Notes From The Nat

Now, two months ago if I were asked the question, "How good will UBC’s Baseball team be this year?", my
answer would be negative.  After losing Shawn Schaefer to Junior Hockey (There’s more to it but shh), and a ton of players on the 2006roster due to their ages, I would’ve thought that if UBC could manage acouple of wins a month, it’d be a miracle.  

But now, here weare, beginning of April, and UBC is on fire!  With an 11-9 record(Which is good for Second in the Conference, including LC-State), guyslike Andrew LaFleur, Brett Murray, Doug Grant and even a couple youngguys like Jon Syrnyk and Nic Lendvoy have been key for UBC, in theirchase to repeat as NAIA Region I Champions.  

The guy whomost benefited from Shawn Schaefer’s absence, is Brendan Rolfe whoheaded into Saturday’s Double-Header against Albertson with a 3-0record and a 0.67 ERA!  Statistically (at least in most categories)he’s better than the other two starters (Grant and LaFleur), and asidefrom Toronto Freshman Greg Chong (who’s pitched in 15 less innings thanRolfe), leads the team with the best ERA.

Even if Rolfe has a0.67 ERA, or if Jon Syrnyk has 12 RBI, the real MVP for UBC is SeniorBrett Murray.  The 3B/CP has an average of .351 and has hit 3 Homers,including one at Nat Bailey Stadium against Oregon Tech.  On the otherside of the ball, Murray is 1-1 with Five saves this season, making hisfinal UBC season one to remember.  The Vancouver native has only notplayed in one game all year, but in the 17 he has played in (Onceagain, this is heading into Saturday’s action), they have all beenstarts, before making his way to the mound in the 9th.

Now,the question most people ask when there is a UBC player on fire is,will they get drafted?  For Murray (Who is comparable to Steve Kleen,the 2005 Canadian who pitched and played 1st base in College atPepperdine), the chances are slim.  Last year only One UBC player gotdrafted, Connor Janes who had one of the best seasons in UBC History,but with Murray being "Good", "Great" in some cases and "Wow" inothers, the chances aren’t as good for him as for Chris Kissock of theLc-State Warriors, but a trip to the NAIA World Series could changethat for anyone of these T-Bird players.

There are only twoplayers on this year’s UBC squad that I think could get drafted, andthey are both beside each other in your programs.  #38 and #39.  Murrayand Rolfe.  You might ask why not Doug Grant?  Or Tyler Willson? Well,the fact is Grant hasn’t been the more consistent Pitcher this season(Comparing him to Rolfe or Andrew LaFleur), and despite a great Juniorseason, Tyler Willson has yet to impress in 2007. 

JeffFrancis never appeared in the NAIA World Series with UBC, yet isenjoying a successful MLB career as we speak.  Connor Janes did appearin the NAIA World series with the ‘Birds, and is probably on a flightright now to who knows where, playing where ever the D-Backs want himin their system.  This year, will it be Murray? Rolfe? Grant? Willson?Wilkie? Kornberger?  Only time will tell…but so far UBC is off to agreat start and with the way they’re playing we could be looking at anNAIA World Series title this season!

 J

 

(Photo courtesy Scout.com) Seeing as how this is my first post on NFTN, I would just like to thank Oz for the opportunity to write for this site which already has a great reputation! I can’t wait for the C’s season to start, and even the other A’s Farm teams seasons that get underway in less than two weeks!

Former Vancouver Canadian, a 2002 alumni Catcher by the name of John Baker, has been the first Catcher from the A’s Minor-League-System to be traded this Spring, as he heads to the Florida Marlins, in exchange for infielder Jason Stokes.

Baker was a C/DH for Vancouver in 2002 appearing in 39 games, hitting One homer, 13 RBI and finished the year off with a .235 Batting Average.

Baker spent the last two seasons with Sacramento, and finishes his Minor-League-Career with Oakland with a .270 BA, 32 Homers, and 250 RBI, seven more than his final run count which stands at 243.

It was bound to happen soon, with one of Oakland’s catching prospects being traded, but once it finally happens it’s a bit sad. This trade is sort of like the Dustin Majewski trade a couple years ago, when he went to Toronto (Dustin is starting the year in AA New Hampshire btw, you read it here first), and with a crowded system full of catchers, Baker is just one of the first to be delt.

