Baseball fans will be excused if they feel like trading in their cowhide for some pigskin this Super Bowl weekend.
With that in mind, here’s a look at three pieces of trivia involving times when Alberta baseball had links to the Super Bowl …
Read More From the Diamond to the GridironHe was, most likely, the best pitcher to take the mound for the Calgary Cannons.
That’s saying something for a team that was represented by major-league talents like Jim Abbott, Andy Hawkins, Erik Hanson, A.J. Burnett, Ken Forsch, Dennis Powell and Jeff Nelson.
But Mike Campbell wasn’t just a pitcher who honed his craft at Triple-A in the Pacific Coast League (PCL) – the righthander dominated the circuit in the late 1980s.
Read More Campbell was a Calgary AceThe demolition of Foothills Stadium has hit the baseball community like a wrecking ball.
Despite the inevitable end of the facility, which played home to Calgary’s highest levels of baseball for more than half a century, seeing the structure reduced to rubble has left many sports fans heartbroken, angry and despondent.
Read More Bidding Farewell to Foothills StadiumIt’s been home to so many.
And for so long baseball was safe at this home.
Alas, the long-awaited eviction notice has been executed and the bleacher-bashing machinery is dismantling the memory-infused wood, steel and concrete that surrounds the diamond, which was once a playground for some of baseball’s best players.
Read More The Rise and Fall of Foothills StadiumThey were a colourful bunch, those 1991 Calgary Cannons.
Sporting jerseys with white, blue, red and yellow colours, the Cannons looked sharp that season.
This 27-card team set from ProCards added even more colour to the squad …
Read More In The Cards: ’91 Calgary CannonsHey, if Die Hard is a Christmas classic, well then yippee ki-yay, you bet The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! is a baseball film.
And not only is it a baseball flick, just like Field of Dreams and The Hill, it has ties to Western Canada.
Read More Naked Gun FunCalgary baseball fans just couldn’t wait to see the rising star outfielder suit up for the home team.
And in the spring of 1989, that wish came true, even if it didn’t quite seem like it at the time.
While season ticket holders of the Cannons were eagerly awaiting the arrival of future Hall of Famer Ken Griffey Jr., the Seattle Mariners – the parent club of the Triple-A Calgary team – sent up-and-coming Jay Buhner to Foothills Stadium instead.
Read More Bone RattlingIt was the summer of 1990 and life was good for Calgary baseball fans.
If you went to Foothills Stadium to take in a Triple-A game that season, the odds were good that you’d get to see shortstop Omar Vizquel pick a ball out of the infield dirt and fire it over to first baseman Tino Martinez to record an out.
If you were really lucky, you might show up on one of the nights that outfielder Jay Buhner suited up for the Cannons that year.
For those who collected baseball cards, the sports collectibles business was booming.
Read More In The Cards: 1990 Calgary CannonsPat Casey may have thought he was done with the game of baseball, but the sport had different plans for him.
On a number of occasions, when baseball looked like it offered only dead ends, the Oregon product discovered there was more for him.
The result was a fulfilling career and the realization of a dream he never had.
Read More The Pat Came BackThe Cannons were in their second year of serving the parent Florida Marlins and their final few seasons of existence as a minor-league team.
An appearance in the Pacific Coast League (PCL) championship series in 1998 – their third franchise loss in the finals – was barely visible in the rearview mirror.
There were, however, bright spots on the 2000 roster, as we discover in this edition of In The Cards …
Read More In The Cards: 2000 Calgary Cannons