A few weeks back, I bought a small knick knack on eBay - an Ottawa Lynx paperweight. At least I think it’s a paperweight. It doesn’t seem to serve any other kind of purpose that I can see.
I
bought it because, come Labor Day, the Ottawa Lynx will be no more, and
the Vancouver Canadians will be the last remaining Canadian minor
league baseball team.
Think about that for a second - no affiliated minor league baseball anywhere in Canada… except for Vancouver.
Of
course, this is a shameful course of events, and one that could have
been avoided with just the minimal amount of care and concern, but care
and concern aren’t words that sit well with baseball executives.
From today’s Globe and Mail:
On Labour Day, the Ottawa Lynx will play the final game of their
15-year existence when they close out a six-game homestand against the
Syracuse Chiefs, ending an era during which minor-league teams were
dotted across Canada.
Less than a decade ago, there were Triple-A teams in Vancouver,
Calgary, Edmonton and Ottawa. In addition, Canada played host to
several other major-league affiliates in places such as London, Ont.,
Welland, Ont., and Medicine Hat.
Yet when the Lynx depart after this season for Allentown, Pa., the
Single-A Vancouver Canadians will become the only Canadian outpost
among the dozens of major-league farm teams in North America.
Granted, the game isn’t as big up here now that the Blue Jays aren’t in
contention and the Expos are gone to Washington, and the ridiculous
border line-ups (mostly heading in a southerly direction) haven’t
helped the situation.Nor has the fact that, up north, during April and May, it’s usually either raining, has just rained, or is about to rain.
And
the fact that US towns and cities are happy to pile loads of taxpayer
money into building stadiums while Canadian cities view social
infrastructure as something to be avoided is another factor.
But
if you want to know the REAL reason that there’s no minor league ball
in Canada, I can sum it up in three words: the Blue Jays.
The Lynx were born when baseball interest in Canada was peaking. The franchise played its first game only five months after the Toronto Blue Jays captured their first World Series, as baseball participation, television audiences and attendance hit record highs.
Ottawa sold out most games during those early days, setting an International League attendance record in their new 10,000-seat facility and becoming the jewel of Canada’s minor-league scene.
But when interest in both the Blue Jays and Montreal Expos began to decline in the mid-1990s, so do did the minor leagues suffer in popularity.
Then there were the economic forces. During the late 1990s and early 2000s, a low Canadian dollar made teams more valuable in the United States than Canada.
Economics, schmeconomics. The failure of baseball at the minor league level in this country is down to the Jays.
And not their lack of results so much as their lack of resolve.
Put simply, the Blue Jays could have seen the game failing in their own backyard and done something about it beyond compelling people in the cheap seats to "Make some noize!" They could have showed a little charity, and helped out surrounding areas to keep their teams. They could have played exhibition games outside of Ontario, or even the occasional in-season game. They could have made their stars into nationwide heroes on the same level as Joe Carter or Larry Walker once were. They could have drafted more local kids, or traded for one or two. They could have dragged a minor league team or two BACK to Canada.
But they did none of this. Instead, they figure wall-to-wall Blue Jays coverage on Sportsnet is enough to keep the kids in Nunavut and the oldies in Thunder Bay interested. The result of that misguided thinking? If Vancouverites want to see a ballgame, they go to Seattle. If Calgarians want to see one, they go to the independent Northern League. If Regina folks want to see one, they’ll head for Chicago.
Sure,
there’s no law that says the Blue Jays have to spend money or exact
effort in helping keep minor league ball in Canada. There’s no
provincial or federal directives that say they should sling a few
million to cities to help them build stadiums that could have helped
them keep their teams. There’s nothing in the bible that says "thou
shalt build the sport in your own backyard if you want people to give a
damn when the Yankees and Sox own your ass."
But the fundamentals of business dictate that, if you want
your company to grow, your industry should grow too. and the
fundamentals of sport management suggest that, if your team is playing
away for a week, but your Triple-A team plays just down the street, you
keep the locals interested in baseball ALL. THE. TIME.