In return, Oakland is getting a 25-year-old Infielder, who mostly plays at 1st Base. Stokes has alot more power than Baker, hitting 87 homers in his time with the Marlins Organization, which included a 2002 stint in Kane County with the Cougars, who are now in the A’s minor league system.

Sounds like the guy’s injury-prone, but if he can stay healthy I think this could be an improved John Baker, position and batting wise.

Both players have yet to make their MLB debuts, but each have made Spring debuts in the past with the big clubs. Two years ago, Stokes went 1-10 for Florida striking out Seven of the Nine times he didn’t get on base, and the year before he was 0-1. Baker on the other hand, was 11-26 heading into this Spring, where he went 2-5.

We’ll miss ya JB!

J

Nothing much going on with the C’s (or TBirds), so I figured I’d ramble a little about anything going through my mind.

And the first item in my head is a good’un.

WE’RE EXPANDING!
Barely a week goes by without me referencing Jeremy over at the Roadkill Sports Blog, as he’s a hardcore info geek who always manages to get the scoop on some player being let go, or some formerly let go player catching on at another team. And it struck me that we both seem to spend a lot of time doing the same work, about the same players and team. Even though we share info, it seems silly to spend time maintaining and growing two blogs, so I asked if he’d consider coming aboard NFTN, and bringing his back catalogue of content with him. He’s agreed to do so, which means we’re going to expand like crazy-go-nuts.

As Jeremy covers UBC games as well as C’s games, we’ll be doing more work on that front. He also covers Vancouver Giants minor league hockey games as well as BC Lions CFL games, so you’ll find that stuff here as well going forward.

My plan is to set up a front page for each sport, which will show posts relating to that sport - baseball.notesfromthenat.com for baseball, for example, or cfl.notesfromthenat.com for Lions games, etc. The regular site will show everything, regardless of sport, but for more focused content, people will be able to pick and choose what they see.

All of which means, this blog, as of now, is no longer mine and mine alone - Jeremy will be an equal partner.

What that means to you is MORE content. MORE interviews. MORE game reports. MORE live-blogging. MORE variety. And MORE Vancouver sports. And probably MORE arguments about whether Stephen Harper is a buffoon or not (I say ‘is’).

Welcome aboard, J.

 
THE C’S NEED A SPEEDGUN.
I’ve been bitching about this for afew years now, but perhaps with new owners in place, now’s a good timeto reiterate it - the Canadians need to install a speedgun behind homeplate with an electronic display on the outfield wall, so fans can seehow fast the pitches are coming in. I tried to get this happening lastyear - even offering the blog as a sponsor to cover part of the cost -but the investment would come to about five grand to do it right.

Isit worth doing at that cost? Hells, yes. Anyone who has sat behind theoff-day pitchers and scouts and heard the endless barrage of fanssaying, "How fast was that one?" and "What’s been the quickest of theday?" will tell you that the fans want to know whether the pitchesthey’re seeing are quicker than usual, or slower than molasses. Itgives them one more thing to look at, which is a big deal when there’sso much downtime between pitches, and it also gives the team one moreplace to slap an advertiser.

And that’s how I propose the teammakes it happen - give Coke or Pepsi (or Granville Island Brewery) acall, ask them to pay for the electronic display, and let them puttheir logo on either side of it. Heck, Coke will put an electronic signoutside a local grocery store, so you can’t seriously tell me theywouldn’t fork out five G’s to get a permanent ad on the outfield wall.

In fact, if memory serves, wasn’t that how we got the existing electronic scoreboard? I seem to recall it used to have Molson Canadian logos on either side, from the old days when they owned the team…

Anyways, makeit so, ownership! Otherwise I’m going to have to spend a hundred bucksand get a handheld radar gun so we can post some pitch speeds on theblog and fill this informational void once and for all.

 
TRAVIS BUCK RIPPED IT UP IN SPRING TRAINING
2005 Vancouver Canadians outfielder Travis Buck absolutely belted all comers in Major League spring training, posting the best batting average by far in the Oakland camp, and knocking around a ton of doubles and runs batted in. In fact, he’s looked so good that a lot of fans were beginning to wonder if he might actually snare a spot on the A’s roster.

