St-Henri a field of dreams for baseball's renaissance

There has been a lot of talk aboutbaseball in Montreal lately, fuelled in part by the push to bring a major league team back to town.

However, local leagues and associations are still struggling to deal with the fallout of baseball's slowdecline in popularity in the last two decades.

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In urban neighbourhoodslike St-Henri, playing fields arerare.

Tucked between two urban highways (Autoroute 15 and the Ville-Marie Expressway)Parc Gadbois is the only regulation-size diamond in St-Henri available to Baseball Quebec, the minor league association responsible for all community-run teams and leagues.

With the incessant roar of highway trafficas abackdrop, the park is not an ideal place to spend a summer night.

As St-Henri isundergoing a period of renewal and gentrification, the neighbourhood, one of Montreal's oldest, is seen by some as a good place to nurture the city's baseball revival.

The neighbourhood is already home to a legacy of Montreal junior baseball's heyday.

Filling the bleachers

One of Montreal's bygone junior baseball teams, Les RoyauxSud-Ouest, called St-Henri home in the mid 1970s. The team, part of theLigue de Baseball Junior du District de Montral, played at Parc Gadbois.

On game nights, thebleachers were full all the way to the top.

During the heydayof the Royaux, St-Henri was home tomany other baseball diamonds. At one point, there were nine, including Parc St-Ferdinand and Parc Ste-Elizabeth.

Baseball was thriving in the Sud-Ouestregion in the 1970s and 1980s. After a 15-year hiatus,the Club de Dveloppement Sportif du Sud-Ouest relaunched a minor baseball program in 2012. Unfortunately, it only lasted a year.

That didn't stop a group of people who want to relaunch local baseball in St-Henri.

Fanny Perret, president of the Association des Royaux, and two otherparents haveteamed up to takematters into their own hands andbring baseball back to their neighbourhood.

"[We]decided to bring baseball back in the Sud-Ouest because our three kids wanted to play," she said.

"Because we have awesome volunteering parents who wanted to help the association, we are now seven managing the organization."

In 2013, enough aspiring baseball players joined what was then called Baseball Mineur to form one Novice team and one Atom team, 29 players in all.

A year later, that number jumped to 48 kids, enough to form four teams.

In 2014,the group officially became the Association Baseball Sud-Ouest Montral, part of the larger Baseball Montral. That year, 89 players signed up ranging in age from 5 to 14 years old.

Perret named the team after LesRoyauxto revive the history of baseball in Montreal and to make parents and children aware of theteam that was once a very important part of baseball.

Through thisname, Perret and her colleagues hope they can capitalize on memories of the original Les Royaux, and gatherarchival material to encourage young people to play ball.

While the early spring weather may not be cooperating just yet, it hasn't stopped the minor baseball schedule to go ahead as planned.

The teams are practicing indoors until the outdoor diamond is ingood enough condition.

Moving forward

The recent MLB exhibition games at the Olympic Stadium helped to feed the renewed public interest in the game, and organizations like Baseball Quebec are hoping that translates into newinterest at the youth level.

During the most recent exhibition games at the Big O, Baseball Quebec set up tents and information booths on every level of the stadium.

Younger families with kids looking to get involved in baseball were encouraged to browse the memorabilia, take pamphlets and ask any questions.

The goal was to get kids interestednow, as baseball registration for the upcoming season is still ongoing.

For more than a decade, baseball was associated with the Expos' bitter departure and it was seen as a dying game in this city.

But now, baseball's black mark has been replaced by a new love and enthusiasm for the game. And Baseball Quebec's goal is to keep that momentum going on a local level.

• See the full multimedia report:Through the Eyes of Saint-Henri

St-Henri Chronicles

St-Henri Chronicles is a collaboration between thedepartment of journalism at Concordia Universityand CBC Montreal.

Students in a graduate-level multimedia course were asked to find and produce original stories on St-Henri for their final class project.

They spent the winter term developing these stories, and experimented with sound, pictures, video, infographics and maps to tell them.

• About the journalists