Fastpitch fans and players can circle this Sunday on their calenders.

After months of hard work, the Yukon Fastball Association will hold its first two games of the 2009 season, beginning at 5:45 p.m.

The second game should start around 7:45 p.m.

Both games are being played at the Pepsi Softball Centre's diamond two, located off of Range Road.

This year's league will feature three teams, sponsored by Casa Loma Motel, Roadhouse and Cinderwood.

Game play will begin with Casa Loma taking on Roadhouse before concluding with Roadhouse against Cinderwood.

Whitehorse has a good group of ball players, despite not having an official league in recent years. Every year, the city sends two teams to the annual Discovery Day fastball tournament, played in Dawson City in August.

Both of those teams are in the league, but had to divide up some of their players in the interest of parity.

The two established squads did manage to maintain about 10 of their players, said Dan Johnson, board member on the Yukon Fastball Association.

"It looks on paper like there should be good parity," he said. "We told everyone what we are going to do is run through the schedule once, so everyone plays everybody once.

"So probably after two weeks we will have a coaches meeting and we will evaluate and see if we are OK or if we need to make some changes. What we are going for is three pretty close teams."

The teams were formed this past Sunday and Johnson said it turned out that the organization was familiar with all of the players that signed up.

"We had a fairly good idea where everybody stood skill-wise, so there wasn't a lot of evaluating to do," he said. "We've been doing this for a long time trying to get this going, so it was good to see finally that we do have three teams.

"It looks like we are going to be OK."

Johnson said he was a little concerned that it would end up being the same two teams of guys that go to Dawson every year.

"It was kind of more than a relief I guess than anything to see that."

The pitching is the only weak spot that he can see right now, but said with time he expects it to improve with time.

"Pitching is hard to find, especially when you don't have an active league going," he said. "We're pulling from guys who haven't pitched in 20 years some of them and there's nothing against them, but it's a very technical task, the actual pitching mechanics, so a lot of them have to dust the rust off and start going again."

He said he is excited about the league starting this Sunday.

"There's going to be some good ball and it will be good to get some people out and watch some fastball again," Johnson said. "There's nothing really better to do on a summer day than watch a baseball game and this is the real deal; there's bases being stolen, there's plays at the plate, there's double plays, there's home runs.

"All that good stuff will be there and hopefully at some point it will be something that people come to every Sunday and it's kind of an event."