City hall set to take swing at Labatt Park national heritage designation
Supporters of London’s Labatt Memorial ball park and city hall's planning department are seeking council approval to apply for designation of the park as a national historic site of Canada.
Article content
Already provincially protected and locally loved, the world’s oldest baseball grounds would get some national recognition under a plan heading to city politicians.
Supporters of London’s Labatt Memorial ball park and city hall’s planning department are seeking council approval to apply for designation of the park as a national historic site of Canada.
“Designation as a national historic site is purely commemorative and really honorary in nature. Mostly it’s an official recognition from the government of Canada that the site is of profound importance to Canada or has had a profound impact on Canada’s history, and tells a unique story,” Mike Greguol, a city heritage planner, said Thursday.
“It means to gain attention and create a sense of local pride, and can garner the attention of baseball historians, sports enthusiasts and fans of Canadian heritage and historic places.”
The proposal is heading to council’s planning and environment committee Monday.
The park would join some rare company as a national historic site. There are only two baseball sites recognized at that level in Canada, according to a staff report heading to committee: the Asahi Baseball Team, a Japanese-Canadian baseball team from Vancouver, B.C.; and the Powell River Townsite District, a planned, single-industry community that included a baseball diamond declared to have heritage or cultural importance.
Labatt Park has been part of London’s culture since 1877, built at 25 Wilson Ave. as Tecumseh Park, the home field of the London Tecumsehs of the then-major league International Associations. During the years, the teams changed and once, due to flooding, the baseball diamond was re-aligned, but baseball has been played at the park ever since.
It’s now home to the London Majors of the InterCounty Baseball League. The park came under Ontario Heritage Act protection in the 1990s.
“The park has played an integral role in the growth and development of baseball in London and Canada and is the world’s oldest baseball grounds,” the staff report heading to politicians says.
That last statement was in some dispute several years ago, when supporters of ball parks in Clinton and Pittsfield, Mass., made similar claims of historic importance.
Researchers from the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) and the Centre for Canadian Baseball Research (CCBR) concluded Labatt Park was, in fact, the world’s oldest baseball grounds, the staff report says.
“There have been historians at each of the organizations that are probably still debating the finer points of it,” Greguol said with a laugh, “but I think the argument from the Canadian perspective is that it’s the world oldest baseball grounds. The site hasn’t been moved.”
Splitting hairs as only baseball statisticians and historians can, Fuller Field in Clinton is described as the oldest ballpark in continuous use, because its diamond was not shifted at any point.
Labatt Park faces a lengthy process to gain national historic site designation from the Historic Sites and Monuments Board.
“This has been kind of the easy part and really the fun part, researching the history of the park,” Greguol said. “I was told it can take one to two years for something like this to work its way through the process.”
London has 19 national historic designations, for four sites, four events and 11 historic persons, planning staff says.
Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion. Please keep comments relevant and respectful. Comments may take up to an hour to appear on the site. You will receive an email if there is a reply to your comment, an update to a thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information.