Jet Setters

For Vauxhall Baseball Academy players Jaden Griffin, Damiano Palmegiani and Martin Vincelli-Simard, you just hope their suitcase-packing skills are as good as their baseball abilities.

The trio barely had a chance to return to Alberta from Florida – where they suited up for Baseball Canada’s Junior National Team (JNT) during a hectic 12-day stretch of spring training action against MLB prospects – before they were headed south again for tournament play in Las Vegas.

Vauxhall’s team name – Jets – was never more appropriate.

Keeping Score at Home

Box scores are full of loads of information, and while they never lie, they never tell the whole story either.

Take the recent box score from the Toronto Blue Jays spring training game against the Canadian Junior National Team (JNT), for example.

It will tell you that JNT shortstop Cesar Valero stepped to the plate in the top of the first inning against starting pitcher Marcus Stroman and struck out to end the inning.

What it won’t tell you is how smooth and clean Valero’s swing is or how nasty Stroman’s breaking ball can be. It also won’t tell you that Valero, an Okotoks Dawgs Academy product, is just 16 years old, while Stroman is a 26-year-old veteran of four MLB seasons.