The Boston Red Sox have had a long history of Canadian born players who have had an impact on the franchise. This year's edition (as has been the case more often than not since 1990), no MLB team has more Canucks on their roster than this Amercian League team that plays home games in Boston. Here is a brief look at the Canadians who were fortunate to play home games at Fenway Park:
Prior to the 1920s, the following mainly forgettable names suited up for the Red Sox:
So, I decided to take a look. I started in 1979, and these were the Canadian born players who were in the MLB:
Fergie Jenkins - Hall of famer who retired in 1983, after a long career mainly with the Cubs and Rangers (and a pit stop in Boston) Reggie Cleveland - retired in 1981 - also one of the best Canadians to ever play for the Red Sox Bill Atkinson - pitched his last 10 games for the Expos in 1979 Dave McKay - was with the Blue Jays, and played until retiting in Oakland in1982 Terry Puhl - 1978 all star, who played with the Astros until 1990, before retiring in KC in 1991 John Hiller - two time all star who played in Detroit his whole career, before retiring in 1980
Along with the aforementioned Gordie Pladson, that's a total of seven. That's the most there would be until the 1990s.
In 1980, Paul Hodgson had a handful of at-bats for the Blue Jays, and with Atkinson having retired, that kept the total at seven.
Pedro couldn't be there to say ¡Hola! himself,
so I tried to represent his home country
As mentioned last time, I went to Saint Marys, Ontario to see this year's Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame induction. What a great event it was. In spite of missing Pedro Martinez (due to a medical condition), Fergie Jenkins (due to family's health), and Kelly Gruber (due to being an asshole), it was still a great show.
Shortly after I arrived, the first thing I noticed was how intimate it was. I saw a tent set up with chairs, that I assumed was for the VIPs - inductees, family members, special guests, etc - but quickly realized it was for everyone to sit and enjoy the ceremonies comfortably away from the heat of the sun and the sprinkle of rain that was coming down.
Then, I saw several vendor tables. I recall at Cooperstown there were people on the streets yelling at fans to "come get an autographed ball by Pete Rose! Over here! Only $100 each" or whatever it was, but it was clearly a money grab (speaking of assholes, I hope Mr. Rose claimed income and paid his fair taxes to the IRS this time!). If you tried to take a picture of a player, without lining up and paying the requisite fee, someone would not be happy. And many shops had authenticated memorabilia, all with price tags to ensure only the most serious of collectors would even consider purchasing it. But in Saint Marys, it was quite the opposite. Players and special guests were walking around mingling with the fans, and reminiscing about stories. And you could get autographed memorabilia for a very reasonable price.
The Fergie mobile
As soon as I walked in I saw Fergie Jenkins' van, but had already heard he wasn't going to be there. Went to one of the vendor tables, and picked up a few souvenirs, including a signed ball by Jenkins, and one by Ryan Dempster (who I obviously became a fan of, when he joined the exclusive group of Canadians to play for the Red Sox, and all Yankee haters loved him after he plunked A-Rod).
I also found some Calgary Vipers merchandise there which is ironic since I can't find any in Calgary.
A Calgary Vipers sighting. I couldn't not get it!
Hall of Famer, Fergie Jenkins
A-Rod plunker Ryan Dempster
Then I spotted Bill Lee, and went up to him and we started chatting. This is the third time I've had the pleasure of talking with him. He is a great storyteller and always interesting. I already had baseball cards and pictures of him that he's signed previously, this time I got him to sign his book and got another ball.
Bill Lee, Bill Lee, More Bill Lee
Then the ceremony started. Pedro wasn't there, but they had some former Expos who accepted the honour. Fittingly it started with another #45, Steve Rogers, as well as Bill Lee and Bill Atkinson.