Buck hit his first homer of the spring Saturday against the Rangers, and his oozing potential has generated much buzz in his first big-league camp; he was batting .368 with a .457 on-base percentage in 16 games entering Saturday.

"He’s the real deal," says A’s outfielder/first baseman Nick Swisher. "That boy can swing it!"

Buck, 23, swings it so well that he’s drawn some lofty comparisons during his time in the desert. Keith Lieppman, Oakland’s director of player development, and manager Bob Geren have said Buck reminds them of a young Jason Giambi.

Rest assured, he will before the year is out, joining other ex-Canadians Nick Swisher, Dan Johnson, Rich Harden, Jason Windsor, and Joe Blanton.

RYAN GOLESKI SENT BACK TO CLEVELAND
I hate this. Ryan Goleski was picked up by the Oakland A’s as a Rule 5 draftee in the off-season. That means Cleveland didn’t protect him, Oakland wanted him, but the A’s had to agree to carry him on their Major League roster for at least one season, or he reverts back to Cleveland (who don’t want him and have no place for him). Well, Cleveland didn’t tell anyone pre-draft, but Goleski had a hurt wrist and needed surgery. Major faux pas on their part, but he had the surgery and the A’s decided against making a big deal out of it, because they like the kid.

But, of course, recovering from wrist surgery isn’t a great way to lead in to a leap from AA ball to Major League spring training, so Goleski struck out a bunch and racked up a low batting average that wasn’t troubling Senor Mendoza any. The A’s couldn’t keep him in the big league roster as a mop-up pplayer, what with outfielders Kielty and Kotsay both out injured and T-Buck pushing for a regular spot, but they wanted to put Goleski in AAA to season, so they decided to negotiate with the Indians on a trade. Basically, "we’ll send him back, but you trade him to us for old rope, and that will allow us to put him in the minors and you can keep the Rule 5 money and not get crap for not disclosing his injury."

Cleveland said no, and will instead keep Goleski, even though they don’t have room for him in AAA, and may not have room in AA ball either, considering their glut of outfielders. Frankly, it’s sheer bloody mindedness. And Goleski seems to agree.

"I thought the whole Rule-5 thing was a way to get out of Cleveland. . . .I wonder why Cleveland wants me back. I don’t even know if they have a spot for me at Triple-A or Double-A. It doesn’t make sense — don’t say you want to to hold on to me and then say you don’t have a position for me."

Will Cleveland hold out for a larger trade? Will they take a longer look at Goleski, now that they know the Moneyball crowd likes what they see? Or will they trade him to someone else, or even cut him out of spite?

Either way, it sucks for all concerned.

PEOPLE WHO BUY EXTENDED WARRANTIES ARE DUMBER THAN YANKEE FANS
I just went to Best Buy to pick up an MP3 player and the clerk kept me there for a solid three minutes telling me that if I didn’t pay an extra ten bucks for the extended warranty, I’d regret it. Five times I said "NO", increasingly more forcefully each time, until finally I just said, "You know what, if you’re telling me this thing is going to break within a year, keep it. I’m not interested." Then, all of a sudden, she was happy to put through the sale in quick time.

All of which annoys me to no end. First, leave me the hell alone if I say "no", don’t keep at me to pay your damn protection money, Best Buy. Second, if you’re selling me a product, STAND BEHIND IT. If it breaks, replace it because it SHOULDN’T break, don’t ask me to pay an extra 25% just for the assurance that you’ll stand behind the product you’re selling.

And third, you know why they work so hard to sell you that extended warranty? Because only about 5% of people ever keep them - the rest forget about them, lose the paperwork, upgrade what they bought before it breaks, or just can’t be bothered taking them in for repair/replacement when they do break. That means the company is getting free money every time you take out that extended warranty. If you fall for it, frankly, you’re a fool.

In my case, I know that MP3 players are going into just about everything you buy now, so I don’t even CARE if the thing doesn’t last a year because you’ll be able to buy them for $9.95 in six months time. They’ll have the things in Corn Flakes boxes before long. I only bought it in the first place because it was the last one in stock of that line, and thus was discounted heavily ($69.95 down to $39.95). That said, I decided to take out the extended warranty after all, and here’s why: I was really f’ing annoyed at being harassed to do so.

