“You have to know the past to understand the present.”
As we continue to beam about the state of baseball in Alberta, it’s important to acknowledge and celebrate our past.
It’s time for the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame to consider some of the builders who helped bring the Pioneer League and Pacific Coast League to Alberta.
Read More OPINION: Five Famed Names for the Canadian Baseball HallThey call him Sweet Lou.
It was a nickname that Lou Piniella earned as a player because of his silky swing.
He later became one of the great managers of the game, although he drew the ire of Calgary Cannons supporters while he managed their parent team, the Seattle Mariners.
Read More Sweet and Sour LouIn order to claim a World Series championship, you have to make the right hires.
For the Texas Rangers – who coaxed manager Bruce Bochy out of retirement with impressive results – that included luring Tim Hyers to the Major League Baseball (MLB) organization.
Read More Hyers LearningHe has all the ingredients of a great manager.
And Torey Lovullo – the long-time skipper of the Arizona Diamondbacks – picked up a lengthy grocery list of those ingredients through his minor-league travels, which included stops in Alberta.
Read More The NeverEnding ToreyIt’s a thankless job, short on accolades and glory.
The medals are bruises and the trophies come in the form of approving nods from the mound.
Author Tim Brown didn’t just focus on catchers for his book with Erik Kratz, The Tao of the Backup Catcher. Instead he examined the guys who don’t get regular at bats or crouch behind home plate every day. It’s these second-string and third-in-line backstops who are the true glue guys in a major-league organization – players like Kratz, who began his professional career with the Medicine Hat Blue Jays in 2002 before donning a mask for nine MLB teams.
Read More Plum JobAs far as rosters go, the 1993 edition of Calgary’s Triple-A squad was not the best that the Cannons had to offer the Stampede city.
However, they did offer up a new look with some pinstripes.
Take a look back at the roster and the uniforms in our latest In The Cards.
Read More In The Cards: 1993 Calgary CannonsThere are proper sendoffs and there are forgettable exits.
Sometimes the buildup for a final moment, a last chance at glory, produces the perfect moment.
On other occasions, even when the end is inevitable, the final out is less than magical. Like it was for Ken Forsch of the Calgary Cannons, it was just… over.
Read More Champagne & Styrofoam CupsEnough’s enough.
After years of rumours and discussion around the building of a new fieldhouse in Calgary, it’s time for council to move ahead with it instead of getting another committee to study it.
And as Joe McFarland writes, let’s also finally demolish the underutilized eyesore that has become Foothills Stadium.
Read More OPINION: Run for the FoothillsWait and see.
That will be the most likely outcome for a pair of former Calgary Cannons who are hoping to gain acceptance into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York …
Read More Cannon FodderIt’s a funny thing.
This series is called “In The Cards”, which would lead you to believe that the main stories of a particular season are reflected in the cardboard collectibles on display.
However, the 1994 Calgary Cannons team set might be better known for the players not in it, like Alex Rodriguez and Darren Bragg.
Read More In The Cards: 1994 Calgary Cannons