Another great Expos pitcher who wore #45
Another picture of Bill Lee, just because
Pedro did have a video message for the fans where he apologized for not being able to make it:
Historian William Humber was also inducted. He had a major role in bringing to light the fact that baseball was being played in Canada well before Abner Doubleday "invented" it. He's also written Diamonds of the North. And is the main reason Canadians can say this:
“Baseball is a Canadian game that we’re happy to share with Americans”. 🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦
— Ruben Lipszyc ⚾ 🇨🇦 (@BaseballRuben) June 16, 2018
Then "The Shaker", Lloyd Moseby got up to speak. He was so humble, and you could tell he didn't feel comfortable receiving this recognition. He kept repeating that he felt he didn't deserve it. I can't even begin to give his speech justice, so I'll let you read what Richard Griffin (who was also present) wrote about him.
Some other notes on the weekend:
As I was walking around, I hear someone say "Hi, you must be Ruben.". It was none other than Kevin Glew who was one of the first reporters to interview me and write about my efforts to induct Jim Rice into Cooperstown. I had only ever spoken to him on the phone and online, so it was a pleasant surprise to bump into him.
I have no idea why I had never gone to Saint Mary's until now. It's only a little over an hour from the city I grew up in and often visit. The baseball musem was closed for renovations, so I will need to come back up when it's open and check it out
The following day, I went to Grand Bend for Father's Day dinner (Happy Father's Day, Dad!), and in the restaurant lobby I saw this:
What are the odds?
I was supposed to fly back on Monday but my flight was cancelled. Left Tuesday morning, and just a few hours later, Calgarian Mike Soroka was pitching in Toronto. I should have stayed another 24 hours. Instead I got to watch him pitch back in Calgary with several other local fans, organized by Alberta Dugout Stories and ended up being interviewed by Global Sports. It would have been nice to watch Mike live in Toronto, but it was pretty fun to watch baseball in this hockey-crazed province with other fans too.
Three years ago, I was fortunate enough to see Pedro Martinez get inducted into Cooperstown, and then went on to Fenway to see him #45 get retired. I wrote about that here.
It was such a great experience seeing him and all his fans, that I was excited when I found he was getting inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame. (We're all well aware he's not Canadian. And no, Canada doesn't have so few players, that they claim anyone born outside of the U.S. as one of their own. But he became a star when he played in Montreal, winning his first Cy Young award there, and was beloved by Expos fans).
So excited in fact, that I gave up plans I had to see the Red Sox play in Seattle this weekend. Going to Safeco when the Red Sox visit, has become a sort of almost annual tradition. I missed last year's series, which included Rafael Devers making his MLB debut, hitting his first home run, and a Sale Day, and didn't want to miss Boston's only trip to Seattle this season. But, a chance to see Pedro trumps that.
I have had bad luck going to see Pedro. In 2001, when I saw that the Red Sox were playing a four game set in Toronto over a long weekend, I flew there to watch him pitch. They had games from June 29 to July 2nd, and his rotation spot was on July 1st, so even if it got pushed back a day I'd see him. But he got put on the DL right after his start on June 26th. So I got to watch the unforgettable, Rolando Arrojo take his turn in the rotation on Canada Day instead. (Note: To his credit, he did his best Pedro imitation in probably the best outing of his career, taking a no-hitter into the 7th inning, and leaving with a 2-0 run in the 8th, only having given up one hit).
Then in 2004 I went to Fort Myers to watch some Spring Training games. Followed the Red Sox throughout the week, catching eight games in total. Pedro only pitched once for two innings. Next time I saw the Red Sox was in Phoenix in March 2005, and Pedro was no longer with the organization.
Again, as luck would have it, I won't be seeing Pedro this weekend either:
As disappointed as I am, it would be selfish of me to be upset about this. I am more concerned about Pedro and his health. Mejórate pronto! Nos vemos la próxima vez, Pedro.
