By: Danny Gallagher

Canadian Baseball Network

The Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame is hoping Santa has a gift on his sleigh to deliver Dec. 21 just in time for Christmas.

That’s the date town council in St. Marys, Ont. will meet to discuss and deliver a decision regarding the hall’s proposal for funding of a proposed new 7,100 square foot museum and office building in the southwestern Ontario town.

Hall officials submitted a proposal to council last February and almost immediately, council turned the document over to Mississauga-based Watson & Associates for an independent study.

Some nine months later, mayor Al Strathdee and his fellow council members will discuss the Watson group’s study of the proposal which has the hall seeking immediate funding of $550,000 plus an annual donation of $150,000.

The response from the town has been a long time coming and Strathdee was non-committal about how the council will react to the Watson study and in essence, the hall proposal.

“It’s hard to say,’’ Strathdee said.  “Anything is possible. It’s a very complex document. That’s why we engaged someone (Watson) to understand it. We’re looking at our tourism experts and economists to look at it. We’re not engaged in the tourism industry.

“We’ve had a legal review, an internal legal review. The hall is an important part of the local economy and the community. We have to look at the report carefully. We have not received the final report. I have not even seen any of the drafts. It will be released around the 15th or 16th of December.’’

Strathdee said the $150,000 annual request for assistance was subject to “inflation index.’’

In any event, the CBHOF is in dire need of a new facility to replace its dated, minuscule museum and officials are eagerly waiting to see what reaction town council has to the organization’s Strategic Master Plan. This may not be the crossroads the hall is facing but it needs a better facility.

“We’re anxious to hear what the town has to say, anxious to hear what the results are,’’ said Scott Crawford, the hall’s director of operations.

“I hope they come and say it’s a go. I don’t hope they come and say it’s a no-go,’’ said David Morneau, a member of the hall’s board of directors and head of the hall’s Outreach committee. “The indications are positive. We sent the report off for due diligence. It’s all an exciting time, not just for the board of directors but for the baseball community.’’

If town council approves the report, then hall officials will seek additional funding from the provincial and federal governments, corporations and even baseball individuals, including many of the players, executives and officials inducted over the years.

The current museum is puny in size at 1,000 square feet and with a new facility, the hall’s master plan suggested that average yearly attendance would jump to about 54,000.

“We probably draw about a tenth of that figure now. Our current facility is the main reason why we don’t pick up tour groups,’’ Crawford said.

“The capital plan will be officially launched once there is feedback from town council,’’ Morneau said. “Funding from the town will open up things for other levels of government.’’

If town council approves the hall’s proposal, it means the hall plans to engage the services of a fund-raising executive director. One of the strong candidates for that job would be Crawford.

The hall’s report says future attendance at the museum would be based on four segments: a resident primary market, a resident secondary market, a school market and a tourist market.

As the Strategic Master Plan indicates, ground-breaking on a new building would begin in 2018 with the opening slated for 2019. What is crucial to the hall’s future is to create an Outreach program that will inform Canadian baseball enthusiasts from across Canada about the facility in St. Marys and the impact they can have as individuals.

“It’s an exciting project. It’s the future of the hall,’’ Crawford said. “Definitely, we want to stretch Canadian wide. We’re well known in Ontario and southwestern Ontario and we want to reach people from outside to help us grow awareness.’’

Crawford said he and hall officials have already held preliminary discussions with the provincial and federal governments to keep them abreast of what is going on.

Earlier this month, the first Canadian Baseball History Conference was held in St. Marys with 13 papers presented along with a panel discussion on baseball’s founding down the road from St. Marys in Beachville, Ont.  It was at the conference that Crawford and Morneau witnessed a wave of energy and passion that they had rarely witnessed before.

The hugely popular, annual June induction ceremony is a huge part of the buzz surrounding the hall and so is the hope of a much larger facility. So hall officials hope to see a positive input four days before Christmas from Strathdee and councillors Bill Osborne, Carey Pope, Don Van Galen, Jim Craigmile, Lynn Hainer and Tony Winter.

“I’ve been a huge baseball fan all along but yet, I had not gone to the hall of fame until 2013,’’ said Morneau, whose law firm is based not far from St. Marys in Waterloo. “Once I went there, I was completely enamoured by the hall. From that day forward, I had to get more involved. It’s my second full-time job.

“With our Outreach program, if people across Canada want to be part of the hall, they can contact me. That’s my vision that this is the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame, a destination where everyone wants to go.’’

The proverbial ball is in town council’s court and the hall is hoping Santa comes through. Many fingers are being crossed.