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Video: Joe Lingelbach recognized for commitment to baseball

Joe Lingelbach was recognized Friday evening for his commitment to the restoration of Mets Stadium in Woodlawn Regional Park, but he will tell you he was part of a large group of people who spent a lot of time working on the field. Twice.
Lingelbach field
Members of the Lingelbach family and representatives of the Woodlawn Regional Park gather for a group photo during the dedication of Lingelbach Field on Friday night.

Joe Lingelbach was recognized Friday evening for his commitment to the restoration of Mets Stadium in Woodlawn Regional Park, but he will tell you he was part of a large group of people who spent a lot of time working on the field.

Twice.

A large crowd, including Lingelbach’s family and many of his friends, gathered at the park on Friday evening for a dedication ceremony, as the field was officially renamed Lingelbach Field at Mets Stadium.

Supper and drinks were served by The Tap House in the stadium’s right field corner, and then a sign was unveilled at the entrance to the ballpark.

Mets Stadium was the home of the Ace Mud Mets baseball team that won provincial championships in the 1960s and 1970s. But it fell into disrepair over the years.

It was restored in 2010 so that Estevan would be able to host the provincial twilite baseball championships. Lingelbach and Lindsay Clark co-chaired that tournament, and they, along with a host of others, worked hard to get the field into a playable condition.

The ball diamond was among the local attractions devastated by the flood of 2011, and so Lingelbach and a team of volunteers was back out there again to get it into a playable condition in 2012.

“We’d already put in so much work in 2010, why wouldn’t you just keep going and get the diamond back, and with a whole lot of corporate help and other volunteers, we were able to do that.”

It now looks great, he said, and he never expected he would receive this kind of recognition.

“The park board has just done such a great job here tonight, inviting all of these people down and feeding all of these people,” said Lingelbach.

Larry Preddy, who is the chairperson of the Woodlawn Regional Park’s board, noted that when they approached Lingelbach with the idea of renaming the field, Lingelbach wanted to see the site named Volunteer Field.

But he eventually accepted the honour.

Lingelbach said it was important to keep Mets Stadium in the name, too, because of the Mets historical significance in the community.

The next edition of the Mercury will have more on this story.