Dear Baseball Fans:

Thank you all for being here this evening, June 1, 2007, to help celebrate the opening game of the Parker Xpress, a new beginning for sports in the Town of Parker. I also wish to congratulate the Odle family and the Mountain Collegiate Baseball League for choosing the Town of Parker and Double Angel as their home.

Baseball was an integral part of my youth, as I am sure it was for many of you. I could not wait for spring to begin so I could take my oiled mitt wrapped in string with a ball inside and have that first seasonal catch with my father. That simple catch brought us together. Don't ask me about the magic of that catch. It was just there.

Walt Whitman stated, "I see great things in baseball. It is our game, the American game." As you sit here this evening and for future-baseball games, how can you not help but think of the movie, Field of Dreams. In it, the character of Terrence Mann talked about baseball;

"The one constant through all the years has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is a part of our past. It reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again."

These fine-young collegiate players have so much to offer us. They will have the ability to help us remember what was once good. Their challenge, as young-new ball players, and our challenge as baseball fans is to know it can be good again.

"I see great things in baseball. It is our game, the American game." Tonight and for years to come, that game comes to and belongs to all of the citizens of the Town of Parker. PLAY BALL!

Mayor David Casiano

Town of Parker