News

The province of Manitoba will represent Canada at the 18^th Annual World Children’s Baseball Fair 2007 to be held from July 29 to August 6 in Puerto Rico.

The five children who will represent the country at the annual event where selected randomly through an application process which required the kids to fill out an application form, write a short essay and obtain a letter of reference.  Over 70 kids from across the province applied for the event.

The selected children are Nicholas Kehler of Altona, age 11; Graham Turko of McCreary, age 11; Paul Klassen of Winnipeg, age 10; Thomas LeStrat of Eriksdale, age 10 and Daryl-Ann Rawluk of Lorette, age 11.  The group will be accompanied by chaperone Ken Sharpe, who is the President of the Manitoba Baseball Association.

Each province gets a chance to represent Canada at the World Children’s Baseball Fair, with Alberta, Saskatchewan, PEI, Ontario, New Brunswick and Newfoundland previously representing Canada since 2001.  British Columbia will represent the country next year with Quebec and Nova Scotia the following years respectively.

Chairman of the World Children’s Baseball Foundation of Japan Sadaharu Oh and the legendary Hank Aaron founded the event in the interest of promoting baseball and providing an opportunity to develop international relationships, goodwill and cultural understanding among the youth of the world.