Doesn’t make sense? Read on and it will.

According to the policy on the extended warranty, if your purchase breaks and needs replacing, and they don’t have any more of that model, they have to give you the next one up. In my case, I was buying the last 1MB model they had, and the next one up is a 2MB model. So, sufficiently angry at being badgered, I paid the ten bucks for the extended warranty, walked into the parking lot, wrapped the MP3 player in a bunch of tissues, and slammed it to the ground a few times. No marks, no scuffs, completely non-working MP3 player.

I took it back in and complained that it wasn’t working, and they begrudgingly gave me a brand new 2MB player.

And that’s how I got a $129 MP3 player for $49.95. 

If you ever wondered why a city the size of Vancouver doesn’t have AAA-standard pro baseball anymore, a look at the weather of the last week will give you a pretty good idea. The UBC Thunderbirds learned the harsh reality of early season ball in the Pacific Northwest the hard way, with most of their home games cancelled due to weather.

But on the upside, at least the break in play gives us a chance to catch up on things, and thanks to some fancy camerawork by HawkerRob (tip your hawkers!), that includes a chance to see how UBC handles drainage while they’re responsible for the upkeep of the outfield.

Some teams have high-priced Super Sopper machines that sponge up excess groundwater with a few passes of the field. Others have high-tech underground drainage systems that suck water down and recycle it for later use. Others have, well, a tarp.

So what does UBC have?

 

That’s right. They dig a trench and crack open a sewer lid. 

Of course, it would be easy to mock such a system, but the truth of the matter is, when this ballpark was last upgraded (or maintained), cracking open a drain pipe and losing half your infield dirt down a sewer was considered cutting edge stuff!

Unfortunately, Nat Bailey Stadium hasn’t been upgraded (or maintained) since 1953.

But that’s about to change. With new ownership involved with the Vancouver Canadians, we’re going to see something Vancouver baseball fans have never seen before - an actual plan. And that plan involves actual money being spent on actually good things, like a new underground outfield drainage system. And, perhaps, a roof that won’t crush 600 people in the event of an earthquake. And clubhouse showers that won’t suddenly start spewing boiling hot water whenever a player flushes a toilet.

Yes folks, the Vancouver Canadians are entering a new realm of professionalism and efficiency, the likes of which we’ve never seen before!

 

Look, I said "are entering", not "have entered"… 

Those that might have been thinking that Delany Dunn’s shift from GM to VP of Fan Experience was going to be a backward step are seemingly mistaken, at least if the latest news coming out of the Vancouver Canadians front office is anything to go by.

It seems the the fan experience isn’t just a buzzword for the new C’s owners - it’s the be all and end all. And that’s why they hired legendary baseball marketing man, Mike Veeck, who has worked with the Chicago White Sox, Florida Marlins, Tampa Bay Devil Rays and Detroit Tigers, to set the scene for spreading the C’s gospel to the population at large.

From the Vancouver Sun:

Veeck is part of a group of baseball enthusiasts ? which includes singer Jimmy Buffett and comedian Bill Murray ? that hold an ownership stake in five minor league ball clubs. They operate under the name of The Goldklang Group which, in addition to running their own teams, also provide marketing advice on a consultancy basis to four major league teams.

One in a family of nine children, Mike Veeck grew up in a household where baseball was not just a business. It was a way of life. Some of his father?s more famous promotional ideas were the exploding scoreboard at old Comiskey Park in Chicago as well as hiring a midget, Eddie Gaedel, to pinch hit for the St. Louis Browns.

Yes, this is the same Veeck family who were behind the infamous ‘Disco Demolition Night’, where Chicago White Sox fans were encouraged to bring disco records to the ballpark to be blown up between games of a double-header. That turned ugly when fans started using the records as frisbees, eventually storming the field and starting a bonfire. It’s widely remembered as both the worst marketing ploy in history, but also the most effective (we’re STILL talking about it!).

Veeck’s father is enshrined at the Baseball Hall of Fame (see plaque above), and for good reason. He was responsible for (among other things), players’ names on uniforms, the ivy at Wrigley Field, Bat Day, home run fireworks, the first black player in the American League (Larry Doby), and the oldest rookie (Satchel Paige - age 42).

