Former Professional Teams in Alberta

The other day I saw a Calgary Cannons card of Ryan Dempster, and that inspired me to write an article on my Red Sox blog about how many Red Sox players used to play in our Province.  In researching that I learned about a lot of teams that used to play here that I was unaware of.   I'm sure most people fondly remember the Cannons or Trappers, or even the Med Hat Blue Jays of the Pioneer League, but there have been many more Minor League and other semi-professional teams that have played in Alberta.  No less than 12 MLB franchises have had minor league affiliates here.  And there have been hundreds of stars who have played here including Alex Rodriguez (left - pictured batting for Calgary) and Hall of Famer Andre Dawson who started his professional career in Lethbridge.

Here are all the teams I found, listed with the name and level of their league and affiliation. If you are aware of other professional teams that have played in our Province, please let me know.

Come see Goose Gossage or Brent Sutter and support local baseball

Once again, the Calgary Dinos will have a former MLB star who will be joining them at their baseball and fastball teams annual fundraising dinner.  Rich "Goose" Gossage has been announced as this year's keynote speaker.  As well, Brent Sutter will be the featured guest for Badland Baseball Academy's fundraiser.

Gossage is a Hall of Fame reliever, best remembered for his trademark Fu Manchu moustache and a blazing fastball. His resume includes helping the Yankees win a World Series in his first season in New York, and being only the second pitcher (after Rollie Fingers) to amass 300 career saves.  Aside from his time in New York, his storied career also took him through Chicago (both the North and South side), Pittsburgh, San Diego, San Francisco, Texas, Oakland and Seattle on the way to Cooperstown.  After retiring he also wrote his memoirs in his very humorous autobiography "The Goose is Loose" and is sure to be an entertaining speaker at this event.

Brent Sutter is very well known to hockey fans in the area.  A native Albertan (from Viking), he played 18 seasons in the NHL before switching gears and becoming a very well regarded coach. Twice he led Team Canada to the World Junior Hockey Championship, and also won the Memorial Cup with Red Deer, as well as coaching in the NHL with New Jersey and Calgary.

Jeff McIntosh / Associated Press

The Dinos fundraising dinner featuring Goose Gossage will be held on Thursday January 31st at the Red & White Club at McMahon Stadium. To purchase tickets ($175) please call U of C Kinesiology Client Services at (403) 220-7749 and for more information on the event you can contact Mike Boyles at mboyles@ucalgary.ca or (403) 220-4413.

The Badgers Gala evening with Sutter will be on Wednesday January 30th. The reception starts at 5:30 followed by dinner and a silent and live auction.  Tickets are $75 and can be purchased by contacting the Academy Office at (403) 664-2200.

Both of these events promise to be very entertaining and are a great way to support local baseball. 

Blue Jays trade analysis - part deux

Yesterday I wrote about the Jays recent trade and warned fans not to have high expectations, based on the results of some other blockbuster deals or big signings. I outlined several examples over the past 10 or so years where teams added major parts in the offseason and didn't get the results they expected.

That's all well and good, but just because some big trades don't pan out, doesn't mean that they all won't.  So today, I'm going to look at the specific players involved in this trade, and analyze how much of an impact they can be expected to provide.

The players the Blue Jays received were Jose Reyes, Josh Johnson, Mark Buerhle, John Buck and Emilio Bonifacio.

Blue Jays blockbuster = World Series?

The Toronto Blue Jays pulled off a blockbuster deal and have added 4 all-star players to their roster.  Money aside (Rogers still has a few excess billions), the only cost was  a controversial shortstop (whom will be replaced by one of the premier shortstops in the league), an under-performing pitcher and some prospects.  And although some of these prospects might pan out in future years, it’s not as though any of them were the kind of prospects that your average baseball fan was following in the minors – a la Bryce Harper or Jesus Montero. In fact it wasn’t even the top organizational prospects – but their consensus #2, 5 and 8 guys.

What does any of this have to do with Baseball in Alberta?  Well, if these moves help the Blue Jays win the World Series, the impact will be felt at the local level.  There will be a resurgence in fan interest, like there was in the early 90s, and it will cascade all the way down to cities building more youth baseball diamonds, more revenue for independent teams, more players wanting to play, attracting more qualified coaches north of the border and so on.  So, yes, this trade could have a major impact on the baseball landscape in Alberta, from Little League to the WMBL to semi-professional franchises to potentially attracting minor league teams back to our province.

So… will this trade:

- make Toronto a better team for the immediate future? Absolutely. 

- help the Jays' chances of making the playoffs? Probably

- bring the World Series trophy to Canada soon? Nope!

Look, I'm sorry. Even though I'm a Red Sox fan, I'm involved enough in Canadian baseball to know that the Jays winning will help the baseball industry nation wide, and I'm all for that but I just don't see these moves making that kind of a difference.

There are two ways we can look at this:  Look at individual player's impacts, or look at what history tells us about the fate of teams that made huge acquisitions, bolstering their rosters in hope of attaining that elusive championship.  Today I'm going to start by looking at history for some parallels.  In my next post, I'll analyze this specific trade more closely.

Coaching changes

Back in March, I wrote an article asking what’s next for Colin Moro.  The Calgary native and former Calgary Viper star had suddenly found himself without a place to play as spring neared.  Well, the phone never did ring from a team looking for an experienced hitter.  Instead he spent the spring and summer coaching a high level team with Calgary’s Pro Baseball Force.