Over the line tournament back to help out local family

For more than 30 years, those who have participated in the event have raised money for local causes through playing over the line baseball at the Henry Singer Ballpark in the city.

Evan J. Pretzer
Jan 31, 2020  •  January 31, 2020  •  2 minute read
Nicols Dion of the Multiple Scoregasms over the line baseball team watches his hit land at the annual Grant Nyberg Memorial Over The Line Tournament in Spruce Grove Feb. 2, 2019. The event is back this weekend. Photo by File photo

Residents of the Tri-Region are once more ready to get cold for a cause by playing in the snow.

The Grant Nyberg Memorial Over The Line Tournament will be coming back to Spruce Grove Saturday.

For more than 30 years, those who have participated in the event have raised money for local causes through playing over the line baseball at the Henry Singer Ballpark in the city. The sport is normally done on sand and raised more than $6,500 last year for Hudson Pedlar, a local child battling H1N1.

“The community has donated and helped out a lot of great causes through the years,” organizer Jason Pickett said Monday. “This has been done recently even though the economy has been tight on finances.”

This year’s contest will be collecting funds for Heather Forsyth and Pyper Whitecotton. The mother and daughter pair have lived in Spruce Grove for more than a decade and started fundraising for a new home last year.

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They could not initially afford one due to costs associated with Whitecotton’s Type 2 spinal muscular atrophy and have since raised more than $100,000 of their $200,000 home price goal. Pickett said he was made aware of them through another organizer, and, for Forsyth, the care has been incredible.

“I knew I had to do something to change [Pyper’s] life,” she said in December 2019. “Everyone has come together and helped to make it better. We are so lucky to live where we live … people are still finding time. After this tournament, I am going to see a broker. ”

Forsyth and her daughter Pyper Whitecotton at an earlier fundraiser in 2019. The pair will be the focus of this year’s slo-pitch tournament in Spruce Grove this weekend. Photo by File photo

The event saw -27 C with the wind chill last year and is on track to be -7 C with the wind chill this time around. Players may freeze, trip and fall but, above all, they come because they like to have fun and go home knowing they have made a difference in the community.

“For us it is just a day to raise money,” player Stacey Burton of Stony Plain said last year about her experience at the event with her friends. “We all get together in the summer and play so this is when we get together and do something good for the community. It is a great time although we freeze our butts off.”

More information on the event and how to donate is online at brewjaysotl.ca.

epretzer@postmedia.com

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