Ottawa … There used to be a ball team there The history of professional baseball in Ottawa from 1993 to the present By Todd Devlin Jan. 3, 2010 Wayne Scanlan had heard the rumours of deterioration at the old ballpark, but he’d yet to see it himself. A long-time sports columnist at the Ottawa Citizen, Scanlan was already having a difficult time adjusting to his first summer in 16 years without pro ball in the city. But it only got worse when he took a trip down Coventry Road in July of 2009 to see what had become of Ottawa’s once-beautiful ballpark. It wasn’t a pretty sight. “The city had it all locked up so no one could use the place, and there was debris around the outside of the stadium,” said Scanlan, who was a regular at the ballpark over the years, both as a columnist and as a fan when it featured some of the best ball in the country. The playing surface itself was in shambles. The once-picturesque infield, which had been carefully manicured for 16 years, was covered with weeds. “Giant ones,” Scanlan said. “Like a couple feet high. There were even weeds overrunning the warning track in the outfield. It was pretty sad.” So sad, that it prompted him to write a column in the Citizen about the stadium’s sorry state of affairs. Fortunately, the city responded, cutting the grass, pulling the weeds and generally cleaning things up at the stadium that once played host to future major-league stars. “They actually had a (community) tournament or two there,” Scanlan said. “So it did spark a bit of a wake-up call that there is this great facility here that’s being wasted.” Of course, that wasn’t always the case. While baseball and Ottawa have certainly had a trying relationship at times, one thing is for certain: during the previous 16 summers when pro ball was in town, the city’s premier facility was never wasted. It was a first-rate park where even the most casual fan could enjoy high-calibre baseball. And talk about history. From the day the gates opened on April 17, 1993 to the day they closed on Sept. 1, 2008, Ottawa’s stadium was the site of countless memories – both on and off the field. There is hope that the memories won’t end there, and that Ottawa will see professional ball once again. In fact, efforts are currently underway to make that a reality (either returning an independent team from the Can-Am League or the Golden Baseball League). But before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s take the opportunity to reflect on what has truly been a rich and interesting journey of pro ball at Ottawa’s stadium down on Coventry Road ... *** When former Ottawa mayor Jim Durrell set a goal of bringing baseball to the city, the game was flourishing in Canada. The country had two Major League teams – the Montreal Expos and Toronto Blue Jays. Both were competitive, and the latter was drawing record crowds at a brand new SkyDome. By 1989, there were also eight minor-league teams in Canada: triple-A clubs in Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver, a double-A team in London, class-A teams in Hamilton, St. Catharines and Welland and a rookie-class team in Medicine Hat. Durrell wanted in on the action. In fact, it had been a dream of his to bring pro ball to the nation’s capital, for the first time since 1954 when the Ottawa Athletics played their third and final season at Lansdowne Park. Needing someone to champion his goal, Durrell called upon the late Howard Darwin to make it happen. A successful businessman and prominent sports figure in the city, Darwin was also the owner of the Ontario Hockey League’s (OHL) Ottawa 67’s. Darwin made his target the International League, a triple-A circuit that had recently announced -- for the first time in 30 years -- it would be expanding by two teams for the 1993 season. It wasn’t easy, but in 1991 Darwin earned the rights to one of those franchises -- at a cost of $5 million – after successfully lobbying city council to build a new baseball stadium in his hometown. “The stadium project was so tough,” Darwin admitted during an interview for a 1999 in which he was named Ottawa’s No.7-ranked sports figure of the 20th century. “It went to (Ottawa council) nine times for approval and we lost six times. Then we had to get the franchise and we were just one of 19 cities bidding.” Remarkably, everything worked out. And in 1992, construction began on a $17-million stadium in the east end of the city that would soon be home to the triple-A affiliate of Canada’s first major league team, the Expos. It was a perfect fit, right down to the team’s nickname – the Lynx – aptly chosen for its identical spelling and meaning in both English and French as a way to reach fans in the highly bilingual Ottawa region. Meanwhile, baseball in Canada took an even bigger leap forward that same year, as the Blue Jays became the first team outside the United States to win the World Series. On the evening of October 24, 1992, the American pastime reached perhaps an all-time high north of the border. As the Jays celebrated on the field in Atlanta, this hockey nation of ours was officially sent into a baseball frenzy. In other words, the landscape could not have been in better shape for Canada’s newest pro ball team -- the triple-A Ottawa Lynx -- to make its debut in the spring of 1993. *** By the time March rolled around, construction was complete on JetForm Park, a gem of a park with a seating capacity of 10,332, along with 32 private suites, a large press box, and a 180-person restaurant overlooking a beautiful natural grass and clay field that would soon feature some of the game’s next stars. The city was excited to catch a glimpse. There was great fanfare for pro sports in Ottawa that year, and for good reason. In 1992, NHL hockey returned to the city for the first time since 1934, as the expansion Senators debuted in the fall at the 10,000-seat Ottawa Civic Centre. However, with limited talent (the team finished with a league-worst 10-70-4 record), hockey in the nation’s capital did not go smoothly that first season. As a result, the Sens’ inaugural campaign was over by the time JetForm Park welcomed its first guests in the spring. “What amazes me now, when I think back, is that for a lot of people there was as much enthusiasm for baseball coming (to Ottawa) as there was for hockey,” said Scanlan. “The Lynx actually had a better start than the Senators and they warmed the hearts of everyone.” Officially, the heart-warming began on April 17, 1993, when the Lynx, having returned from a season-opening road trip, took the field for the first time at JetForm. The home opener against the Charlotte Knights (affiliate of the Cleveland Indians), the league’s other expansion team, was played in front of a capacity crowd and a full press box. Among those media members on hand for the momentous occasion was Barre Campbell , then a sports reporter for the Ottawa Sun. Campbell may not remember every Lynx game he covered over the years, but he can recall opening night as if it were yesterday. “It was a drizzly, grey, very cool night,” he said. “But the atmosphere didn’t match the dreary weather. There was real electricity in the ballpark and it felt like you were part of history.” The man who made that history possible merely soaked it all in, according to Scanlan. “I remember Howard standing down there just up from home plate into the stands. And he was standing out there in the rain, but he just had the biggest grin on his face.” Darwin had built it and the people had come. At that point, he simply passed things off to the players. At 7:51 p.m., Ottawa right-hander Mike Mathile delivered the first pitch in JetForm Park history to a Charlotte lineup that included Jim Thome , the IL’s most valuable player in 1993. Charlotte outfielder Ken Ramos picked up the first hit in stadium history and the Knights went on to win the game, 3-2. F.P. Santangelo , fittingly, picked up Ottawa’s first hit. Fittingly, because Santangelo quickly became the first Lynx fan favourite, his hustle and hard-nosed, style of play winning him adoration from the hometown faithful. “He owned this town,” said Scanlan, who noted in a column once that Santangelo “seemed destined to be our Crash Davis, minor-league legend.” But after three years in a Lynx uniform, the 27-year-old made his major-league debut with the Expos on Aug. 2, 1995 and became a regular in Montreal the following season. Before that, however, he was the face of Canada’s newest minor league team, and the city never forgot it. When Ottawa fans cast their ballots for the 10th anniversary Lynx dream team, they voted Santangelo as the utility player and all-time great. And in 1998, the organization made the Michigan native the first player in Lynx franchise history to have his number (24) retired. Besides Santangelo, who scored a franchise-record 86 runs in 131 games in 1993, there were others on the inaugural Lynx team that moved on to the major leagues.