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For major-league baseball to return to this city, Montreal has to show that it is a baseball town, Mayor Denis Coderre said.

So the city is going to be spending $11 million during the next three years to update some of the city’s beleaguered fields, some of which have not been updated since the 1940s or 1950s.

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Coderre called a news conference Friday to announce the city’s new baseball policy — surrounded by baseball fans, local organizers and people behind the effort to bring a major-league baseball team back to the city.

The city plans to bring several baseball fields back up to norms. Boroughs will be invited to submit fields they want updated, and the city will announce which ones will be redone during the coming months.

Coderre said while he is a baseball fan, the city has been seeing a tremendous increase popularity in the sport.

“I love baseball. Everybody loves baseball,” Coderre said.

Baseball Quebec has noted an increase in registration during the last five or six years, said Gilles Marchi, a registrar for Baseball Quebec’s Montreal region, with registration growing annually by about 20 per cent in some leagues.