The Manitoba Baseball Hall of Fame Museum asked Steinbach City Council to buy an advertisement and write a congratulatory message to support T.G. Smith being inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Council approved it and decided to buy a half page ad for $300. They are currently working with administration to come up with a proper congratulatory message.
Councillor Jac Siemens says he is glad the city can be involved.
“I think T.G. Smith is someone who has had a big presence in Steinbach all the way back to 1946, and the effects of what he has done in our community are still evident today.”
He says it’s a great opportunity to honour T.G. Smith.
“We have the arena complex named after him, and so I think that's quite an honor. But we can honor him further.”
Siemens says T.G. Smith was the reason baseball started in Steinbach.
“Nobody played baseball in Steinbach, and so when he was looking for new people to work at the Royal Bank as he was a manager there, he would phone Royal Bank headquarters and say ‘make sure they bring their ball glove and their hockey skates with them because they have to coach when they get here. I need baseball coaches.’”
Smith made sure staff was involved in coaching baseball so the sport could succeed and grow in the area.
“Because while he started the program in Steinbach, they had no baseball coaches,” he says. “But his efforts over all the years that he was in Steinbach, he had a huge impact. He had a big impact on baseball in Steinbach. I think certainly we should be buying an ad.”