Baseball club seeks new name

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This article was published 31/01/2020 (2172 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Winnipeg South AAA Chiefs baseball club is looking to the future as it goes through the process of changing its name. 

Wes Penner, president of the Winnipeg South Minor Baseball Association, said it was time, given the need to be culturally sensitive and respectful of all baseball players from children’s leagues right up to the AAA level of play. 

“We started looking at this issue about a year ago at the board level,” Penner said. “We did some research and then asked Kevin Chief, who (used to be) the MLA for Point Douglas, to speak at our awards banquet last year.

“He encouraged us to keep up an internal dialogue, and spoke about ways we could change to be respectful of Indigenous people,” Penner said. “He was very gracious and we really valued his input.”

The WSMBA supports recreational baseball for the youth of southwest Winnipeg, with approximately 1,000 boys and girls ranging between five and 21 years of age. Participating community clubs include those in Charleswood, Corydon, Crescentwood, Fort Garry, Lord Roberts, River Heights, Riverview, Tuxedo, Waverley Heights, and south to St. Norbert and the RM of Macdonald.

The WSMBA co-ordinates teams at the local community club A-level, the city-wide AA-level, and the AAA Chiefs’ U13, U15 and U18 teams which play at the highest level, against four other AAA organizations in the Winnipeg A Baseball Association. 

The WSMBA board then invited Winnipeg Free Press columnist Niigaan Sinclair to speak at a later meeting. 

“What hit home was when he talked about being inclusive and respectful,” Penner said. “When the team was originally named, the word ‘chief’ was defined as used by a chief of police or a chief of the fire service. But Niigaan pointed out that there are Indigenous kids playing on Winnipeg South teams. In order to be welcoming, it became clear we should look at changing our name for the AAA team.”

The AAA team handbook says that the “C” in Chiefs stands for character, class and commitment. Penner said they want to embrace those characteristics while searching for a new name that reflects their willingness to demonstrate their efforts for reconciliation.

While the WSMBA doesn’t have a new team name in mind, it does a looming deadline: the upcoming baseball season.

“It’s becoming critical, because how do we buy jerseys for the team this year?” Penner said. “We’ve registered all our AAA teams as ‘Winnipeg South’ for the season. We might just have enough time in the weeks ahead to figure out a new name, and get it onto the team jerseys.”

The board will be looking at different ways to settle on a new name. It will seek parental and player input if it can’t figure out a new name quickly, Penner said, adding that it’s getting positive feedback from the parents of the players already.

Part of the challenge is picking a name not already attached to a youth league team. “Can’t use the Comets, because that’s the Corydon club name. So we might end up wearing jerseys for this season with the name ‘Winnipeg South’ on them.”

Once the new name has been chosen, the WSMBA will then buy new jerseys and update the signs at their home baseball park at Charleswood Place, where they maintain three lighted ball diamonds, washrooms and a canteen building.