baseballtourist

Canada Day! Watch out Zack...I've got got 2 (and counting)

 

 CANADA DAY! July 1st - Kates and I had a great morning and the afternoon was fun too! Went to the old ball park (Nat Bailey Stadium) to watch the Vancouver Canadians (the local Single A, Short Season, fram club of the MLB- Oakland A's) play the farm club of the SF Giants, the Salem-Keizer Volcanoes. (Photos by KTV)

I brought my big glove and while I Kates and I got lots of comments and smiles (especially when I made Kates wear the thing on her head), that wasn't enough this time out. Unlike my trip with Wally to San Fran to attend 2 Giants games, I was actually going to put some effort into grabbing a ball this time! It worked! I got 2! Despite the fact that I was wearing my throwback Canadians jersey, I got both balls from Volcanoes.

The first was thrown to me along the deep 3rd base line, during a mid-inning, long toss session. The player that will be remembered (and rooted for in his career) as the guy who gave me my first ball (after 41 years of attending games!) is Dan Cook. Dan is a 23 year old LF from Florida and he turned around, saw my Giant Glove and smiled and lobbed a well worn ball, right into the webbing (thought it might go right through).  The second ball (a mudded-up gamer) had to wait until the end of the last contest, (lost big time by the home team) and I used some of Zack's advice - moving down to the closest bullpen just as the last out was recorded. The ball was tossed up by a Volcanoes coachwho also spotted the glove and lobbed a strike into it.

Zack's and your 4,000+ balls...I am gunning for you! Lots of fun...even if the Canadians lost 7-0.

UBC Baseball @ the Nat

It's not the Jays, but it will do....especially for a guy who missed the WBC final game between Japan and Korea.

You need to understand that missing a game described  afterward as "one of those games for the ages that will certainly grow in proportion with the passage of time" is kinda tough to take. Ichiro was the hero too...Kates will be pleased :)

The college players are opening up their home season this week (making up for a couple of rained out games) at good, old Nat Bailey Stadium. I only made it to one Thunderbirds game in the past...and it too was rained out.

Here's to clear skies this weekend.

Canadians, Mounties, Beavers...Baseball in Vancouver is SO Canuck

I toured the BC Sports Hall of Fame last week and snapped some pics of various historical displays.

Vancouver Canadians - 1978-2009 (Moved from Triple A to Short Season, Single A Ball)

Game used/worn jersey, hats, balls and lots of stadium stuff..programs etc. Canucks hockey items in the same case? Why?

Vancouver Mounties - 1956-1962

Game? or souvenir signed balls, a game worn cap and a 1958 team presentation "trophy" bat plaque. I understand that the team used cracked bats to make these up.

Vancouver Beavers -Northwestern League 1908-1911, 1914-1917; Pacific Coast International League 1918, 1920-1921; Northwest International League 1919; Western International League 1922...with names like the "Canucks" and the "Vets" mixed in.

1913 NW League Champs Pennant

Bob Brown - "The Father of Vancouver Baseball"

 

In the big picture of Vancouver baseball Bob Brown was a player, a manager, a scout, a club owner and a league president.

He operated teams in continuously in Vancouver rom 1910 to 1953.

He was revered as a shoestring operator, a shrewd promoter who held his franchise together with bailing wire and bank notes and hope.

This is a cheque/check from my collection, from the Capilanos baseball team, signed by Bob.

(story cut from a Dick Beddoes article in The Vancouver Sun, 1952)

 

 

Toronto ON, Home of Babe Ruth's 1st prof. homerun (my old home town!)

I wanted to find out more about the Toronto player representation in vintage card sets (The T206 set specifically) and through Net54 "met" Richard, an avid Toronto historical baseball collector who gave me tremendous insight in the city's representation on cardboard. Check out Richard's site here.

Below are some of my early 1900's Hanlon's Point Stadium postcards (a stadium on what is now Centre Island) -  the bottom left card is post marked Aug. 1st, 1914 - just over a month before the Sept 15th game in the stadium, against Toronto, that  Babe Ruth knocked his 1st professional home run into Lake Ontario (also pitching in a game for Providence.)

Wild and Outside

I just reread Stefan Fatsis' "Wild and Outside - How a Renegade Minor League Revived the Spirit of Baseball in America's Heartland".

I recommend it to baseball fans, especially those in towns with MLB teams, to see what pro baseball at the grass roots level is really like. Great value for your $ can be found in minor league team towns such as my hometown- Vancouver, BC (home of the Oakland A's, Single A, Short Season - Vancouver Canadians)....even if the team isn't exactly full of superstars.

Here's a video of mine from a game at the 'Nat", from last season that illustrates a bit about what you can expect.......btw-I had my money on Chef Wasabi :

About Wild and Outside (notes by author)

"I heard about a new minor league in the upper Midwest. Unlike almost all of the other minor-league teams in North America, the six franchises in the Northern League had no affiliation with big-league organizations."

"I flew to St. Paul, Minn., for Opening Night. It was first time a minor-league game had been played in the region in 20 years. A pig delivered balls to the umpire. A barber cut hair in the stands. A nun gave massages. Bill Murray threw out the first ball. And the club owners I met—led by Mike Veeck, son of the late baseball impresario and major-league thorn Bill Veeck—were smart, committed, colorful and, best of all, angry about the state of the game."

"I followed the Northern League throughout its second season in 1994, roaming around the six cities that formed the league—St. Paul, Duluth, Sioux Falls, Sioux City, Thunder Bay and Winnipeg. I fell in love with the outcasts and renegades on the field and in the front offices."

The big-league players went on strike that summer and the World Series was canceled that fall, confirming everything that was good and right about the Northern League. In its wake, independent minor leagues sprouted like dandelions. Dozens of players made good on second chances to reach the majors."