It was a perfect day for baseball and to celebrate 25 years of the town ball diamonds in Carnduff on Saturday.

The community gathered on the west edge of Carnduff for a fun-filled day, highlighted by three families being honoured for their dedication to the town's baseball scene.

Blair Beck, President of the Ball Diamonds committee, and his fellow volunteers made a presentation early on Saturday afternoon to the Brinkworth family, the Carlton family and the Hubbard family. Each family now has one of the diamonds named for them to recognize their contributions to Carnduff minor baseball.

READ/LISTEN: History Of Carnduff Ball Diamonds

Baseball remains very popular in Carnduff, with 167 players registered in minor ball, the senior mens Astros team, and the senior ladies Cosmos and Steelers. This year, the facility will be hosting the Moose Mountain ball league pee wee and midget championship, the Steelers will be hosting the Senior ladies fastball championship and the Astros the senior men's provincials.

*The following is an excerpt from the speech made on Saturday in Carnduff

In 1993 stage 1 and 2 of this project were started. This involved the planning of the diamonds, landscaping, seeding, tree planting and the completion of diamonds 1 and 2, which were used to host the midget B girls tournament in 1994. By 1996 diamond 3, 4, and 5 were completed.

While we haven’t been able to narrow down exactly who the original board consisted of, names that were involved out here at the beginning and through the history include Sam and Norma Bachorick, Bonnie Fowler, Allen and Charlene Hubbard, Blaine Chrest, Grant and Verdeen Matthewson, Bill Crossman, Jack Mcfarlane, John Young, Shannon and Yvonne Carlton, Linda and Ernie Brinkworth, Brian Whiting, Bev Thompson, Morris Stevenson, Grant Mclean, Jason Hollinger and many more and apologies to those that have been missed. A big thank you to this group of people for having the vision, hard work and dedication to see this project through.

Also a thank you to Dale Didrick and his work on sloping the diamonds, which allows us to play ball out here on rainy days when other towns wouldn’t have a chance.

Another big thank you to the businesses community who has provided so much support over the years. Fast Trucking, C & N, Swayzes, Day Construction, Greg Cousins construction, Sunset Concrete, Competition Environmental to name just a few.

The Carnduff Ball diamond committee today consists of myself (Blair Beck) as president, Jamie Didrick VP, Allan Hubbard, Yvonne Carlton, Greg Kerr, Joel Purves, Lacee Didrick, Cory Franklin, and Shane Marsh. As a few of us discussed having this ceremony the idea came forward of recognizing a few people who have been instrumental in building what we have today and continuing to be involved in years since. Three families quickly stuck out.

BRINKWORTH FAMILY

The Brinkworth family has been involved with the diamonds from the beginning. Ernie was the one responsible for the plan of how the diamonds would be laid out and was an invaluable member of the board up until a few years ago.

Talking to Ernie yesterday about the beginnings of this place I would say him and trees have had a bit of a tortured history out here. He also had a great line about how spending $100,000 to build this place was more then worth it if it gave a place for a kid to be happy and stay out of trouble. Linda was the canteen go to lady for a number of years and continues to work on the craft show, which has been a great contributor financially to this facility over the years.

Their years of dedication and volunteerism to this facility are much appreciated. To recognize this the ball diamond committee is proud to announce that from here on forward diamond 3 will now be known as Brinkworth field.

CARLTON FAMILY

The Carlton family is another family that has been heavily involved in ball and this facility. Yvonne Carlton is a Sask Softball Hall of Fame member and a long time player in the area. Yvonne had been part of 21 Western Canadian medal winning teams, three Masters World medals, and over 40 years in softball. She was the winning pitcher in the 2002 Western championships, won in Carnduff.

Yvonne has been on the board of the ball diamonds since the beginning and has been involved heavily in all the projects the diamond has undertaken in addition to coaching and helping out young ball players in the area. Shannon Carlton has spent time here as a volunteer for countless hours and can always be found ready to jump in when help is required. Many nights one can find Shannon and Yvonne taking in a senior mens game, or a kids game, being out here enjoying the diamonds.

For their continued support and dedication to the diamonds the ball diamonds committee is proud to name diamond 2 as Carlton field.

HUBBARD FAMILY

The last family we would like to acknowledge is the Hubbard family. Anyone who has spent any time out here knows that Allen and Charlene Hubbard have been two of the driving forces of getting us to where we are today. I told Allen I would be short today so I will not go on too long about what they have done for this place, but if you look around at every part of this great facility the Hubbard family has played a part.

Allen, Charlene, Darrin and Alana have been the Steelers, a team that successfully hosted western championships in 2002 and 2006 at this facility and have had 12 medal finishes in the last 17 years at westerns, including 4 championships, one being won here in 2002. Charlene has been involved as a volunteer, board member and craft show committee member and has spent a crazy amount of hours at this place and working to make it better.

While I (Blair) may have the president title everyone knows that Allen is the boss. It is his mindset of always aiming to be better than good enough that continues to drive the way we look at things out here. For everything they have done, and will continue to do because as we told Allen at our last meeting he never gets to retire from this place, we are very honoured to name diamond one Hubbard field.