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Written by: OSCIA provincial office

CBC Radio journalist, Peter Duck, recently conducted an interview with the 2022 OSCIA Soil Champion. A question posed during the discussion with Woody Van Arkel asked about the reasoning behind the Soil Champion award being a baseball bat. Woody was stumped for the answer.

We thought you, our members, might be interested in learning the story.

These bats are hand-crafted in the KR3 plant in Hespeler alongside the Grand River. Like our Soil Champions, they are home-grown, second to none, and perform at the highest professional level.

When the OSCIA executive committee was weighing options for the Soil Champion award back in 2014, when the award was introduced, the idea of a baseball bat with an engraved plate naming the winner was presented. Most rural towns in Ontario have a strong history of supporting their local baseball teams, and with a limitless supply of sport adages to bring colour to the Soil Champion stories, the group enthusiastically chose the baseball bat.

There is certainly a colourful history to these bats. The original plant in St. Mary’s—the St. Mary’s Wood Specialty Company—was making a complete line of hockey sticks in 1909, and by 1915 also carried 27 models of baseball bats. A subsidiary of Seagrams Distillery bought the company in 1933 and moved it to Hespeler. Some of us will remember in our youth playing on the pond with a Hespeler-branded hockey stick!

In 1972, the company was sold to Cooper of Canada. The next two decades experienced tremendous growth. When Tim Raines of the Montreal Expos won the 1986 National League batting championship, it was with a Cooper bat. Paul Molitor was using a Cooper during his 39-game hitting streak in 1987. Joe Carter was one of many pros that put his faith in Cooper bats to deliver. In 1988, Cooper had 30 percent of the pro bat market. These bats were all made in the Hespeler plant.

In 1996, the Cooper line was discontinued at the Hespeler location by the new owner–Bauer Nike Hockey, and the plant closed. In 2000, some of the former employees put together a business plan and founded KR3 and started making bats again. Now run by Rachel Hamel, daughter of the original KR3 owner, the company turns out 27,000 bats annually. She assisted with the custom design of our Soil Champion bat.

When Roy Halladay was inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 2017 (located in St. Mary’s), he, like all Hall of Famers, was presented with a recognition bat from KR3.

The KR3 bat has an illustrious history and it’s surely to be great influence for the future, just like our OSCIA Soil Champions.

The Soil Champion award is presented each year in early February at the OSCIA annual meeting. The Soil Champion then has the opportunity to present to the delegates, at the following years’ annual meeting.

The award recognizes outstanding contributions to soil management that directly influences soil health and crop production sustainability in Ontario. Sustainable soil management practices may be defined as those that:

• Make the most efficient use of nutrients
• Build the population and diversity of soil organisms
• Support systems with no net loss of organic matter and soil aggregate stability
• Effectively manage surface water to support reduced tillage systems

There are two main categories of a Soil Champion, as defined by OSCIA: the Research and Extension category and the Producer category. With this in mind, there have been years where the OSCIA Executive committee has elected to award the Soil Champion to two worthy individuals, one in each category.

To find out more about these illustrious Soil Champions visit the OSCIA website here: https://www.ontariosoilcrop. org/association/association-soil-champion-award/.

If you know a Soil Champion, reach out to your local association secretary, your Regional Communication Coordinator (RCC) or easily nominate them yourself online using the link above. Nominations are open until November 1st each year.