Tears flooded Legion Memorial Park when Kurtus Millar saw his name emblazoned on the St. Albert Minor Baseball Association’s new field house facility.
“It was pretty awesome. I cried like a big baby,” said the SAMBA president had the honour bestowed on him by his executive peers.
“I can’t believe they’ve done this for me. If there was another word for more than honoured it would be that.”
Millar Field House was officially unveiled at the Blue Jays Super Camp Field of Dreams ceremony Tuesday.
“I didn’t know anything about it until the night before the ceremony,” Millar said. “A lot of people commented they've never seen me with nothing to say.
“It’s pretty amazing. Every time I drive down there I have a huge smile on my face,” Millar added. “There are so many people that have busted their butts down there and to have my name on that building is unreal.”
Millar’s lifelong connection with the St. Albert baseball scene started with his first team, the peewee AAA Cardinals and, after graduating from the rep program, the gold glove infielder played for the junior and senior AAA Tigers before breaking into the coaching ranks.
“It’s a huge part of my life,” Millar said. “My dad (Kevin) coached there forever, mom (Karen) sat on the board and my brother, Kirby, played here.
“Kirby called and said, ‘Hey, that’s cool. They named a building after me.’”
This year mark’s Millar’s fifth term as president of the largest baseball association in Alberta and his sixth year on the executive.
SAMBA was recognized as the Baseball Alberta Large Association of Year in 2017 during Millar’s tenure.
That same year, Millar was the recipient of the Baseball Alberta President’s Award, presented annually to a board member selected by the president for outstanding service to Baseball Alberta.
Millar’s biggest fans at the ceremony, which included dignitaries, SAMBA players and Blue Jays alumni members (the Blue Jays Super Camp was held at the same time at Legion Memorial Park), were his two sons, nine-year-old Easton, who was named after the baseball bat, of the 11U Cardinals Blue and seven-year-old Everitt of the rookie Blue Jays.
“My boys think it’s cool but once they realize what it means it will be even more special,” said Millar, who coaches the teams his sons play for and also assists the Challenger Baseball program that provides an opportunity for youths with cognitive or physical disabilities to enjoy the sport at a level structured to their abilities. Able-bodied “buddies” from SAMBA teams assist the Challenger players with their involvement in the game.
“I love that Challenger program. I’m at all of those games,” Millar said. “I coached three teams this year and I had a blast with all of them. I’m also actually very honoured to say I’m joining the midget AAA squad for provincials (next weekend in Sherwood Park) and hopefully for nationals.”
Millar also has the blessing of his understanding wife, Renita.
“I asked my wife, ‘Are you upset because I’m never home?’ And she’s like, ‘Nope. Not at all. I know why you’re doing it. The house also stays clean when you and the boys are not at home.’”
So, why does Millar devote countless hours to baseball in St. Albert?
“Honestly, I love baseball and I love these kids.”
Over the years, Millar gained a deeper appreciation for what makes SAMBA so special with Legion Memorial Park as its home base.
“There were so many people who busted their butts when I was playing. I would show up to the ballpark and I got to play baseball, but I didn’t know that it took 10 people 20 hours to get a field ready after it rained. I didn’t know any of that stuff,” said Millar who relishes the opportunity to get his hands dirty with the grounds crew especially when the diamonds are waterlogged.
“As I got older you start to recognize that stuff and see the work that people have done, like the past presidents. We got to meet the three very first presidents of SAMBA and listen how hard they battled to get that land and the funding and the fields going and stuff like that. It was really motivational to say, 'you know what, let’s make this place the best it can be.'
"We talk about it all the time with our board. We have to give these kids the best possible experience so that was kind of my goal to refocus the board. We brought in some really good people and just worked towards giving the kids the best possible experience. I’m kind of a hard-ass when it gets to the point of what do the kids think? I know what mom and dad think, mom and dad are never afraid to tell me what they think, but what do the kids think? So we actually started asking the kids, ‘What do you want to see? What do you guys want to do?’”
Field house
The Millar Field House is an example of SAMBA’s vision for the future.
The eye-catching 84-by-42 foot structure between the Landrex diamond and Red Willow Trail replaces the same deteriorating batting cages that Millar hacked away at the ball in when he started playing.
“They were getting old and a little unsafe. The welds were starting to crack and stuff like that,” Millar said. “We’re trying to do five cages inside the field house, but we’re a little behind on construction with the lovely weather and the cages and the turf are supposed to come the third week of September.
“It’s going to be huge for us. It’s heat ready, but we don’t have quite enough money to make it year-round yet so we’ll be looking at some future grants to try and purchase the heaters and all that kind of stuff and get that going.
“But just being able to have that space when it’s raining and we’ve got to shut down or even if the temperature is moderate outside we can still have somewhere to go to work. We spend upwards of $40,000 a year on indoor time so this can cut down a huge chunk of that budget.”
In October 2017, the Edmonton International Baseball Foundation contributed $35,000 to SAMBA’s initiative for various upgrades to Legion Memorial Park.
“We always had a dream and that kind of kicked it off. The EIBF money really went towards the refurbishing of the midget field, but it kind of started the process,” Millar said. “After that Danielle Moffat, our grant coordinator, started writing the Blue Jays about their Field of Dreams grant and then we went through the province and then to the city and just recently we got the Baseball Alberta grant as well.”
The Field of Dreams grant through the Jays Care Foundation was the biggie at $180,000.
“The building itself is going to hit around $110,000,” Millar said. “The Jays Care and the city and Baseball Alberta and provincial grants also helped get the peewee infield completely redone and the bantam infield shell has been regraded. We put a new product on it called Turface, it actually absorbs water and slowly releases it back. If we wouldn’t have had these fields redone I don’t know if we would’ve had much of any season this year (because of the rain).”
Team SAMBA
Millar stressed it’s been a team game for SAMBA to get this far with its Field of Dreams project for Legion Memorial Park.
“The work that Danielle Moffat has put into this, as well as Brian Bourassa, Brenda Bourassa, Lorie Runnalls and others, it’s unreal the time that these people have given to the association and then you think about all the other regular volunteers who are giving hundreds of hours of coaching and doing camps, it's pretty incredible to see.
“We’re a huge family. There are so many moving parts now because we’re so big. We’re always sitting around 900 kids so we’re hoping to hit that 1,000 mark,” Millar added. “Most associations now are moving towards paid staff and with us being the biggest in Alberta we’re very proud to say we still don’t have any paid staff other than our grounds crew, so it takes a huge group a lot of time and the kids make it worth it. We have some pretty successful teams and some really good groups moving through.
“It’s just an awesome place down there.”
