Community to celebrate the Nelson park baseball diamond upgrades.

News 100 blueBy Staff

July 22, 2017

BURLINGTON, ON

 

An event next Thursday is going to pull together a number of interests in the city and give people an opportunity to get outside and do some fixing up of a facility that has been home to baseball since it came to the city six years ago.

The Nelson Baseball Park Neighbourhood Group wants to celebrate the completion of the Nelson Baseball Park beautification and fencing improvements project at the Burlington Herd baseball game on Thursday, July 27.

Herd T-shirtThe Herd will be playing the Toronto Maple Leafs – the team that broke the 25 game winning streak the Barrie Baycats had achieved – those guys play some serious baseball.

The pre-game ceremony begins at 7 p.m. and attendees are encouraged to come early to get a seat and participate in some of the pre-game fun.

Entrance to the ball game will be free, a 50/50 draw and a BBQ in support of the Terry Fox Foundation.

The beautification and fencing improvements were done with the support of community volunteers and funding from the City of Burlington’s Neighbourhood Community Matching Fund program.

That fund is a favourite of the Mayors and was part of an initiative that the Parks and Recreation department dove into a number of years ago when they brought in Jim Diers who had done some incredible work in Seattle to juice up the thinking at Parks and Recreation.

Burlington was not able to get community responses that were as involving as those in Seattle but the program has begun to take hold.

The work being done at Nelson Park is a good example. It is similar to what a bunch of elementary students did with their ball diamond at Lakeshore Road elementary public school.

Bandits last gme 2013 - Dad and the boys

Site lines and picnic tables have been improved.

If you know Casey Cosgrove then you know that there isn’t a baseball game he can avoid. All it takes is the crack of a bat to shift his focus. When his community of “baseball enthusiasts” heard about this baseball ‘gem’ we have in our neighbourhood park and learned that the sight lines were in need of improvement so that a baseball game could be viewed clearly, without obstruction they gathered to tackle this project together.

The City of Burlington’s Neighbourhood Community Matching Fund provided much of the financing and they have been able to improve the fencing and freshen up the baseball buildings, stands and picnic tables in Fenway green, a famous baseball colour, to make the neighbourhood baseball park a first- class facility for players and spectators.”

Will someone be throwing the ceremonial opening pitch? Don’t let the Mayor near the ball. When he took on that task back in the days when the team was known as the Burlington Twins he let fly and the ball dug into the ground a couple of yards before the plate.

Nelson Stadium, part of Nelson high school facilities, which is adjacent to Nelson Park, has plans of its own to improve those grounds.

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