Lacey Jurke loves baseball. The grade 11 student from Maidstone plays with the Turtleford Midget Boys team, but doesn't just play the game during the spring season.
During the February break she experienced the passion for the game during a trip to Cuba with other Canadian women ball players. Cubans love baseball and it is part of their daily life. During her trip Lacey saw children playing the game with rocks and sticks, saw animated groups form to discuss the game in the streets, watched a professional baseball game in a special section of the stands surrounded by armed guards and played several games against a very competitive women's team.
She was a starting pitcher for her team and faced the challenge of pitching longer distances than she was used to doing much better in the third game when she took to the mound again. Lacey was described as a "machine in the outfield" by the coach she was trying to impress and batted well getting a base hit or walking each time she was at the plate.
In Cuba, the team experienced the game but also the culture venturing off the resorts into neighbourhoods the tourists rarely see even visiting an orphanage for a few hours showing affection to the children and bringing them small gifts from Canada.
The trip to Cuba is an annual event organized by Baseball Canada to scout for future Canadian National Women's Team hopefuls. Baseball Canada is preparing to host the international competition in Edmonton in 2012 and coaches are already planning the team roster for Japan in 2014.
Lacey's parents are supportive of her desire to play the game and proud of her accomplishments.
"Lacey was on Team Saskatchewan in 2008 at Bantam Nationals in Montreal," said her dad Darrell Jurke. "In 2009 at Nationals in Toronto, she won MVP and had the second highest batting stats in Canada. In 2010, she was the captain of Team Saskatchewan, starting pitcher and MVP."
Darrell says she has always been treated as an equal on boys' teams and quoted the slogan for the Girls' National Baseball League "You wish you could throw like a girl!" Lacey is a young girl who throws like an amazing skilled girl with a fastball reaching about 70 MPH. She doesn't want to stop playing the game and seeing the world in the process. She has also played baseball in Australia and hopes to return to Cuba to play in the future.