In my previous posts I have covered all the new players on this year's ballot with a link to the Red Sox as well as those of interest to my Canadian readers. (And provided links to previous year's write-ups for returning candidates). See links below for those articles: Red Sox players Canadian / Expos / Blue Jays
To summarize, I would vote for the following Red Sox players:
Jeff Bagwell
Roger Clemens
Curt Schilling
Lee Smith
Billy Wagner
Manny Ramirez
And the following Canadians/Blue Jays/Expos:
Vladimir Guerrero
Tim Raines
Edgar Martinez
Fred McGriff
Larry Walker
Additionally, the following candidates would get a check mark from me:
Barry Bonds
Trevor Hoffman
Mike Mussina
Ivan Rodriguez
That’s a total of 15. I need to remove 5. Lee Smith (regrettably in his last year), Trevor Hoffman and Billy Wagner are easy choices. As in previous years, I’ll need to erase the checkmark next to Fred McGriff’s name. My last cut is Mike Mussina. He deserves it, but will need to wait for a future year. My final ballot:
There are only two new players of interest to Canadians
in this year’s Hall of Fame ballot. Matt
Stairs (from New Brunswick) and Vlad Guerrero (long time Expos player).
The returning candidates are:
Tim Raines (10th year, 70% last year)
Roger Clemens (5, 45%)
Edgar Martinez (8, 43%)
Fred McGriff (8, 21%)
Jeff Kent (4, 21%)
Larry Walker (7, 16%)
I’ve previously made cases for all these guys (and explained why they should be on the list of players of interest to Canadians) except Jeff
Kent. And I think every year I end up
with no room for McGriff and he gets dropped off my ballot. But Raines, Clemens, Edgar and Walker are no brainers.
Now for the new guys on the list:
Matt Stairs – already covered him in my Red Sox post.
Love the guy, but no.
Vladimir Guerrero – The raw back of baseball card numbers: .318 batting average, 449 home runs, 181 steals. We've evolved to where we determine the worthiness of a player on more than just these numbers, but it is worth mentioning that NOBODY in the history of baseball has him beat on all three. Quick: What do no doubt Hall of Famers, Reggie Jackson, Yaz, George Brett, and Ken Griffey have in common? They all have a career OPS (and OPS+ adjusted for the eras they played in) lower than Guerrero's. He had a stretch of 10 years where he AVERAGED an OPS+ of 151. There were three guys who bested that in the NL last year. It's not a question of whether he should get in or not. It's a question of whether or not it will be an insult to not have him in as a first ballot Hall of Famer!
Get ready to hear him explain why Jays can't compete (Photo: Nathan Denette)
The Canadian loonie is low and dropping fast. Is this going to affect the competitiveness of the Blue Jays? Will it be tougher for them to shell out big bucks for high priced players? Will they need to raise ticket prices to survive financially because of this? no, No, and NO!
Now that I’ve covered the former Red Sox players on the Hall of Fame ballot, time to look at players of interest to Canadians. This includes both players born here, as well as those who played here. As I did in my previous post, I will just look at each player on his own merits to see if he deserves induction, and ignore the ten vote per ballot limit for now.
The players who I will cover today (in order of years on ballot) are:
Tim Raines (9th season, 55% votes last year)
Fred McGriff (7th, 13%)
Edgar Martinez (7th, 27%)
Larry Walker (6th, 12%)
Roger Clemens (4th, 37%)
Jeff Kent (3, 14%)
Mark Grudzielanek (1st year)
Troy Glaus (1st)
The tl;dr version is I said I would vote for the following:
Jeff Bagwell
Randy Johnson
Edgar Martinez
Pedro Martinez
Fred McGriff
Tim Raines
Curt Schilling
Lee Smith
John Smoltz
Larry Walker
That's ten guys already, and I only looked at Red Sox, Jays, Expos and Canadian players.
I still need to assess the rest of the ballot which includes the following 17 players:
Rich Aurilia
Craig Biggio
Barry Bonds
Aaron Boone
Jermaine Dye
Darin Erstad
Brian Giles
Eddie Guardado
Don Mattingly
Mark McGwire
Mike Mussina
Troy Percival
Mike Piazza
Jason Schmidt
Gary Sheffield
Sammy Sosa
Alan Trammell
Looking at each on an individual basis, Biggio, Bonds and Trammell get my vote.
