Baseball, it’s a sport that’s been played right here in our city for over 100 years and one of the city’s historic facilities that hosts the great sport is receiving a facelift.
According to local historian Belinda Crowson, legend has it that the first baseball game in Lethbridge was played on Christmas day in 1885.
“The men had the day off and that was a really warm Christmas so they went out to the square, which is now Galt Gardens and they had a game there. Pretty soon clubs were created in Lethbridge.”
For the past 30 years Spitz Stadium has been Lethbridge’s premier baseball facility.
But with an aging infrastructure, Mayor Chris Spearman said the city has decided to give the stadium a much needed upgrade.
“We recognize the need to update the stadium and what we are doing is assessing what needs to be done versus what would like to be done and we are addressing the needs first of all,” said Spearman.
The $2.9 million project will include upgraded washrooms, a new ticket area, expanded press box and first aid room.
The list of upgrades originally included a full upper concourse and the addition of a VIP suite.
Something, Kevin Kvame President of the Spitz Stadium Society and Lethbridge Bulls said had to be scaled back due to financing.
“Renovations were actually approved three years ago and we tendered them out to contractors and the tenders came in quite a bit over,” said Kvame.
Kvame also said after the first phase of renovations are complete, they will review the situation and seek additional funding.
Spitz Stadium was built in 1975 and was originally named Henderson Stadium after William Henderson the only mayor to have died while in office. The name was later changed to Spitz Stadium by the city in 2008.
According to Crowson, Henderson was working on the project at the time and when he died his name was attached to the stadium and entire area around it.
Crowson also pointed out that baseball at Spitz Stadium has a unique history and one that existed long before 1975.
In fact, in 1907 Lethbridge joined the newly formed Western Canadian Baseball League and around the same time the Lethbridge Minors were the popular team in the city.
“In 1924 they did a fundraiser to put up the first grandstand here. Incredibly the fundraising was only $1200. That was to put in a fence, the stands and to make the field better,” said Crowson.
Crowson added that Lethbridge once had a few pioneer league teams including the Lethbridge Expos, Lethbridge Dodgers and Lethbridge Black Diamonds.
Today the stadium is home to the Lethbridge Bulls Baseball Club, a member of the Western Major Baseball League, and Kvame said once complete the plan is to hold more frequent and larger outdoor events.
“We had probably close to 50,000 people here last year with all of the events and games and you do want to showcase your facilities in the city, whether its sports facilities or cultural facilities.”
The entire project is set to be complete by 2018-2019. But Kvame says the public will see substantial improvements over the next year.
“It’s long overdue for the city and we are really excited to finally get some shovels in the ground in the near future and get this moving,” said Kvame.
