CANADIAN BASEBALL HALL OF FAME
DESCENDS ON NATION'S CAPITAL

Fergie Jenkins receives standing ovation
in House of Commons

OTTAWA – After paving the way for Prime Minister Stephen Harper to experience an enlightening visit to Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum in St. Marys a few weeks ago, Perth-Wellington MP Gary Schellenberger encouraged the Hall to bring as many of the artifacts and exhibits from the museum as it could to Parliament Hill to demonstrate Canada's rich baseball heritage and the Hall's significance to the rest of his counterparts.

Gary Schellenberger and Hall-of-famer Fergie Jenkins played host for the reception held in the Centre Block of Parliament Hill with well over 200 guests in attendance, including MPs who will hopefully positively influence the Hall's federal funding request such as Peter MacKay, Bev Oda (Canadian Heritage), Jim Abbott (Heritage), Michael Chong (Ministry of Sport), and Andrew Walasek (Infrastructure and Communities). Senators Michael Meighen and Frank Mahovlich were also strong in their support. Numerous other MPs, Senators and staffers were impressed by the displays and conversations revolving around Canadiana.

Attendees thoroughly enjoyed the exhibits that included Cito Gaston's World Series rings from 1992 and 1993, a Babe Ruth game-used bat (Ruth hit his first professional homerun at Hanlan's Point in Toronto), the Lester B. Pearson Cup (formerly awarded to the winner of the Blue Jays - Expos series), and other memorabilia from the Montreal Expos, Jackie Robinson (who played his first professional season for the Montreal Royals), the Vancouver Asahi, and more. Baseball Canada officials were also on hand, along with national team star Mike Kusiewicz, who just helped Canada earn a berth in the upcoming Olympic qualifier. The message was clear that in addition to Canada's rich baseball heritage that deserves to be preserved, that history is also being made in the present as well. There have been 227 Canadians who have played in the major leagues, including 23 this past season, the most in one season since 1884!

There was no question who the spotlight was on, as Ferguson Jenkins had dozens of fans surrounding him constantly throughout the reception. The Chatham, Ontario native is arguably the greatest Canuck ever to dawn a baseball uniform, winning 284 games in the majors, including six consecutive 20-win seasons. Jenkins once pitched 30 complete games in the same season, and had six other seasons where he pitched in excess of 20 complete games. In 2006, C.C. Sabathia and Aaron Harang tied for the lead with six complete games. Jenkins started at least 28 games every year from 1967 through 1980, and never had a season where he allowed more hits than innings pitched. Jenkins is the only Hall-of-famer to have struck out more than 3,000 hitters while walking less than 1,000 in their careers.

Speaker of the House Peter Milliken introduced Jenkins as the Ambassador of the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame and an extended standing ovation followed.

That evening, while watching the Ottawa Senators host the Toronto Maple Leafs, the entire Scotiabank Place crowd of 20,500 also gave Jenkins a standing ovation when he was featured on the scoreboard.

"Those tributes were unexpected honours, but more importantly, today was a great day for the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame," Ferguson Jenkins said afterwards. "Baseball began in Canada back in 1838, and history continues to be made daily today by some of the stars like Justin Morneau, Jason Bay, Eric Gagné and Erik Bedard, but the Hall is currently stuck in a renovated century-old farmhouse that barely holds one quarter of the artifacts. The Town of St. Marys and the province have both contributed significantly to the capital campaign, and we're counting on the Feds to come through as well."

St. Marys – 6 October 2006