His son is a chip of the old block. Mike was one of those who built the independent league St Paul Saints, which don’t just outdraw the Minnesota Twins (who play barely seven miles away), but they’ve sold out every game for the last 14 years, with entertainment being at the core of their business plan. Where else can you see mimes doing instant replays of great plays?

Now, I’m not saying there’ll be a nun giving massages in the stands or players emerging from corn stalks in the outfield (a couple of old faves from the Saints), but clearly this is a guy who knows how to get the word out about a ball team, and this team REALLY needs word to get out.

?When I looked at the situation here I thought it was a no brainer,? says the affable 56-year-old Veeck. ?Here we had a team that was averaging 2,000-3,000 fans a game and most of the population of Vancouver didn?t even know what nights they were playing.?

He’s right. It is a no-brainer. In fact, if Veeck (and Dunn) can get their marketing plan working, it’s no stretch to think that the C’s games could start selling out on a regular basis.

Maybe then The Province would bother reporting on their games…

If you want a little more background on Mike Veeck and what he brings to a ballpark, read Wild and Outside, a book about the origins of the Northern League. It’s a great read, and it’ll make you salivate thinking about what we could be looking at in Vancouver in the seasons to come. Alternately, pick up a copy of his book Fun is Good.

So, what with all the changes at the Vancouver Canadians, and the recently improving weather, I decided to lock the blog for a week or so and get back to some normal life stuff.

It was sure weird to get out of the basement, change my underwear, and emerge blinking at the strange thing you surface-dwellers call the sun, but after a day or two, I kind of began to appreciate it. Makes me think there might be baseball on the horizon…

So let’s get into a brief recap of stuff that happened while I was starting a new business laying in the sun.

WES LONG GONE: Yep, that’s right - Wes Long has lived up to his nickname and been given his release by the Oakland A’s. You might remember Wes as the kid who was ripping it up in Vancouver in 2005, only to foul tip a fastball into his own face, fracturing an eye socket. The A’s sent him to all the right people and helped him get back on his feet, but the whole episode set Long back about a year in his development (you’d have to think the high and inside fastballs made him cringe a little for a while after he returned), and though he was strong in Kane County last year, he was simply not far enough up the ladder to get another season of pro ball at his age. Tough break, but hopefully he’ll try to catch on somewhere else. Thanks to Jeremy at the Roadkill Sports Blog for the heads up. Jeremy is also live-blogging UBC games and has done several daily spring training reports on ex-C’s players. He’s becoming a great source of info - can’t wait to see him unleashed on the C’s this year.

OUTFIELD FENCES MOVING SOON: The saga of the ‘have they moved or not’ routine continues, with certain journalists claiming the fences had been moved while certain beerhawkers clarified that they haven’t, but they soon will… or have been… Anyway, before the C’s season starts, we can expect a new more hitter-friendly outfield. This will mean more beat-up pitchers, more home runs, more outfielder-testing at the warning track and wall, and happier advertisers - albeit less of them (yes folks, not only are the walls coming in, they’re also coming down).

UBC THUNDERBIRDS TRAVELING ROUGH: Bob from TBirdBaseball.net tells me that there’s a nooner on at The Nat today between the University of British Columbia Thunderbirds (5-8) and the Lewis-Clark State Warriors (19-1). It’s likely to be a slaughter as the National NAIA Champs go about their business against a team decimated by the departure of a flock of seniors post 2006, but the TBirds do their best work when they’re up against it, and it would be quite the moral victory to take one of the LCS juggernaut.

However, those hoping the TBirds would be bringing out their top flight pitching staff for this series may be left wanting. According to Bob:

If you look at the schedule, [UBC] have three games the previous weekend at Concordia-Portland, and three more games the following weekend hosting Oregon Tech. [Their] plan is to give the L-C games a lower priority for [the] pitching rotation, basically conceding first place to L-C State. The deal is, L-C State doesn’t want to host the Region I tournament (they’ve got their hands full with the national tournament), so, assuming that L-C State finishes first, the second-place team hosts the Region I tournament. So, the games against Concordia and Oregon Tech are more important.

