The Tribune

The Freedom Farm Baseball League highlighted the final day of the Bahamas Baseball Association’s 2019 National Championships with a dominant performance and three division titles.

Freedom Farm won the 8U, 10U and 14U titles yesterday in head-to-head matchups with the Junior Baseball League of Nassau in gold medal games in each of the divisions at the JBLN Field of Dreams.

The Farmers’ 10U team had the most lopsided win of the afternoon and claimed the gold medal with a 12-0 shutout win.

In the 14U division, Freedom Farm won 5-2 and the 8U team won 5-3 to conclude the championship series.

Freedom Farm won gold medals in five of the seven contested divisions over the course of the National Championships, which were decided over the course of June on three different islands.

JBLN and Grand Bahama Little League also won divisions.

The National Tournament series began in Grand Bahama over the Labour Day holiday weekend with the 6U (T-Ball), 16U and 18U divisions.

Freedom Farm won the 16U with a 9-0 win over JBLN and also took the 6U division 14-4 over Legacy Baseball (Grand Bahama).

JBLN opted not to participate in the 6U division.

Grand Bahama Little League emerged as the champions of the 18U division and prevented the Freedom Farm sweep with a 10-6 win over JBLN in the gold medal game.

Three weeks later, JBLN won the U12 division with an 11-1 win over Grand Bahama Little League on June 23 in Rock Sound, Eleuthera. Freedom Farm did not enter a team.

This is the second edition of the nationals championships under the leadership of the Bahamas Baseball Association.

In recent years, the nationals were hosted solely at the Emera Complex in Grand Bahama but shifted to a more family island inclusive approach in 2019.

“We want to impact the economy on the different islands, so we decided to take heed to the wishes of the baseball community on the various islands and look at this from a national perspective as well as contribute toward domestic tourism,” said tournament director Shane Albury.

“Our goal is to grow the sport, and ensure that we expose the Family Island communities to the excitement of the nationals. We want to help the communities develop a greater interest in the sport, and we believe that this is one of the ways of doing that.”

Participating leagues from five islands included FF, JBLN and Community Baseball out of New Providence, GBLL and Legacy out of Grand Bahama, Abaco and Andros.