NOTES FROM THE NAT: Vancouver Canadians news

You know, I’ve given the C’s front office a lot of praise this season for their efforts to get things right. They’ve screwed some things up, they’ve dropped the ball a time or two, but the bar they’ve set is extremely high and they’ve managed to hit that more often than not.

In fact, they’re not just hitting the high points, they’re pushing beyond them and setting an example for other pro teams in town. Check out this list of innovations over previous seasons, just in terms of marketing alone: 

• Regular ads on TEAM1040 and local TV? Great.
• Cross promotions with sponsors that double the number of ads being heard? Fantastic.
• Nightly audio updates on the game just finished for radio listeners? Superb.
• Archiving webcasts on the website? Holy cow. 
• Road trips to cover the game for local radio when in Everett? Outta sight.
• Press releases with audio clips of player interviews? Shut. Up.

And then there’s this, an audio newsletter being emailed to season ticket holders. 

This is what happens when you don’t skimp on providing your staff with the tools they need to deliver greatness. This is what happens when you hire people because they’re great at what they do, not cheap at what they do. This is what happens when you follow through on your ideas and refuse to do things by halves.

Why this is indicative of greatness is this: the season ticket holders have already bought their tickets. Whether they turn up or not, the seats are sold and the money is in pocket. In previous seasons the attitude towards season ticket holders was, "We’ll count ‘em as present and our job is done."

But the new C’s are going the extra mile to give those season ticket holders every reason to turn up, buy a hot dog, bring a friend and bond with their ball team, even if it means Rob Fai and his team of roof trolls have to slave over a copy of Pro Tools and read a script eighteen times until it sounds right. 

Getting it right is one thing, but getting it as good as it can possibly be… well, that’s a sign that it’s time to think about buying stock in Vancouver Canadians Baseball Inc.

This is one of those cases where, depending on who you ask the question, you’re going to get a different answer every time, but the mystery of Where In The World Is Shane Presutti has been answered; the trigger has finally been pulled after nigh two weeks of downtime, and he’s now back in Rookie Ball.

We’ve been asking for a while where Presutti is, noting his absence from the team for all but a few innings, and the last update we got from the team was that he was down with a ‘virus’. That’s now been switched to ‘health concerns’, which to me sounds like something a little trickier than a runny nose and a sore throat, though I’m going entirely on gut instinct in that assumption.

Oakland does have a tendency to play their injury cards close to their chest (if we hadn’t have heard it from the player himself, we STILL wouldn’t know that Jimmy Shull got a second injury after recovering from Tommy John surgery, and let’s not even talk about what really happened to Landon Powell’s knee way back when), so we’ll not likely get the full details about Presutti until he’s back and fighting fit - if at all.

In the meantime, just as with the Josh Horton promotion, there’s been no word on a replacement coming back the other way so the C’s will have to make do.

After Vancouver squeaked out a 3-1 win Saturday night in Idaho, the two teams came back to the field Sunday to close out their 5-game series in front of 2,000 Hawk fans.

In 100 degree Boise heat, Vancouver stacked up like this:

SS ‘Runway’ Richard
2B ‘Manta’ Ray
LF ‘Excellentic’ Sulentic
1B ‘Amblin’ Hamblin
RF ‘Uptown’ Brown
3B ‘Burning’ Correa (Left)
DH ‘Ham’ Frash
CF ‘3-0′ Keough
C ‘The American Dream’ Napoleon
SP ‘Perfect’ Hertzler

Vancouver first got on the board in the 2nd inning, ahead of the Hawks. Dan Hamblin led things off with a walk, and then back-to-back singles by Corey Brown and Walter Correa brought Amblin’ into score. Frash lined into a double-play when Walter Correa was doubled off at first base on the catch to end the inning.

Nothing exciting happened up until the 6th inning. ‘Venti’ Vento replaced ‘Amused’ Huseby in the top of that inning as the Hawks pitcher, and it was a decision Boise will regret. With two out in the inning, and no one on base, Dan Hamblin belted his 7th homer of the season to center field, over the head of ‘Wailing’ Jon Wyatt. After Corey Brown singled, Walter Correa blasted the ball into left field for his first pro dinger, the second of the inning. Brown also scored on the play, 4-0 for Rich Harden’s favourite NWL team.

Brad Hertzler (left) was pulled going into the bottom of 6, after surrendering 4 hits, one walk and striking out three in his five innings of duty. With a 1.57 ERA, Hertzler would lead the league in that category if he had pitched enough innings.  If he keeps up his pace, he could be up for a very good season.  Bryan ‘Tee’ Collins replaced Hertzler, and got the three outs in the 6th without surrendering any runs.

