Toronto home run ban strikes out: city admits it dropped the ball with dinger decree

City backtracks on a ban on home runs at a west end softball diamond after four years

Thestar.com
Aug. 31, 2023
Ben Spurr

The city is backtracking on a rule banning home runs at a public softball diamond in the downtown west end, after some players cried foul over the restriction.

For four years signs posted at the MacGregor Playground near Lansdowne Avenue and College Street have carried the unusual message: “Home runs are not allowed.”

The city’s parks department says it issued the decree against dingers in order to protect the Enigma on the Park condos, a nine-storey building just over MacGregor’s left field.

The condo was completed in 2019 and experienced “ongoing issues” involving balls hitting the building and nearly striking residents, according to Anna Morrell, an adviser for Toronto parks, forestry and recreation.

The city has imposed other rules intended to make it harder to hit balls out of the park. In addition to the mandate against moon-shots, players are also prohibited from using aluminum bats, overhand pitching or hard balls.

“Competitive high-level play is not allowed,” read the signs, which were put up in 2019 but garnered renewed attention this week after pictures of them were posted to social media.

Lesley Mak, a lifelong softball player, said she was shocked to learn about the restrictions earlier this year when she joined the Toronto Comedy Softball League, which holds games in MacGregor on Saturdays.

She called the no-homer rule “absurd.”

Mak, who posted about the signs on X (formerly Twitter), said in an interview that she understands the need to balance residential and recreational space in the crowded city, but MacGregor’s other rules, like requiring players to use wooden bats that lack the pop of aluminum versions, already make it less likely balls will leave the park.

Specifically forbidding four-baggers is unrealistic and against the spirit of the game, Mak argued.

“It’s very hard for someone to play and just say like, ‘Oh, I just won’t swing really hard, ever.’”

Tyler Shipley also opposed the rule. He plays in the Queen Street Baseball League, and has been using the diamond since before Enigma was built. A derelict commercial building used to occupy the left-field lot.

“I don’t know why the private owners of a condo would think that by building a condo there, they could then dictate to users at a public park how they’re allowed to use the public park,” he said.

The city is apparently listening to the criticism. On Tuesday, after the Star submitted questions about the issue, staff taped over the no-homer run clause on the signs in the park.

“Staff reviewed the signage and noted the redundancy around the rules,” Morrell, the parks adviser, explained in statement. She said the city is working on updated signs.

According to Morrell, starting in 2019 city staff and the former local councillor consulted extensively with residents and softball leagues on how to mitigate the danger posed by balls striking the condo.

The leagues say they briefly lost their permits for the field after the building went up, but were allowed back on the condition they follow the new rules. The city started implementing additional measures around the same time, including installing netting in left field, increasing the height of the ballpark fence, adding tree cover, and limiting use of the diamond to softball and youth baseball teams.

Guillaume Dos Santos has lived in a third-floor unit of Enigma overlooking the ballpark for about four years. He said he understands why the city imposed rules aimed at preventing home runs. “It’s still a living area -- you don’t want to, like, break any windows,” he said.

But he’s never had a problem with balls striking the building, and said the nets seem to be doing their job. Far from being annoyed by the teams battling it out below, he enjoys watching them from his apartment.

“It’s like a free game every almost every day,” he said.

Tim Jones, who sits on the executive of the Wine and Vinyl Workers Softball League, said while the city initially seemed slow to act on leagues’ warnings about potential problems of building a condo next to the ballpark, players and residents now peacefully coexist. Five adult softball leagues and two youth baseball groups have permits for the diamond, according to the city.

Having to use less powerful wooden bats has frustrated some players who miss the power of metal ones, but Jones said it hasn’t ruined the games.

“This resembles normal softball, except the ball goes 75 per cent as far as it otherwise would,” Jones said.

“It’s still a great place to play.”