Red Sangster Ballfield is slated to be bulldozed but Red Sangster himself isn't about to let it go without a fight.
"We're having a meeting with the council over the ballparks," said Red Sangster, who will appear as part of a delegation along with his son - and baseball coach - Jack Sangster at the Oct. 5 council meeting.
"Jack will do the talking," said Red Sangster.
The ball diamond, built in 1968 with sod brought all the way from Winnipeg, has hosted four provincial mosquito playoffs, one bantam provincial playoff, three senior provincial playoffs and one Western Canadian championship over the years and is set to host more next season, the 50th year of baseball in Thompson, says Sangster, with Western Canadian peewee playoffs scheduled for July and the senior baseball provincials in August.
The provincial government has chosen the land the ballpark occupies to be the site of student housing for the new $30-million University College of the North Campus.
Denise K. Henning, president of UCN, said in September that construction of housing facilities for the new campus would begin in a few weeks.
Sangster has met numerous times with the mayor and other city officials in hopes of convincing them to save the ballpark, but Mayor Tim Johnston told him earlier this summer that the decision was out of his hands and that the province was insisting the ball park land is the only suitable site for student housing.
Sangster says he doesn't understand why the recreation centre grounds were chosen for the new campus, situating it right beside the high school.
He also doesn't want to see his namesake ballpark and the adjacent field - used extensively by baseball, fastball and slo-pitch teams through the summer - disappear from Thompson's landscape.
"Why take a landmark away?" asks Sangster.
