Long-distance views of the newly revamped Cricket Field in Kingston.

July 21, 2024

By Pat Kennedy

Kingston Whig-Standard

When an old timer stopped by the Cricket Field in downtown Kingston one recent morning, he marvelled as he surveyed the splendor of the pristine diamond, newly refurbished with its clipped carpet of emerald green grass and the beige base paths filled and outlined to perfection - thanks to some of the 40 tons of clay mix that went into the $900,000 makeover.

The rebuilt Cricket Field is now waiting for someone in a barred mask to holler “Play Ball!”

Some 20,000 square feet of new sod covers the outfield and most of the infield. A special clay mix blankets the base paths, the mound, home plate area and the outfield warning track. And where there’s a warning track, there’s a fence, a feature heretofore unseen at the wide-open Cricket Field. The fence that envelopes the entire field is 225 feet from home plate any way you look at it. No “short porches” here. Which means a clout of 226 feet or better should be sufficient to ‘touch ‘em all,” as the late play-by-play man Tom Cheek used to say, unless of course some Little Leaguer with serious “hops” makes a leaping over-the-fence snag.

“I’ve never seen ‘er look so nice,” says the white-haired passerby. His name is Doug, and that’s all he’ll spill. He won’t give his age, but he has to be in his 80s judging from his recollection of having “played ball here in the late 1940s and early ‘50s.”

“Looks like she’s lost some weight.” The stranger cocks an eyebrow and chuckles as he ambles away.

Indeed “she” has dropped weight, a few hundred yards worth of earth for starters. And just in time, too, what with the old gal set to host what will surprisingly mark a first in the long, storied history of Kingston baseball – a national baseball tournament. The Cricket Field’s been reconfigured, shifted and shrunk to meet stringent size guidelines handed down by Little League HQ south of the border. She’s slimmed down from a Size 90 base path to a Size 60, feet that is. She’s also trimmed a tidy 15 feet off her pitching distance, down to 46 feet from 60.6. She’s all dolled up and decked out and ready to be the centre stage at the Canadian Little League Championship (July 30 to Aug 8).

“It looks as if everything was just squeezed in,” the city’s manager of Parks and Shoreline Neal Unsworth says of the ballpark’s confines. “Essentially everything was shifted and turned, and the old home plate was moved back and closer to that unused land near Barrie Street.”

Teams of the best age-12-and-under baseball players – male and female – will compete for cross-country Little League baseball bragging rights, not to mention a berth in the Little League World Series, which will be held Aug. 14 to 25 in Williamsport, Pa.

Hard to believe this year’s Canadian championship is unique to Kingston and therefore to the Cricket Field, considering the latter’s been a known hardball hangout since the first local game was played there in 1872. John A. Macdonald (modern hip handle: “J-Mac”) was running our newly-minted dominion and Philadelphia A’s first baseman Adrian “Cap” Anson (1855-1922) was starting his 27-year hall-of-fame career.

It’s here now, and local patrons, and in particular the purists, you’re in for a treat. The national Little League tournament offers a rare glimpse at a sport played in its truest and purest form, and which is often the most enjoyable. I speak from first-hand knowledge.

I covered the 1995 Perth-hosted Little League nationals for the Whig-Standard. Seldom if ever have I been more entertained by baseball. The six-team saw-off in Perth featured drama, disappointment, euphoria, play execution, excitement, imperfection, camaraderie, sportsmanship and slick glove work by Canada’s finest pre-teen ballplayers. You won’t know it at the time, but you could be watching a budding Dwight “Doc” Gooden in the making, or a Cody Bellinger, a Tony Gwynn, maybe a Boog Powell; those are a few of the many big leaguers who played in the Little League World Series. Ditto for ex-National Hockey League hockey players Pierre Turgeon, Chris Drury and Ray Ferraro, but first they had to win the Canadian title.

In a nutshell, the Little League national championship is “can’t miss” viewing. It’s baseball taught and played the way a lot of us feel the game should still be taught and played, a game where skill and respect for the other side go hand-in-hand and errors and strikeouts are forgotten in an eye blink. Enthusiasm and encouragement abound. It’s baseball that’s as refreshing as it is fresh, replete with heady plays, spectacular grabs, clutch hits, team play, and, oh yes, heartbreak. By the time the last out is recorded, plenty of tears will flow.

Seven teams representing seven different regions from across Canada will compete in the 10-day event. The host Kingston Colts are in the mix.

A key part of the application process to host the Canadian championship is called a “legacy program.” The host organization contributes something that ideally will benefit local ball in the future. The renovated Cricket Field, intact and outfitted for action, fit the bill nicely. The mound and base paths can be lengthened to accommodate a 50-foot pitching distance and 70-foot base path in intermediate division - the next steps on the age bracket before you reach the 60-90 game.

Well, not quite intact. Evidently, City Council granted the necessary permits but did not approve the home run fence. Which means the outfield fence is history as soon as the tournament is. “The home run fence will be taken out,” Unsworth confirmed. “Historically, the space was designated ‘multi-use purpose.’ The permit approved by council was for a ‘tournament’ set-up only.”

I don’t know about you, but to me that decision seems petty and shortsighted, if not bat-crazy. In effect it means we’ll be left with a spanking new ballpark, complete with shiny new dugouts, a bullpen, a new backstop, and a 10-foot-wide warning track that warns of nothing but clear open space. How is keeping a home run fence in place going to detract from the Cricket Field as a multi-use facility? The park’s already Costco-size. What a shame City Council couldn’t have seen fit to “play ball” this one time.

Keep the fence. The old gal’s bound to look a bit naked without it.

Kennedy: Kingston's Cricket Field spruced up for Canadian Little League championship