Take me out to the ball game: Could St. John’s support a Pro baseball team
By Jason Pike
At any given night during summer in St John’s you can often find St Pat’s ballpark buzzing with players and fans underneath the lights. Because baseball over the years has developed his own traditions here in the province predominantly in the city of St John’s.
All all too familiar are the names Shamrocks, Fieldians, and Holy Cross, just to name a few but they hold a proud tradition in the game of baseball within the city and they’ve done so for many many decades. Even Modern Baseball has grown in Leaps and Bounds over the past decade always posting high numbers in multiple divisions. Growing the ambitions of playing in a big league ballpark like their heroes who play in the majors like the Toronto Blue Jays
For most people when you think about baseball in Canada you think about the Toronto Blue Jays because it’s essentially Canada’s team. Since the only other major league baseball team to ever exist in Canada, the Montreal Expos, went the way of the dinosaur in 2004, the Jays have been the sole source for fans and aspiring baseball players alike in the Country.
But what a lot of people do not know and it may surprise a lot of them, is that there are more professional Canadian baseball teams in Canada then the Toronto Blue Jays.
The Frontier League
The Frontier baseball league proudly boasts 3 Canadian entrants, the Quebec Capitals, the Ottawa Titans and The Trois-Rivieres Aigles.
The Frontier League is a professional baseball league in North America comprising 18 teams; 15 in the United States and 3 in Canada.
Of course they don’t share the same type of Big League ballparks and multi-million dollar salaries as the MLB, The Frontier League’s total player compensation budget will remain at $365,000 per team with a minimum of $13,800 per player. Veterans will earn up to $22,800, and each team’s highest-paid player will make as much as $27,300. but it is professional baseball nonetheless, and as I sit parked in my car, and watch St Pat’s ballpark illuminated in The Darkness, I can’t help but picture packed bleachers, patrons jammed in, to cheer on a St. John’s based professional baseball team in the Frontier baseball league.
A pipe dream?
A pipe dream you say? Maybe, but once upon a time the same thing was said in regard to Pro Hockey in the province and then they said the same of pro basketball, but both of those came to fruition. So I think switching gears to a summer outdoor professional sport, could be something that would be very successful here in the province. Is it a long shot? Sure, but has that conversation ever really been had? I feel like there are investors and boosters existing within the baseball community that may feel the same that this could be something epic in the world of professional sports for the province of Newfoundland, and the City of St John’s.
Some may think this is a foolish idea but my thoughts are that if we don’t think outside the box and we don’t stray a little outside the lines of the way things have been done here in this province will we ever truly grow?
