Nova Scotia girls getting a baseball league of their own this summer

Nova Scotia girls who love baseball will have a league of their own this summer, thanks in part to an Ontario girl who found herself the lone female playing with 400 boys a few years ago.

It started when Dana Bookman's six-year-old daughter Noa Rae wanted to follow her older brother into baseball.

"She played with 400 boys and she was the only girl in her entire age group," Bookman, a Toronto resident, told CBC News. "When the season ended, she said she didn't want to play anymore. But she really loved baseball and she was good at baseball."

Bookman searched high and low for a league with more girls, but found none. Softball was an option, but she saidthat's as different as ringette is from hockey.

1,000 girls now playing ball

Bookman recruited five other girls, got uniforms and a coach, and played ball. Six playersturned into 42, which grew to 150 and then a year later into 350 girls playing baseball together under the Toronto Girls Baseball banner.

"Now, almost two years later, in the Toronto area, we served almost 1,000 girls," she said. "It's the only all-girls baseball league in Canada."

It's about more than games. A 2013 EY survey of hundreds of female executives found 90 per cent of them played sports growing up.

"We can see how it creates leaders, so we need to get our girls into team sports to show them they are important," said Bookman.

She founded the Canadian Women's Baseball Association and spoke at the Baseball Canada national convention last fall, which led to requests to help found similar leagues in Manitoba and Nova Scotia.

Nova Scotia Girls Baseball takes girls aged four to 12. The eight-week program starts July 8 and has recruited female players from the provincial under-21 team as coaches.

The first 30 minutes arespent on "drills and skills," followed by 75 minutes of playing ball. There aregirls with no experience as well asgirls who have played before. Parents, including fathers,coach the games.

'I see the confidence growing'

Halifax resident Sarah Williams plans to sign up her daughters Tessa, 9, and Libby, 11.

"They've done some tennis and basketball, they danced. We heard about baseball and we're pretty interested in giving it a try this summer," she said.

Williams has seen girls playing on boy-dominated teams drop out.

"I think at a certain age, that can get a little less encouraging for girls. I think it's great to see opportunities to really empower girls in different sports," she said.

• All-girl baseball hits it out of the park with growing numbers in Saskatoon

"It's so much more beyond just playing the sport. It's eye-opening for us as parents to see the team-building that goes on, supporting each other as a team and building up confidence within the girls."

Meanwhile,Bookman's daughter,Noa Rae, was recently scouted as an "early prospect" for the Ontario under-16 team.

"She loves it. She takes a lot of pride. I see the confidence growing, I see how she feels good about herself when she plays. I see how much she loves her teammates," her mother said.