Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame

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The Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum, a non-profit, charitable foundation, moved to St. Marys, Ontario, Canada from Toronto, Ontario in 1994 and opened in 1998. Professor Robert K. Barney, former director of Olympic Studies at the University of Western Ontario, was instrumental in the hall of fame's move to St. Marys.

1 History
2 Why St. Marys?
3 Future
4 Awards
5 Facilities
6 Rules for nominations
7 Inductees
8 External link

[edit] History

Founded in October 1983 in Toronto at Exhibition Place and later Ontario Place until 1989, it is dedicated to preserving Canada's baseball heritage whose origins date back to June 4, 1838, when a game closely resembling today's baseball was played in Beachville, Ontario, according to an article in Sporting Life magazine in 1886 written by Dr. Adam Ford, formerly of St. Marys, Ontario.

[edit] Why St. Marys?

St. Marys has close ties with the beginning of baseball in Canada. One of St. Marys’ early settlers, Dr. Adam Ford, wrote an article that was published in a magazine called American Sporting Life in 1886 that described a game played in the nearby community of Beachville between Beachville and Zorra Township that closely resembled baseball in its current form. Ford later organized a baseball league in St. Marys and was a Doctor and the Mayor of St. Marys.

The second main reason the Hall of Fame is in St. Marys is because the St. Marys Cement Company donated 32 acres of land to the Hall of Fame.

The St. Marys Rotary Club was the first club to join hands with the Hall of Fame and help establish what we have today. Still today the Rotary Club helps with numerous volunteer hours and cash donations.

Also, a local firm called The St. Marys Wood Speciality Company added the production of baseball bats to its product line at the turn of the 20th century and the wood speciality company stayed in St. Marys until the early 1930's when it moved to Hespeler, Ontario (Cambridge area). The St. Marys bat became very popular and well known throughout the country and was the forerunner of the Cooper bat now used in the major leagues. Today you can find information about this company inside the Subway store on James St.

[edit] Future

With 32 acres of land at the Hall of Fame we are able to construct several new aspects throughout our site.

We are currently fundraising for three new buildings; a dormitory, a museum and a stadium.

The dormitory will be able to sleep about 200 people for games, tournaments, clinic and camps. St. Marys currently has the beautiful Stone Willow Inn and the amazing Westover Inn, but both of these Inn's aren't large enough to host our needs. Two-thirds of the rooms will contain two bunk beds in each room while the remaining one-third will be appropriate rooms for coaches and adults. All rooms will be themed by the 30 MLB and 30 NHL teams and some the Canadian Baseball Greats such as Fergie Jenkins and Larry Walker.

Our new museum will be about 20,000 sq ft. Half of the new museum will contain interactive displays such as radar guns, batting tunnels and announcer booths. Along with the interactive displays and the Hall of Fame for our inductees we will also have a library with over 4000 baseball books for research. These books were donated by Morry Liebovitz. Also inside will be a theatre/lecture hall for about 200 people.

The stadium will wrap from first base to third base along the St. Marys Cement Company Field. We will install about 2000 seats from the old home of the Jays, Exhibition Stadium. Inside will be state of the art dugouts, change rooms, umpire rooms, equipment rooms, food booth and announcers booth. We are also going to build batting tunnels and pitching cages on both sides of the stadium so teams can train year-round.

All three of these buildings should be built in the next five years.

[edit] Awards

Since opening, 75 members (46 players, 23 builders, 2 honorary, 4 honorary teams) have been inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame. It includes professional ballplayers, amateurs, builders and honorary members who have helped popularize the sport in Canada.

In addition, the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame also gives out the Tip O'Neill Award annually to the baseball player "judged to have excelled in individual achievement and team contribution while adhering to the highest ideals of the game of baseball."

[edit] Facilities

The facility in St. Marys also includes a baseball field designed by landscape architect Art Lierman of London, Ontario.

[edit] Rules for nominations

A player must be retired for three years.
Must receive 75 per cent of the vote to be inducted.
If the person is not Canadian they must have done something significant in baseball in Canada.
The person nominated will stay on the ballott for nine years as long as they receive a minimum of one vote every two years.
All information must be in by December 31st of the year to be eligible for the following year.