Thunder Bay International Baseball Association gives $5K to local organizations

The 2010 World Junior Baseball Championship continues to give back to its host community.

On Wednesday Warren Philp, executive director of the Thunder Bay International Baseball Association, presented three local organizations with their share of a $5,000 dividend derived from the proceeds of the highly successful event, slated to return to the city in 2017.

Lakehead University’s baseball team got the largest amount, $2,950, which they’ll use to teach local grade-school children the fundamentals of the game.

The Thunder Bay Border Cats got $1,250 to help cover costs of clinics the Northwoods League team and new manager Danny Benedetti plan to put on this summer, while the Thunder Bay Umpires Association was given $800 to help with local umpire development.

Border Cats owner Brad Jorgenson said the donation helps the team give back to the community. It’s a win-win situation, he added.

“I think all of our organizations are interested in growing baseball in Thunder Bay. We’re going to be putting on a number of youth camps this summer and the funding from the TBIBA will be going directly to those participants in the youth camps, to go the camps themselves and also to come to the games and be exposed to baseball at a little higher level,” Jorgenson said.

Philp said the fund was established after the 2010 event to help develop the sport in Thunder Bay.

“This is the fourth year that we’re supporting baseball in our community by way of cheque presentations to groups that are involved with baseball development. This will mark $20,000 that we’ve given away over the course of four years,” he said.

Philp added that in preparation for the 2017 18U Baseball World Cup, the TBIBA is in negotiations to bring a select team from the Toronto-based Japanese-Canadian league to Thunder Bay to play a group of local all-stars, an attempt to foster good relations between the two communities.

Japan, which did not take part in 2010, is expected to be one of the teams involved in two year’s time.