Youth baseball organisers are meeting civil servants today to try to save their season after Community Affairs and Sports officials told them last week they were were kicking them off their pitches to make way for a "monster truck rally".

Youth Athletic Organisation (YAO) officials, who have used the Kindley Field baseball diamonds at Southside for more than ten years, were stunned last Thursday when they were told they will have to vacate the grounds from June 3-12 to make way for the rally of giant trucks.

The ten week baseball season revolves around the school year, and organisers say they cannot complete the league programme after the end of June because many of the 400 children involved will go overseas on holiday.

Community Affairs and Sports Minister Randolph Horton told The Royal Gazette yesterday that his officials will meet YAO today and will look at alternative sites for the monster truck rally to ensure both events can continue.

"One of the things I've asked my officers to do is to take a good look at how we can have this event happen as well as the kids being able to continue playing," said Mr. Horton.

"We are looking at some options, looking at alternative sites, in terms of making it happen, and I'm hopeful we will be able to sort this out.

"We're here to serve the people and I think both organisations (YAO and the monster truck organisation) are as important as each other, and we want to make sure the kids have the opportunity to play and this kind of creative event can happen. All these things can happen when we put our heads together."

Mr. Horton said details of the monster truck rally, which involves huge oversized trucks being invited to the Island to race, will be revealed at a press conference either later this week or next week.

YAO president Bill Jack told The Royal Gazette yesterday that the notice to quit the fields in June had come out of the blue.

In an e-mail to parents, players and coaches last Friday, Mr. Jack said the notice to vacate the fields showed "insulting indifference to our programme and the 400 children who participate as well as their parents and the coaches and umpires".

Mr. Jack said yesterday: "I am hopeful tomorrow morning we are going to have some good news on this. This came to us totally from the leftfield.

"The people we deal with in the Ministry have been involved in this monster truck rally organisation, so it is not a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing."

Mr. Jack said the baseball season, involving children as young as five up to teens, ran at Kindley Community Playing Fields from April 20 to June 23 to coincide with the school year.

In his e-mail to parents, he stated: "I requested that the monster truck event be delayed until after June 23rd which would allow us to complete our season and, as the monster truck event was only proposed to the Ministry last week as detailed in the letter given to me, it should not cause major difficulties to the organisers of the event."

One parent who contacted The Royal Gazette and asked not to be named, said: "All of this has been carefully timed to suit the school year. These are the only baseball pitches in Bermuda, so why couldn't they find somewhere else for this stupid event?

"These fields have been used for baseball for ten years, so why are they having an event in a place that has already been allotted for something else?"