Toughest omissions are Mussina (overall career looks good, but I never thought of him as one of the top pitchers or an ace while he was pitching) and Piazza (great offensive numbers for a catcher, but he was a really bad catcher. Would he be in as a first baseman? He's comparable to Carlos Delgado who nobody is voting for).
Unfortunately, the BBWAA still limits voters to checking off 10 names on a ballot. Lee Smith, Alan Trammell and Fred McGriff need to be removed. My final BBWAA style ballot:
Feel free to criticize, but only after reading my previous posts. It's not a perfect ballot, but scores an 86 using the TangoTiger scoring system where "anything at 85+ points will show you did a good job." I don't like the Hall's voting process, but am reasonably satisfied with my ballot.
If you are interested in reading more about the Hall of Fame, I can recommend The Hall of Nearly Great which has some great stories about several players that are not in Cooperstown or the Bill James' classic The Politics of Glory which has great insight on the history of the Hall and voting and some excellent suggestions for fixing the current voting process.
As this is likely my last post of the year, I'm wishing all my readers a Happy New Year!
This is my second article where I unveil who I'm voting for on the 2015 Hall of Fame ballot. My last article dealt with Red Sox players. This one looks at players of interest to Canadians. Either native players, or those who played north of the border. As I did last time, I'm looking at each player's merits on their own, without regard to the maximum 10 player limit. In my last post I will cut it back to just 10 and may remove some players who I had said I would be voting for.
Let me start with the players returning on the ballot.
The BBWAA ballot for 2015 induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame is out. As I did last year, I’m going to publish my ballot in three stages. First I will evaluate all the former Red Sox players. I will focus on new additions to the ballot as I already assessed the holdover candidates in last year’s column. I will then do the same for players of interest to Canadians – either those who were born in the Great White North, or played in Canada, as I did last year. Finally I will publish my ballot by completing it by adding other deserving candidates. Here are the names on the ballot, alphabetically: Returning candidates are indicated by showing the % votes they received last year. Red Sox Jeff Bagwell (54%) Tony Clark Roger Clemens (35%) Cliff Floyd Nomar Garciaparra Tom Gordon Pedro Martinez Curt Schilling (29%) Lee Smith (30%) John Smoltz Canadian Connections Roger Clemens (35%)
Carlos Delgado Cliff Floyd Randy Johnson Jeff Kent (15%) Edgar Martinez (25%) Pedro Martinez Fred McGriff (12%) Tim Raines (46%) Larry Walker (10%) The Rest Rich Aurilia Craig Biggio(74.8%) Barry Bonds(35%) Aaron Boone Jermaine Dye Darin Erstad Brian Giles Eddie Guardado Don Mattingly (8%) Mark McGwire (11%) Mike Mussina (20%) Troy Percival Mike Piazza(62%) Jason Schmidt Gary Sheffield Sammy Sosa (7%) Alan Trammell (21%)
Just taking a quick glance I can already see 12-15 players I would put into the Hall. Once again, it will be tough to keep my ballot to 10. Stay tuned as I update my ballot over the next couple of weeks.
Michael Chavis - the newest member of the Red Sox!
With the first 2 days of the draft done, most of the big names have now been taken. There are still 30 rounds to finish today, so several players who are only familiar to local audiences still have a chance to be drafted.
As far as the Red Sox, they took high schooler Michael Chavis with their first pick. Chavis is a shortstop who projects more to be a third baseman in the Sox organization. He knows how to rock a bowtie (see pic above) and for some amusing reads, take a look at his twitter history at @michaelchavis11. A few picks later they selected another high schooler, pitcher Michael Kopech. He is a righty who just turned 18 two months ago, and can already hit 97 MPH on the radar gun. With their last pick of the first day, they selected University of Indiana first baseman, Sam Travis. For a full list of the Red Sox draftees, take a look at this draft tracker.