All nine Canadian batters stepped up to the dish in the 7th inning, but only three crossed that same plate later on that inning. Shane Keough led things off with his first pro homer to right field, the third C’s home-run in the game. Dusty Napoleon walked, but was sent back to the dugout on Michael Richard’s fielders’ choice, before Runway came into score on Matt Ray’s double to left. This was it for Venti, because John ‘Deutsch’ Muller entered the game for the bad guys. He gave up two straight walks to load the bases, before Corey Brown singled-in Matt Ray to score. Correa and Frash both got out to strand the bases loaded. 7-0 C’s.

After two innings of one-hit ball, Collins was yanked for Justin ‘Popular’ Friend. Justin got the three outs in the 8th, and surprisingly got the boot in the 9th for Aaron ‘Strike’ Jenkins. After striking out Dylan ‘BBQ’ Johnston to lead off the inning, Jon Wyatt singled to center. Marquez Smith walked with only the one out, and that set up runners on first and second for Ty ‘I’m’ Wright. The Hawk crushed the ball to left field for his 4th homer of the season to put Boise in contention, 7-3 C’s. It was, unfortunately for Boise fans, not enough as Vancouver cruised to victory.

At least they’ll have something to cheer about on the very (12 hours to be exact) long bus ride back to Vancouver. 

Wondered why Justin Frash has been getting the bench seat instead of Walter Correa lately?  Well that’s because Correa is on fire.  In his last last three games he’s 7 for 13 at the plate, with the one home-run and four RBI.  Going back even further, in the last six games Correa has been in the lineup he’s 10 for 23 with two doubles, the dinger, and 6 RBI’s.  Even more surprising in that half-a-dozen games is that Correa has struck out five times, 21 times less than his season total of 26.

50’s Night comes around Tuesday at the Nat, for game 1 of a three-game set against the Aquasox.  Yakima rolls into town Friday night for a five-game trip to wrap up an 8-game home-stand for the Canadian club.

Justin Frash reminds me a lot of Isaac Omura. The two share a lot of characteristics - they’re both infielders, they both played for the C’s (Omura in 2005, Frash this season), they’re both short (in pro ball terms, at least), they both attended the University of Hawaii, they both wear/wore the number 4, and they both struggled with their first taste of life as professional baseballers.

Hopefully, that’s not where the similarities end, as Omura followed his weak debut season with the sort of en fuego form that earns you a couple more seasons in the system, and Justin Frash has just recently been getting a whiff of the same sort of comeback about him.

But what causes a kid who hit .340+ in college to struggle at the below-Mendoza level? Well, if you believe what Frash told his hometown Camarillo Acorn newspaper today (and there’s no reason not to), the wear and tear of everyday ball is a prime factor:

"I’ve talked with everybody on the team, and most of us say that we never thought pro ball would be like this when we thought about playing," Frash said.

"It’s a grind on your body every day. It’s hard. You’ve got to get your sleep and eat right because it’s difficult to be ready to play day after day. You really have to get yourself physically prepared. That’s what I’m trying to get used to."

After playing in all 59 games for Hawaii as a senior, Frash only had a little bit of time off before joining Vancouver. All told, the Canadians will play 76 games in 79 days this season, with their campaign wrapping up on Sept. 5 against the Everett AquaSox.

"You look forward to the offdays," he said.

You know, truth be told, if you told me I could sleep with a supermodel every day but I could only miss three days in 79, I think I’d be pretty much destroyed at about day 18. To lift weights, train, and play ball at a high level, every single day, for almost three months straight… no matter how much you love the game, no matter how hard you’ve trained for it, that’s going to be brutal.

Frash said he’s eager to improve while in Vancouver, with the hopes of being invited to Oakland’s instructional camp during the winter. In a perfect world, he’ll spend the early part of 2008 at the Athletics’ spring training complex, working out with the big leaguers.

"A lot of people don’t get to play pro baseball," he said. "I’m going to take as much as I can out of it."

Good luck, Ham.

Well, it was due, wasn’t it? Josh Horton has been hitting well for
the C’s and the Kane County Cougars are all sorts of terrible, so why
not throw the high draftee up a level and see how he handles the pressure? Throw in a couple of injuries up the ladder, and the promotion was a sure thing. 

From Scout.com’s Oakland Clubhouse:

Horton will be replacing shortstop Mike Affronti, who was promoted to High-A Stockton. Affronti, a Midwest League All-Star in 2007, was batting .264 with five homers and 29 RBI. He was selected in the 17th round of the 2006 draft.

Affronti will replace Isaac Omura on the Ports’ roster. Omura broke his thumb on his glove hand attempting to field a throw from the catcher on Wednesday. Ports’ SS Justin Sellers left Tuesday’s game with a minor injury, but he is expected back in the Ports’ line-up on Thursday.

