Final push

Peter Miedema was always ready to catch foul balls while watching baseball games as a kid at Port Arthur Stadium.

A player for the Thunder Bay Mountain Hawks, Miedema is encouraging people to support the stadium in the final days of Canada’s Favourite Ballpark Contest.

“I think it would be a great honour, showing Thunder Bay can play baseball,” he said Friday morning at the stadium’s home plate.

“If people start looking at which one is Canada’s best ballpark and they see Thunder Bay, that will definitely open up more opportunity for baseball (here),” Miedema added.

Voting ends Tuesday morning and tourism development officer John Cameron said it will be a tough battle against London’s Labatt Park.

“We’re going up against a city of 350,000,” he said. “We knew we were in tough, but it’s a feather in the cap and for Thunder Bay to promote our city and promote what we have to offer in this city for supports.”

“The support we have for sports is evident by the support we got in this contest,” Cameron added.

Getting to the finals has been a great tool to promote baseball in Thunder Bay and also gives the city a leg up when it comes to bidding on future events.

“Having our name on the national stage is great for Thunder Bay and for baseball in general,” said Cameron. “Hopefully it also has some spinoff effect for the Thunder Bay Border Cats.”

The city is asking people to vote on every computing device they have that connects to the Internet.

“Whether it’s your laptop at work, your desktop at work, your iPad, your iPhone, your Blackberry or whatever else you can get to connect, let’s get a vote on that machine,” Cameron said.

People are also encouraged to get their friends, who live outside of Thunder Bay, to vote through social media.

Go to www.baseball.ca to cast your vote. Voting ends Sept. 6 at 10 a.m.