Honestly, at this rate I’m going to have to sign up for home delivery.

From today’s City editorial in the Ottawa Citizen:

Give baseball a chance

Ottawa Citizen

Published: Monday, September 17, 2007

Imagine — putting baseball in a baseball stadium. A very good baseball stadium. What a novel concept.

That’s what the commissioner of the Can-Am baseball league was pitching to councillors this week and he is right. That’s a beautiful park on Coventry Road that the city owns and baseball is the proper use.

Commissioner Miles Wolff would like to take over the lease at Lynx Stadium, put a Can-Am club there next year, and house the offices of Baseball Canada. That would increase the chances of our various national teams taking advantage of the perfect little ball park.

The city should do all it can to help the independent Can-Am league put a baseball franchise in the soon-to-be-vacant Lynx Stadium.

Mike Carroccetto, The Ottawa Citizen

There are a lot of advantages the Can-Am League has over Triple-A which has used the park since it opened in 1993. The league doesn’t play in April, thus fans won’t need to watch games in the snow or cold. There are also likely rivalries with franchises in Montreal and Quebec City.

Also with Can-Am ball, players could stay here for a number of years, thus developing a relationship with the fans. The players on the Triple-A Lynx were here at the whim of the major league parent club making player identification almost impossible. And with Baseball Canada located at the park, the Can-Am team has a better chance of being stocked with good Canadian players — something with a natural appeal in the nation’s capital.

However when all is said and done, independent league baseball, which includes the Can-Am loop, is, on the face of it, a step down from Triple-A, but doesn’t need to be if the owners of the franchise recruit well. And furthermore, how many fans in Ottawa will know the difference between Can-Am (probably played at a level near Double-A) and the International League? Not many.

Any new team at Lynx Stadium, though, faces a terrible roadblock to success — little parking. And Transitway connections are horrible.

Thus the city must open side streets to parking. Surely this is not too big a price to pay for the neighbourhood to ensure that a $15-million stadium can remain useful and vibrant.

The city must also clear the deck of legal problems that have appeared with the departing Lynx. That could delay stadium use and such a wonderful city asset should not be allowed to go to waste.

A plan to put a hard roof on the park to use it for soccer fields and tennis courts is a non-starter. First, it costs $40 million, which the city simply doesn’t have. And it destroys a great baseball park for soccer that doesn’t fit well in the stadium.

Can-Am baseball with the Baseball Canada adjunct is the next logical step for making the best possible use of Lynx Stadium. If that doesn’t work, maybe then it will be time to rethink the Coventry Road park.

© The Ottawa Citizen 2007

Thanks to Pete Toms for the tip!