On the local front, only three Canadians were taken in the first 10 rounds. As expected, Gareth Morgan was the first Canuck taken, as the last pick of Day 1 - number 74 overall, by the Seattle Mariners. Two other Canadians, both from Ontario, have also been drafted so far. Today hopefully some of the local Alberta players will be drafted in later rounds. I will post an updated with any news on these players after the draft is complete.
To stay up to date on all the prospects, Baseball America publishes an annual prospect handbook. You can get it here from Amazon:
The annual MLB draft is coming up. It starts Thursday with the first 2 rounds including the compensation and supplementary picks, Friday are rounds 3 to 10, and the remainder on Saturday. Will the Red Sox draft any Canadians? Will any local Alberta players be taken in early rounds?
Stay tuned as I will update any items pertaining to the Red Sox or local Canadian players on this site.
The Red Sox have announced that they will be honoring the 2004 World Series Champion team in a pregame ceremony on May 28th.
When looking at the list of players who will be on hand that evening, what struck me was how many have strong Canadian and even Albertan ties.
Among the players who will be there are: Kevin Millar
as a Marlin minor leaguer he played for their AAA affiliate, the Calgary Cannons, in the Pacific Coast League in 1999.
The only Canadian that was on our roster, Ryan Dempster, recently announced he was taking the season off. Of course, he did that in the two days between when I wrote a piece previewing the Sox and when it was published so there was the awkward mention on my post about hoping they don't trade him away....
Anyways, who will be the next Canadian to play home games at Fenway Park? We have a lack of first base prospects, so maybe the Reds will look for some salary relief in a few years and we'll get Joey Votto? Probably just wishful thinking. We have lots of catching depth in the minors, but if there's a major injury to AJP or Ross, we may need a shorterm gap. Would a return by George Kottarasbe possible? What about backup infielders? We need someone who can play 2B if Pedroia is out for a while.
In my last post, I previewed all the former Red Sox on this year’s ballot. Today I take a look at the Canadians and other players of
interest to Canada:
CANADIAN PLAYERS
Eric Gagne – As already discussed in the Red Sox post,
no. Just no. NO
Larry Walker–
Starting his career in Montreal, he is a favorite of many Canadians. He ended his career with a .313 batting
average, an even .400 OBP and 383 home runs, for an OPS+ of 141. A lot of
people discredit him for his offensive output in Colorado, but keep in mind
that the “+” in OPS+ is adjusted for ballpark effects. And besides, in his MVP 1997 season where he
hit .366 with 49 home runs, he only hit 20 out of Coors Field. Some park effect(!).
The MLB draft starts tonight. The Red Sox have the 7th overall pick, and then pick again at #45 (in round 2), and then the 7th pick of each round. Last year, they did draft a Canadian, Keaton Briscoe, who is now playing for the Greenville Drive. This year, there are several promising Canadian players eligible for the draft, including several from Alberta. I have a rundown of the top Albertans here. Hoping the Red Sox select one of them. I will update this if/when the Sox do pick a Canadian player.
Haven't posted much lately. The Red Sox are off to a great start and there's lots to talk about, but again I want to focus my writings on this blog to be about items that are of particular interest to us Canadian Red Sox fans. For more general Red Sox news, please follow one of the many other Red Sox blogs that I have listed here. For daily updates in particular, I like reading some other Red Sox BBA member blogs, including Christine's posts at Boston Red Thoughts Allan's updates at Joy of Sox, and Cyn's musings at Toeing the Rubber. Of course, readers from South of the 49th and anywhere else in the world are welcome and even encouraged to read my ramblings and leave comments.
Anyhow, a few Canadian related notes of interest for Red Sox fans:
Now that I’ve covered the former Red Sox players on the Hall of Fame ballot, time to look at players of interest to Canadians. This includes both players born here, as well as those who played here. As I did in my previous post, I will just look at each player on his own merits to see if he deserves induction, and ignore the ten vote per ballot limit for now.