 There you have it, folks, the inner workings of the NAIA schedule writ large. It’s probably a wise move, as LWC is nasty up and down. They’ll be starting 5-0 Chris Kissock for Thursday’s game starting at 1pm, and if his win/loss doesn’t scare you, his 0.50 ERA should as hell should.

EX-CANADIANS MOVING AND SHAKING AT SPRING TRAINING: There are way too many ex-C’s to go through them all one by one at this year’s Oakland A’s spring training camp, but one that should be mentioned often is 2005 Canadians pitcher Mike ‘M&M’ Mitchell. He threw 8 scoreless innings in big league camp, and though he’s now been sent back to minor league camp, word on the street is he might be called upon to make his big league debut if a spot opens in the bullpen.

Not quite as happy is 2004 alumni Jason Windsor, who could have worked his way into the 5th spot in Oakland’s rotation with some good spring performances. Probable 5th starter Joe Kennedy has been getting eaten alive, potential replacement Shane Komine has been ordinary, as has Brad Halsey (he’s likely to start the year in AAA), so the chance was there for Windsor. Alas, he got worked, and so the question remains - who will be Oakland’s 5th starter?

The inside money is on Colorado Rockie Byung Hyun Kim, which could be bad news for 2002 Vancouver Canadian Dan Johnson. Or good news, since he might actually hit home runs in Colorado’s ballpark.

Last year, the folks over at Athletics Nation passed around the hat with a view to buying underprivileged kids some tickets to Oakland A’s games.

The resultant $3500 raised saw hundreds of kids registered with Sports4Kids have their first Major League experience courtesy of bloggers, and Notes From The Nat threw in everything we’d earned in ads that year on behalf of all Vancouverites.

Well, it’s that time of year again, and NFTN is again doing its part. Everything we’ve earned through the blog this year is already in the AN charity pot, and I’m going to challenge any other blog to match that. Send AN your ad proceeds and we’ll link to you forever. Nothing mutual required, just do your piece.

And hey, if you’re a regular old reader and you want to do your part, we might not be able to link to you, but we’ll sure as heck mention you if you let me know you made a donation. Full details are at the Athletics Nation site. Get to it, kids.

Oh, and if you want to know what we did with our ad revenue last year (and 5% of profits from my business), we loaned it all to third world folks looking to start small businesses. 55 loans so far, 7 paid back in full, and more going out every month. Doesn’t take much to make a big difference, folks.

I mentioned earlier today that The Province wrote a piece about the Canadians’ new President, Aileen McManamon. I also mentioned how I couldn’t read it because of the Prov’s arcane 1989-thinking that requires online readers to be offline subscribers to get to it.

Well, beerhawkers aren’t just for provinding booze (cheers for the cut’n'paste, HawkerRob), and it turns out that the piece is actually one worth reading… if you can get past the hokey "oh my god, she’s a woman!" routine:

Who ever heard of a woman running a baseball team? It didn’t look as if she’d even tried putting a wad of Red Man loose leaf chewing tobacco in her mouth.

Snore.

I must confess," said [co-owner Jake] Kerr, "that I was skeptical at first. But she sort of rose to the top of the candidate list quickly. She understands what Jeff and I are trying to do here. She gets it."

Besides, the native of Ohio is a lifer when it comes to baseball and she grew up the hard way, cheering for the Cleveland Indians through the 1970s and ’80s. And even though she lives here, she paid her own way to the Baseball Winter Meetings in Orlando, Fla., to pitch herself to the Vancouver owners.

"I talked to her first," said Kerr on Wednesday at an introductory media conference, "and I went back to Mooney and said ‘this you’ve got to see. She’s really smart!’"

It didn’t hurt that — unsolicited and free of charge — she took it upon herself to do an entire marketing plan following their meetings in Orlando and had it done and waiting for the pair when they arrived home from Florida.

We sent it to a company in New York we’d contracted to help us," said Mooney, "and Michael Veeck (whose father Bill owned the Chicago White Sox, St. Louis Browns and the Indians when they won the 1948 World Series) read it. He sent it back and said it was as good as anything they could do."

The major component of the Vancouver Canadians as a sporting organization that has ALWAYS been missing, even back in the Triple-A days, has been marketing. It’s been a continual drag on the success of whatever team has been playing at The Nat.

