CARNDUFF - Seventeen-year-old Carter Beck, who lives in Carnduff, does well in whatever sport he touches. You might say that he is a natural.
He tried his hand at golf and picked it up quickly, but he doesn’t really have the time for it. His summer job at Swayze’s Concrete keeps him busy, as does another serious interest.
This past year, he played volleyball for the Carnduff Education Complex and was a major contributor as the Carnduff Tigers won the bronze medal in the provincial championships.
He also plays forward for the Estevan Apex U18 AA Bruins hockey team and has received offers to play at the AAA level, but he has declined as it would take him away from his most serious interest.
That interest is baseball.
Beck is a very good baseball player. Before the U18 AAA provincial championship began in Saskatoon a couple of weekends ago, three awards were handed out. Beck won two of them. Based on the 31-game season which had just come to an end, he was named the hitter of the year with a .471 batting average and was awarded the Saskatchewan Premier Baseball League’s MVP, as determined by the league’s coaches. A third award was handed out, the pitcher of the year, but Beck didn’t have enough innings to qualify since he only pitched 13 innings. Even then, he gave up no runs.
He has been chosen to play for Team Saskatchewan and will be heading to Niagara Falls later this summer to compete against Canada’s other provincial teams.
Beck has played ball for as long as he can remember. First it was T-ball and he just kept moving up. While he was playing at the U15 level, he and his parents realized he was an above-average player, so he started playing for the Â鶹ÊÓƵeast A’s, based out of Alameda, in the Regina AAA league. After two years, he joined the Â鶹ÊÓƵeast U18 AAA Twins, based out of Estevan.
This year, he helped his team to a 21-11 win-loss record and the team reached the provincial semifinal.
Whereas the few years of COVID affected so many things, Beck actually saw it as a positive in his development. His dad, Blair, is a school teacher and COVID prevented him from being able to teach for a bit, so father and son used the downtime to strengthen Carter’s playing skills. His throwing improved.
Prior to the COVID break, he was able to throw a ball about 115 kilometres per hour; after the COVID break, the radar gun hit 147 kilometres per hour. His catching skills also got better as he and his dad threw the ball back and forth.
Baseball isn’t the only thing Beck enjoys doing with his dad; they also have a lot of fun fishing together.
Beck is very thankful for the support his mother Tara and his father have given him. He knows that they have sacrificed a lot of time and money to help him arrive where he is and that without them, it would not have been possible.
He is also grateful for growing up in a place like Carnduff with its strong baseball culture and great facilities.
This fall, Beck will begin Grade 12. He is a good student, maintaining marks around 90 per cent. It’s important for him to keep those marks up as he is hoping to receive a scholarship to play ball after graduation. Colleges are interested in baseball skills, but they’re just as interested in scholastic achievements, so Beck plans to work hard to keep those averages up.
His ultimate dream is to be drafted by a Major League Baseball team one day and play the game he loves for a living. If past and present success are any indication, that dream doesn’t seem that far-fetched.
