*This article was originally published on CBN on August 21, 2018

Major League Baseball’s (MLB) expansion in Miami and Tampa, Fla., has been a failure in the eyes of some people as the teams struggle at the gate and on the field. But many of the more than three million Canadians who flock to the state each year do so to watch 15 MLB teams in spring training, contributing an estimated economic impact of $867.1 million in 2018.

Canadian fans also track the progress of young Canadian players who enter professional baseball in Florida’s minor leagues and pay close attention to Blue Jays’ prospects playing there. In this five-part series called “In the Heat,” Jim Cowan and Scott Langdon report on some of the issues facing these players, their teams and the Florida cities that host them.

This is the second article in the five-part series. You can read Part 1: Could the Jays' new Dunedin Stadium defy odds? here.

Part 2 - What do you get for $81 million?

By Jim Cowan

Canadian Baseball Network

With the Toronto Blue Jays committed to making Dunedin not only their spring training base for another 25 years but also the site of their soon-to-be constructed, state-of-the-art training and rehabilitation facility and home to their Rookie, Gulf Coast and Florida State League teams, details are emerging regarding what $81 million will actually buy.

Much of the earlier speculation was confirmed at a special meeting of the Dunedin Commissioners on July 5, when they approved an agreement with Populus, the architects chosen to design the new facilities.

The $81 million is actually split between two sites – $33.3 million for the stadium and $47.8 million for the training centre.

Stadium improvements are to include:

·         Increased seating, with 6,500 fixed seats and another 2,000 spaces on the outfield berm and in various refreshment areas. More of the seating areas are to be shaded.

·         Expanded and improved concessions, ranging from a large “tiki bar” to an enclosed “craft and draft” restaurant with field views, and at least two large and one small concession areas under the stands.

·         A boardwalk that circles the playing field, allowing fans to circulate freely. This is a popular feature of many newer ball parks.

·         Five luxury suites, including three that can be opened into one large party room, plus one for the club’s owners and one for players’ families.

·         More box office wickets, gates and public washrooms.

·         Visiting teams will have a new dressing room, although the agreement specifies that it “Should be a very basic club house.”

The cross-town Englebert Complex will see even more dramatic changes. Plans call for the existing Englebert and adjacent Vanech Centre facilities to be merged and a new two-storey field house erected close to the centre of the site and surrounded by baseball diamonds. This will become the Jay’s new year-round major and minor league training facility, including a state-of-the-art sport science laboratory. Dunedin will take over parts of the existing Englebert complex for use by its Parks department.

The sport science lab is perhaps the most anticipated facility in the new complex. The architectural agreement with Populus describe it as “a dedicated space of approximately 700 square feet with power outlets, internet connections and provision for data (and) video.” It’s also to have space for a built-in force measurement platform, a device used to measure the strength, for example, of an athlete’s jump.

The new facility seems designed to meet two of Blue Jays’ president Mark Shapiro’s key requirements: a field house large enough to serve both major and minor league players at the same time, and a facility that will make the Jays leaders in the rapidly emerging area of sports science and mental conditioning.

One notable omission from the plans is provision for dormitory space. While other teams often opt to providing housing for their minor leaguers, who are in town for most of the year, the junior Jays will have to find accommodation in the community. For Dunedin Mayor Julie Ward Bujalski, that’s just one more benefit that helped sell the new agreement to her community.

In fact, there was virtually no grassroots opposition to the agreement, a fact confirmed in interviews with several journalists who have covered the negotiations.

Mayor Bujalski attributes this to an excellent communications effort that kept residents informed, including extensive use of social media and town hall meetings. “They (the residents) really felt they were part of the process,” she says.

Next: The rapidly increasing role of sport science in professional baseball, and why the Blue Jays’ proposed sport science lab is considered an important addition to the team’s ability to compete.