There SHOULD be a billboard out on Main Street making people aware that the season is coming and that the ballpark if ‘this way’. There SHOULD be TV highlights going to every news organization every night. There SHOULD be home and away radio coverage, like there is in just about every other NWL city. There SHOULD be modern upgrades to the customer experience that compete with what you get even at the minor league hockey level. But there hasn’t been - ever.

I suspect that McManamon is going to meet more than a few roadblocks in her bid to enact her marketing plan, but boy howdy,  if she can make it happen (and she has some deep pockets behind her), this is going to be a hell of a good time in Vancouver’s baseball history.

And not for nothing, but you’ve just got to give a heck of a lot of credit to someone who would decide they wanted to run a pro baseball team, and would go to the winter meetings on her own dime, find the owners of her local team, pitch them on herself, then come home and crank out a first rate marketing plan that even someone like Mike Veek can’t see himself topping… all on spec.

This is no empty suit we’re dealing with here. This is someone who gets more done by lunchtime than most people get done in a month. Those who want to harp on her gender are going to be in for a rude awakening.

LyndonLittle in today’s Vancouver Sun has some great information about theVancouver Canadians’ new management and ownership team (seen left),with further info about new President Aileen McManamon (following onfrom what we posted yesterday), and what the future holds for GM DelanyDunn.

The Sun’s Lyndon Little:

"As somebody who’s passionate about baseball, this is a dream job," said McManamon.

[Jeff] Mooney, the chairman of A&W Canada, said he and his partner[Jake Kerr] first met McManamon at this year’s baseball winter meetingsin Florida, where McManamon was attending a seminar on the Business ofBaseball.

When McManamon learned of their plans to purchase the Single ACanadians, she pitched them a business plan that caught their attention.

"At first, both Jeff and I wondered just who was this woman from WestVan was who was so persistent," said a chuckling Kerr, who runs LignumInvestments together with his brother Tim. "But when we looked into it,we discovered she has a long background in sports marketing. There werecertainly other candidates for the job, but she seemed to be by far thebest. "It was fortuitous for us. We were lucky to find someone likeAileen right here in our community."

Looks like yesterday’s assessment of McManamon’s go-getter attitude was right on the money, eh?

As for further changes to the front office:

Also hired recently is a new director of sales, Graham Wall.Others in the front office have new titles, with former general mangerDelany Dunn now holding the position of Vice-President, Fan Experience…

I’m sure if I asked Delany how he feels about that, he’d say he’s‘happy to be a part of a great ballclub with an incredible future’ orsomething professional like that, but you’ve got to think he’ll be abit annoyed privately about what will look to most people as a demotion.

On the other side of the coin, it’s clear that the C’s ownership islooking to expand the size of the front office (in staffing terms, ifnot square footage), give employees more clearly defined roles, andbring in some heavy hitters for the positions that require them. Ifanything, it’s a credit to Dunn that they’ve found what I think is thebest possible responsibility for him - giving the fans what they want,and giving them a reason to return - something that’s always been atthe forefront of his thinking - while keeping him at a ‘board ofdirectors’ level.

The C’s have had ‘the suits’ come in at several times in theirhistory when new owners waltz in the door, usually with a mandate tokick out the jams and clear out the cobwebs, and usually all the suitsmanaged to do in the end was alienate staff, the city, and theneighbors with dumb ideas like making the fences 30 feet tall to stoppeople from watching for free on Little Mountain.

That the new ownership of the Vancouver Canadians, this time, havelooked locally for their new execs, and have done their best to retainthe ‘old school’ guys and put them in places where they can do whatthey do best, is worth a tip of the hat. The trick will be finding thebalance between the new broom and the old dust that so many see asbeing part of the quintessential Nat Bailey experience.

Keeping the beerhawkers on and bringing in the outfield fences is agreat first step. Where the team will go from here is anyone’s guess,but if I was to put money on it, I’d say we’re watching something thatwill bring some nifty results, sooner rather than later.

Note: The Province finally published a local baseball storytoday, when they too mentioned the new President. Of course, you can’tread it online unless you’re a subscriber, so there you go.

Photo credit, Ian Lindsay, Vancouver Sun - used without permission, but in the best spirit of ‘fair use’.