So how did he do in his first full-season outing? 

CF Mike Massaro led off the four-run inning by nailing a double to left-center field. Recently promoted SS Josh Horton followed by hitting a double in his first at bat with the Cougars to plate Massaro and even the score at 1-1

No
news on whether the C’s will replace him with a promotion from Arizona,
but the way our infield has been playing, one woud hope.
 

UPDATE: The Kane County Chronicle was all over Horton’s debut.

“I was just trying to get him over to third,” Horton said. “I honestly thought [Hunter] was going to catch it. I got kind of lucky with that.”

The Cougars went on to score three more times in the frame, highlighted by Sean Doolittle’s two-run double off losing pitcher Steve Delabar (2-3). Horton was 2-for-4, adding a single to lead off the seventh.

“He did a nice job up there,” Cougars manager Aaron Nieckula said. “He took some nice aggressive swings, worked the count and put some good wood on the ball tonight. He made a couple nice plays in the field.”

Horton did bobble his first fielding chance as a Cougar in the second inning, but calmly recovered to flip the ball to second for the third out. He admitted to being a little nervous making his first appearance with a new team.

“You just got to get out there and try to get comfortable,” he said. “Getting that first hit helped. Obviously, there’s going to be a little bit of nervous tension.”

Road teams always have a slow start when they trek out to Boise Idaho to play a series against the Hawks, so much so that it’s quite shocking that the Chicago Cubs affiliate doesn’t dominate the NWL East more often. A 13-hour road trip will take it out of you, especially when you’re squeezed into a bus with half your equipment crammed under your feet, while consuming a steady diet of Jack in the Box and 7-11 microwave cheeseburgers, and haven’t been home for the best part of a week.

But that’s life in the bus leagues, and if you can’t find the energy to be out there at the top of your game while dealing with a sore back, a rough gut, a 93mph fastball coming at you, and Idaho-bred base bunnies yelling your name through chicklet-filled mouths, then you’ve got no future in the game. 

The Vancouver Canadians, right now, are on a three game losing skid - one that has dropped them back to .500 ball with far too few weeks left to mount a serious challenge on the NWL West-leading Salem-Keizer Volcanoes, who currently sit 11.5 games ahead of us in 1st place.

In fact, if the Volcanoes drove their team bus off a cliff (and that’s what it would take for them to miss the playoffs), you’d have to think the C’s would struggle to even catch the second place Eugene Emeralds right now, what with a 5.5 game deficit to make up, and a bullpen that is struggling to stay dominant for longer than a few innings at a time.

And the games played over the last two nights are a perfect example of that issue and what it does to a team, as the C’s have had no trouble scoring runs, but much trouble keeping the other team from scoring more.

(more…)

I get a lot of email and comments to the blog from people who dig what we do (or hate what we do), but on occasion we get some information in a comment that warrants a diary in its own right.

This is one such comment, from Max Weder, husband of Nat Bailey facade artist, Jennifer Ettinger:

Great blog on the Canadians. Thanks as well for the nice comments on Jennifer’s art at the stadium; it’s much appreciated (my spouse has all the talent; I’m just along for the ride)

We organize a baseball meeting each summer in Vancouver for SABR (Society for American Baseball research - www.sabr.org). This year, the meeting will be at Nat Bailey on Saturday, August 25 at 2 pm (there’s no game that day). We’ll have several speakers, including [Vancouver Canadians GM] Andy Dunn, and I’m trying to line up a couple ex-ballplayers to talk.

In the past, we’ve had Kit Krieger (sort of a ballplayer), Ernie Kershaw, Bill Whyte, Phil Filiatrault (played in Pirates system), Ray Crosato and others. I’m always looking for others interested, so if you think of any, send an email to us at art@ettinger.ca (I’m really interested if anyone has a contact for Hal Rodd, former announcer for the Capilanos).

Anyone interested in baseball is welcome to attend, and you don’t have to be a SABR member. There’s no admission charge and we also will have a bbq at our house afterwards to which all are invited.

Thanks again,
Max Weder

Folks who are on the fence about going to this should take note, I went to one of these meetings at the BC Sports Hall of Fame a few years back, and it was an amazing day. Extended chats with old time Vancouver ballplayers, C’s management, and a collection of uber ball-geeks that will make you realize how little you know about the game… or at least how little you know about who played third base for the Pirates in 1965, and what Reggie Jackson’s lifetime OBP was.

I’ll also say, if you think what’s on the outside of Nat Bailey Stadium is a great taste of old time ball, you should see the inside of Weder’s house, just five minutes from the stadium. Even if only for the barbeque, I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Saturday August 25th at 2pm, no cover charge - see you there!