Don McDougall has always been a passionate baseball fan who was never content to just sit in the stands. That love of the game saw him play a lead role in bringing the Blue Jays to Toronto in 1977 during his tenure as president of Labatt Breweries. His passion for the Jays has not diminished over the past five decades and he still catches as many Grapefruit League games as he can while wintering in Florida.

For McDougall, helping to bring major league ball to Canada’s largest city was one of the major highlights of a long and storied career that includes being named a member of the Order of Canada in 2023 and induction into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame as a builder.

Fast forward almost five decades and the Canadian business icon is helping to bring another baseball dream to life, this time much closer to his roots in western Prince Edward Island. Now the owner of the Mill River Resort, he has donated land to Baseball P.E.I. that is slated to become the home of the first turf baseball field in the province.

The project, valued at just under $2 million, has secured funding from the federal and provincial governments, as well as the Legacy Fund from the 2023 Canada Winter Games. McDougall also used his connections with the Blue Jays to help secure a $250,000 contribution from the Jays Care Foundation. And he arranged to have Blue Jays broadcaster and former manager Buck Martinez attend the unveiling of the planned development earlier this year, in January.

McDougall admits it is something he couldn’t have imagined in his wildest dreams growing up down the road in Bloomfield Station. While the love of the game was certainly there for McDougall and his teammates, the infrastructure available in the ‘40s was definitely lacking.

 

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