.jpg)
The Border Baseball League is back for the 2025 season and President Darren Russell is looking forward to a year full of great games and fun for the communities.
"I'm very excited, as always," Russell says with a smile. "Another season of Border Baseball is always high on my list of my favourite things. Having all the teams return from last year, plus the addition of a new franchise in Holland, it's wonderful. Like everyone says, everyone is full of optimism as we get set for the new year."
Having not just all the teams return but the addition of that new team has Russell believing things are very strong across the league. "It's always my measuring stick, we want everyone to return for that next season to play ball. That's always the success for myself and our league executive, if everyone returns, we think that it's a successful season. The addition of Holland, it's an area where we historically have drawn players out of, they've played in various communities around them, but they've never had their own team. They've now taken that step, they have a great number of players and they will be competitive."
For Russell, it's not just cliche that any team can win the league, looking at all the teams, he believes there will be some incredible games and really any team can capture a championship. "It's an interesting league, no one else has what we have in this league. When you look at the east division communities in our league, it's more described as cities, while the west division are towns that may be smaller. It does my heart good that the league champions move back and forth from one division to the other. We have an east winner then a west winner. When I go back and do the deep dive into our regular season and look at our results from games, it's very interesting to see that in the last two seasons, we are one game away from having a .500 record between east and west. That's in each of the last two seasons. It's very competitive and it keeps the league strong. There is no one that's a whipping boy for the league, every team goes to the park believing they can win."
Strong baseball teams is one thing but strong community support has always been the backbone for Border Baseball, something Russell is extremely proud of. "It's exceptional, the teams like Morden, Winkler, Carman and Altona, every one of those teams have a high community interest in those teams. It says a lot because all those communities have a lot going on, they are larger and there is a lot of different places they can go for entertainment. They choose to watch Border Baseball. The west division, those teams are maybe the only show in town and they get great support, people love coming out and watching. It's positive on both sides. It doesn't matter the size of the community, all the teams feel the support."
League games are set to start on Friday, May 16th.