The
Mariners get this. Their minor league affiliates are as close as they
can be to Seattle, and the results are overwhelmingly positive. Do you
honestly think that Everett Aquasox fans don’t get to Safeco Field to
watch the Mariners as often as they do the Flipperkids? Do you not
think Tacoma ball fans convoy past the airport to see their Triple-A
heroes playing in The Show?
Meanwhile, where do the Blue Jays
minor leaguers play? Not Montreal, Ottawa, Hamilton and St Johns, but
rather New Hampshire, Florida, New York, and Michigan.
The Blue
Jays love to call themselves Canada’s team, but where’s the incentive
for Canadians outside the 416 to give a damn about the Jays,
when they send their kids to the US to play? Where are baseball fans in
Winnipeg, Quebec, Calgary and Edmonton supposed to go to get their
baseball fill, if the Jays aren’t concerned with supplying it?
Now,
I understand how the minors work. I get it that decisions such as the
one to move the Lynx to Pennsylvania are not made by the Rogers board,
but that board can damn well have a say, and when the city of Ottawa
couldn’t or wouldn’t raise the cash to upgrade the ballpark there (or
even build parking for it, or even not destroy the existing parking),
the Jays could have ridden in like local heroes, offered to build a new
ballpark, and taken over the affiliation of the team while doing so.
For
$10-25m, the team could have exploited a great real estate opportunity,
anchored itself among Ottawa’s ball fans as ‘their team’, and secured
the ability to have their call-ups a short drive away, rather than a
short flight - for decades to come.
But they don’t. And the
motards who don’t think these things through will say "Canadians don’t
like baseball", even as the Vancouver Canadians attendance figures spike
up dramatically (for Low-A short season ball, at that), and thousands of Vancouverites tackle the border
crossing every weekend to see Mariners games some four hours away.
City officials will say "I won’t waste taxpayer money on stadiums",
even as stadium developments across the United States, from Memphis to
Balitmore to Albuquerque to Round Rock, rejuvenate downtrodden areas
and bring in millions of dollars (and thousands of jobs) to local
economies, as well as giving local populations some 70+ nights of
entertainment every summer that they otherwise would have spent
watching TV.
As for the economics reasoning that Ottawa’s owners are trotting out as the logic behind their move, it’s funny that as they leave, the Independent Can-Am League is looking to not just move in to the city, but take over the stadium lease.
[Can-Am League 'Quebec Capitales' owner Miles] Wolff is also betting that Canadians still have plenty of appetite for baseball. Right now, he’s bidding to take over the final two years of the Lynx lease and operate a Can-Am League team in Ottawa next spring, with a schedule that runs from late May to September.
"There is and has always been great baseball interest in Canada," Wolff said. "People say what can you do better than the Lynx? Well, we don’t have to play in April and May when the weather is terrible and the Senators are doing well."
The Ottawa Lynx are dead, just as the Edmonton Cubs,
Dodgers, Drakes, Eskimos, Grays, Legislatures, Navy Cardinals and
Trappers died off. They’re dead like the Calgary Cannons, or the
Medicine Hat Blue Jays, or the Pulaski Blue Jays, or the St Catherines
Blue Jays, or the Montreal Royales, Royals and Royals Accomplishments.
Extinct like the Victoria Rosebuds. Gone the way of the Vancouver
Asahi. Fallen off the twig like the Winnipeg Maroons and Whips. Or like the entire ill-conceived, ill-fated, corruptly-run Canadian Baseball League.
May the baseball gods have mercy on their souls.
And ours for letting it happen.
August 6th 2007: Tacoma Rainiers vs Nashville Sounds (AAA) 
Today it was revealed that 
Why is this newsworthy? 
I just listened to the Vancouver Canucks unveiling their new hockey jersey, and with 8,000 people paying money to go see it (seriously!) and live TV and radio coverage (seriously!), I began to feel a little sad.
Then I looked again at last night’s C’s crowd - 5,035 people. 
In what’s rapidly become almost an afterthought, with the absence of an actual game around it, the 
JD Pruitt [seen left] opened this NWL season like an all-star, albeit in an unlikely way. With an OBP that was at one stage pushing .700, and a flurry of "I shall not duck" HBP activity, and yes, even a little bat on ball action, Pruitt was a frontrunner for the Notes From The Nat soon-to-be-annual ‘One to Watch’ award.
