INNISFAIL – Dark clouds hung low throughout the afternoon but there was only joy at Innisfail’s Diamond 7.
After nearly three years of dedicated and patient planning and fundraising, Innisfail’s redeveloped Diamond 7 baseball field at the northwest corner of Napoleon Park Sports Fields was officially reopened with a celebratory grand opening late in the afternoon of June 1.
“We are super proud of it. There has been a lot of work, and a lot of money raised that has come from the community, which we appreciate,” said Jenny Crumley, president of the Innisfail Community Facility Enhancement Association (ICFEA), the local group responsible for the massive Diamond 7 upgrade.
The money raised from the community was just over $350,000, said Crumley.
With almost another $250,000 coming from the Town of Innisfail, more than $600,000 was put into the redeveloped Diamond 7.
“The generosity of the community has been amazing,” she said. “We've heard that this is the best ball diamond in Central Alberta, so we feel it'll bring lots of other teams into the community, and enhancing growth that could be here economically for many small businesses.
“We'd love to see it played on all the time from May 1 until September 30.”
And like it was said in the famed baseball movie Field of Dreams, ‘people will come, people will most definitely come.”
In Innisfail on June 1 they did indeed come; children, the elderly, and many others to salute a grand new sport facility created by the community through hard work and for their love of baseball.
There was also music and a barbecue, as well as excited feel-good chatter from the elevated announcer’s booth.
Several members of town council, including mayor Jean Barclay, showed up with Todd Becker, the town’s chief administrative officer. They later took to the field to take part in the grand opening ceremony.
“(ICFEA) chose the ball field as the initial facility development and it worked great, just amazing dedicated folks to drive the project forward and even to take on some of the higher-end maintenance,” said Becker.
And there were special community builders on hand to take part; like Maymie O’Dwyer, whose family has long been a big supporter of local minor baseball and the Diamond 7 project.
O’Dwyer was chosen to throw out the ceremonial first pitch prior to the alumni game between the Innisfail Merchants and Innisfail Trappers.
There was also legendary local sports fixture Ray Bergeron dressed smartly in a baseball uniform who was one of the alumni game’s coaches.
“This is a fantastic facility,” said Bergeron. “It's been on Innisfail Minor Ball Association’s (IMBA) agenda to try and get something like this built for a number of years and I'm very proud that Murray Reay and Jenny Crumley took the bull by the horns to make this happen.”
Reay, a longtime IMBA executive and current ICFEA vice-president, said the biggest task to redevelop Diamond 7 was to fix the field’s drainage; a problem before the redevelopment project that made the baseball field almost unplayable.
“We totally replaced the whole diamond. We put drainage ditches in. We reshaped it all so that the water would drain,” said Reay, who also emceed the grand opening ceremony. “We can now get a lot of water on this diamond and still play ball.”
The redeveloped Diamond 7 baseball field is now the new home for the U22 Innisfail Hawks and the U18 AA and A teams.
Reay said its hoped Diamond 7 will host the U18 AA provincials this summer or in 2025, as well as a future western Canadian championship.
