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“Get to know your PSO (Provincial Sport Office)” is a new feature on baseball.ca that will provide an informative look at each of the ten Provincial Baseball Organizations throughout Canada. The 2014 baseball season has already begun for some provinces, while others are still counting down the days until they can get on the field. Either way, baseball season is upon us so let’s take a closer look at the organizations that help bring baseball to communities across our country!

Québec

The facts…

Name of PSO: Baseball Québec
President: Jean Boulais
Executive Director: Gilles Taillon
Headquarters: Montréal
Phone #: 514-252-3075
Website: baseballquebec.com
Twitter: @baseballquebec
Established: 1969
Number of staff members: 11
Number of Board members: 9                
National Championship highlight: 2003 Single Site Baseball Canada National Championships in Windsor. On both weekends, all Quebec teams were undefeated going into the medal round. This was the first time that Quebec made it into all finals of all National Championships since the field was expanded to all 10 provinces in all events.
Major Awards: Province of the Year (1986, 1998, 2003, 2004, 2009)
Membership: 24,952 players (1,888 female players), 1,820 teams, 1,147 scorekeepers, 1,379 umpires, 5, 857 coaches, 153 associations, 13 regions, 15 sport-etudes programs (school based programs)
Annual Provincial championship events: 19
Most notable baseball player(s) to come out of province: Russell Martin, Éric Gagné, Denis Boucher, Claude Raymond, Ronald Piché, Derek Aucoin
Famous non-baseball alumni: Martin Lavigne, President, National Bank Financial, Wealth Management

Three things to watch for in 2014:

Baseball Québec partners with Evenko to make Blue Jays/Mets Series a success

In March, Major League Baseball returned to the Olympic Stadium in Montréal for the first time since 2004 when the Toronto Blue Jays and New York Mets played a two-game exhibition series only days before the start of the regular season.

Baseball Québec worked closely with event promoter Evenko to ensure that the series was a success

“This was the biggest event ever that Baseball Québec was involved with and it was a huge success in terms of attendance (more than 96 000 fans total for both games) and financially for both Evenko and Baseball Quebec as we were presented with a $30, 000 donation,” said Baseball Québec Executive Director, Gilles Taillon.

Marketing campaign geared toward registering for Baseball

March was a busy time for Baseball Québec, as they were not only working with Evenko on the Blue Jays/Mets series, they were also busy promoting registration for the upcoming season.

“(We) launched and successfully delivered a marketing campaign to publicize the registration period during the month of March,” explained Taillon. “Our ads appeared on TV, Social Media, web based platforms and newspapers throughout the province.”

High performance review

Baseball Québec is in the process of executing a complete review of their high performance programs with the goal of establishing objectives to target over the next ten years.