PHILIPSBURG--The two free baseball clinics and try-out are over. Members of the Quebec Capitales of the Canadian-American Professional Baseball League head home today. But already there is talk of their return and the possibility of several local athletes going to Canada to play ball.
President of the team Michel Laplante and manager Patrick Scalabrini spent a week on St. Maarten and liked what they saw.
"We are impressed," said Scalabrini to the more than two dozen ballplayers that attended the try-out at the Little League Stadium on the Pondfill Saturday. "We will definitely be inviting one or two of you to training camp and have notes on the rest of you. There are a couple of guys we may be interested in calling up during the season."
More importantly the pair was impressed with the younger children they conducted free clinics for Wednesday and Thursday.
"We are going to try to make this an annual event," said Laplante. "There is a lot of talent here."
The visit was organised by St. Maarten's professional baseball player Rene Leveret, from South Reward, with the help of local government.
"I spoke to Minister of Tourism Franklin Meyers and he put me in touch with May-Ling Chung of the Tourism Bureau who made this possible," said Leveret.
"We were glad to help," said Chung. "We are now going to work on a sustainable plan to make the clinics and try-out an annual event."
She explained the ministry sees sports tourism as an important means to promote the island and increase both inbound and outbound traffic as well as helping the youth.
"The best part is that they will visit when tourism is a little slow," said Chung.
Athletes selected to attend the Capitales' training camp will be notified shortly, and are expected to leave for Canada May 1st.
Leveret has played for the past two years with the Capitales and helped the team to back to back league championships. He played in 83 games, had 295 at bats and averaged .292 with 86 hits, 12 of which were four baggers. He scored 58 runs and drove in 55. He walked 51 times and struck out 59.
