Success breeds success and a sparkling example of that is the rapid growth being experienced by Cochrane minor ball.

The spring season is now over, but ball will continue for three teams playing in summer leagues, the highest number ever. There's also options being considered for winter development camps.

Cochrane Minor Ball president Corey O'How says there are many ways to measure the success of minor ball in the community, but that also comes with the challenge of having enough suitable diamonds to meet that growing demand for higher level ball. They were barely able to accommodate the 550 youth playing in the spring leagues and they're facing a potential shortage of suitable diamonds for their travel teams next season, though the needs of t-ball, coach pitch and house league are being met.

"Cochrane Minor ball did its best to keep all the kids here in town. All the teams did really well and challenged for spots in the finals, but they had really good seasons and they all got lots of playing time and that was the biggest thing," says O'How.

In the last two years, Cochrane baseball and softball has doubled in size,

"Cochrane minor ball has grown at such a pace that probably the facilities really haven't been able to keep up. At one time there were probably more facilities than what was needed and now we're at the point where we have just enough facilities to have all the kids play here in town for the most part."

They did have to send a handful of senior players to play in Calgary this season and without more diamonds may have to send even more next year, something they dread.

One example of that is the three intermediate teams established this season.

"We didn't have an intermediate team last year so if they move up to junior and we get another group of 13 year olds coming up, we're out of facilities and we're going to have to start sending kids to Calgary to play ball."

The association, though, has a good working relationship with the town and it has agreed to upgrade the Gleneagles diamond, which will help accommodate the intermediate teams.The town also plans to develop a quad diamond in the future.

"As part of our Open Spaces Master Plan we want to do an athletic park that includes a quad diamonds," explains Suzanne Gaida, now Cochrane's deputy CAO and senior manager of community services when the plan was completed. "So it's a matter of finding the land to do it and we're looking at different areas right now where we can potentially accommodate that,."

"When we find land and when we start pricing it out it will come forward as a capital project."

Minor ball hopes a solution is found soon.

"We take a little heat about times and facilities but it's not on minor baseball and minor softball to build and maintain diamonds; that's on the Town of Cochrane and people need to challenge their councillors and the Town of Cochrane to ensure we have the facilities the kids need to continue to develop and play the game that they love."