PORTLAND (AP) – With snow still surrounding the stadium, the Portland Sea Dogs on Monday unveiled a 91/2-foot-tall bronze monument depicting a family of four heading to the ball park to enjoy America’s favorite pastime.

Bill Burke, son of Sea Dogs owner Daniel Burke, said his father wanted to give back to the community for the support given to the Dogs.

“When my father dreamed of this team, he never imagined what it would turn into. He had no idea the level of support,” Burke said.

Burke commissioned nationally recognized artist Rhoda Sherbell to create the statues depicting a family trundling to the park.

Initially, the six-figure gift was met with a cold shoulder by members of the city’s public art committee.

The vice chairman of the committee declared that he was not enthused with designs featuring “white folks on pedestals.” Another committee member said Portland already had too many statues depicting “white, Anglo-Saxon people.” The committee also didn’t like the fact that the “family” wore clothing with the Portland Sea Dogs logo.

The committee voted against accepting the gift, based on photographs of a “maquette,” a small, preliminary clay design of Sherbell’s vision for the project. But the City Council ultimately voted unanimously to accept it.

The monument, on the sidewalk outside the city-owned ball park, consists of four statues depicting a boy wearing a baseball glove, his father with sunglasses and camera in his pockets, and a mother carrying a baby girl and a teddy bear.

No one mentioned the earlier controversy during Monday’s wind-whipped unveiling attended by Sherbell and city and team officials.

Sherbell, whose works are on display at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, N.Y., and in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., joked that she paid a physical price for her latest work.

Before starting the process, Sherbell was hit by a foul ball while photographing people at a game at Hadlock Field to get inspiration for the artwork. The player who hit the foul ball signed it, and the team signed another foul ball. She has both baseballs displayed in martini glasses in her home in Long Island, N.Y.

But that’s not the worst of it. While working underneath the clay sculpture, before it was cast in bronze, the 300-pound baby girl fell on Sherbell and broke her rib. First she felt pain, then she felt relief because the sculpture didn’t break.

The final product weighs 1.5 tons.

“I enjoyed making it,” she said before Monday’s event. “It’s wholesome and true to the American public. People love baseball. It’s the national pastime.”

AP-ES-04-09-07 1344EDT