true in 50 years as it was for me over the past 50 years: that (the league) will remain a field of dreams for many who love the game,” Riopel said.

Details on the league’s celebrations can be found at www.ncabl.ab.ca.

Wednesday March 22, 2017 9:15am by Kevin Ma

Original article can be found on the St Albert Gazette website