Players of the Prince Albert Minor Baseball Association celebrate after the Jays Care Foundation announced they will doante $30,000 to the project. (Ian Gustafson/ paNOW staff)

By Ian Gustafson

Help from the Pros

Jays Care Foundation donates $30,000 to Prince Albert Minor Baseball

Apr 22, 2022 | 7:52 PM

The Jays Care Foundation has announced as part of its 2022 Field of Dreams initiative they will be giving the Prince Albert Minor Baseball Association (PAMBA) $30,000 for the Grand Slam Rebuild Campaign.

The Grand Slam Rebuild Campaign is a plan that was announced in August of last year to renovate three Crescent Acres ball diamonds into a baseball park. City Council approved the project to allow them to get sponsorship deals.

This project will provide under-15 players to have a field to call their own, which they haven’t had since 2014 when Lew Hobson Field was converted to a softball diamond for the World Junior Softball Championships. Since then they’ve been sharing Andy Zwack Field with the under-18 division using a portable fence that is taken down after each game.

Duane Krip, president of PAMBA, said the help from the Toronto Blue Jays will help cover a lot of costs.

“Our project budget right now is $167,000 so that $30,000 does take a huge chunk out of what we’ll be needing to do at that diamond,” Krip told paNOW.

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Krip explained that in order to receive help from the Jays Care Foundation there was an application process. On top of filling out the application, PAMBA also sent in a video to the Blue Jays talking about the history of the project and why it’s needed.

In March of this year city council voted unanimously to approve the sponsorship deals. The title sponsor is the Kinsmen Club of Prince Albert, who agreed to provide $10,000 per year for six years and, in return, the Crescent Acres diamonds will be referred to as the Kinsmen Baseball Complex until 2027. The PAMBA has also made a deal for the naming for one of the three fields from Fountain Tire who will contribute $9,000 over three years beginning next year.

And now the Jays Care Foundation donation of $30,000 will put a total of $99,000 contributed to the project by sponsors.

At the Crescent Acres softball diamonds, the number one and three diamonds will be constructed into under-13 baseball fields, which will require permanent mounds on both fields and new covered dugouts on diamond number three.

Diamond number two will be turned into a regulation sized under-15 field after they reposition the current fence outwards 25 feet. They will also get a mound built and the infield lengthened. This will allow them to host games on regulation sized field and hold more tournaments and regional play.

Two new diamonds will also be created to allow the under-11 division to join the under-15 and 13 clubs in one area.

The project will be split into three phases before it’s completed. Phase one will happen in 2021/2022 and will cost $169,000. Phase two, which will take place in 2023, will cost $512,000. This phase will include lighting, score clocks, press boxes and seating. Phase three will cost $450,000 for the two new under-11 diamonds. In total, the project will be over $1 million and are still years away from having it all completed. However, Krip said phase one will be done this year.

An aerial view of the Crescent Acres diamonds shows the proposed changes to field #2. (Council Agenda Package/City of P.A.)

Krip said construction for phase one to turn diamond number two into a regulation field for the under-15’s will happen immediately.

“As soon as it dries up out there, we’ve got contractors ready to go and we’re just waiting for things to dry up so they can get in there and start doing what they need to do,” he added.

City Councillor Blake Edwards has also been involved in this project bringing the motion forward to city council before it was approved. He said it’s a big deal for PAMBA and also the City of Prince Albert.

“It’s nice to get the U15 ball diamond up and working and have an official diamond rather than utilizing a snow fence,” Edwards said. “This is a big project and minor baseball has done a very good job raising the funds that are required so this is great.”

He wanted to thank the Toronto Blue Jays and added minor sports is important to him and to have facilities for kids up and running properly.

“That Crescent Acres ball park is going to be wonderful… Thank you to the community for getting behind this project, it’s always appreciated,” Edwards said.

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Ian.Gustafson@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @IanGustafson12