By IAN WILSON

The 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.

John Traub was named the club’s vice president and general manager in mid-February of 2000. He went on to work in the same role, which he continues to hold, with the Albuquerque Isotopes when the Triple-A squad was relocated to New Mexico in 2003.

The signs of the eventual exit of the Cannons continued to pop up. There was word that the 2000 season might be it, but a plan to move the team to Portland, Oregon fell through.

Right-handed pitcher Jason Grilli – who was on the cusp of 15 years of Major League Baseball (MLB) service – was the Opening Day starter for the Cannons and he pitched well enough to make fans forget about the early-April snow that had to be cleared to make Foothills Stadium hospitable enough for the season to get going. The Michigander was perfect through four innings and unhittable through six, as his fiance Danielle Hurt looked on during the Cannons 7-3 triumph over the Las Vegas Stars.

In a season that saw the Cannons finish with a 60-82 record, Grilli’s victory – his only win for Calgary in 2000 – was a much-needed highlight.

There were other bright spots, including an appearance from A.J. Burnett, who had already established himself as a starting pitcher with the Marlins. Burnett’s Triple-A debut came on July 15th, 2000 during a rehab road start for the Cannons. Recovering from a torn ligament in his right thumb, he was limited to no more than 95 pitches when he took the mound at Cheney Stadium for a tilt against the Tacoma Rainiers. Burnett lasted five innings and didn’t surrender a hit in the outing, a no decision that ended with a 4-2 Calgary victory. He did yield three walks and uncork a pair of wild pitches, while striking out six batters, but Burnett was well on his way back to the Marlins.

Alas, there is no cardboard collectible of Burnett in this 30-plus card team set, but there is one of Grilli.

Let’s dive in and get to know some of the other personalities from that 2000 edition of the Calgary Cannons for this segment of In The Cards:

**Mike Cather** (middle right) led the Cannons in pitching appearances during the 2000 season by getting into 43 games out of the bullpen. The Californian – a 41st-round draft pick of the Texas Rangers in 1993 – finished second on the team with eight saves and posted a 4-5 record. The reliever was also one of the few pitchers to record a respectable earned run average, a 3.98 ERA through 63-plus innings. In addition, he racked up 62 Ks on the year. By this stage of his career, Cather’s MLB days were behind him. He took the mound in 75 games for the Atlanta Braves between 1997 and 1999 and picked up five wins and 62 strikeouts in his 81.2 innings of bullpen work. The righthander went on to work as a minor-league pitching coach for the Boston Red Sox, San Diego Padres and Chicago Cubs organizations before taking a role as an assistant coach with Arizona State University in 2018-2019. During a 2021 interview, Cather spoke glowingly of his time playing in Alberta. ” It was unbelievable. When we (Calgary Cannons) were home, every morning at 4:30 a.m., I would be fly fishing until 10:30 a.m. Then, I took a nap, and went to the yard. What a beautiful city. To me, the time I spent fishing was just tranquil. My wife and daughter, and I would take trips to Banff, and watch the elk,” Cather told reporter Don Laible.

Right-handed pitcher **John DeSilva** (bottom middle) was a workhorse for the Cannons. Another MLB veteran whose time in the majors was in the rearview – he played briefly for the Detroit Tigers, Los Angeles Dodgers and Baltimore Orioles in the 1990s – DeSilva led Calgary in wins (10), innings pitched (140.1) and complete games (three). The Fort Bragg, California native appeared in 29 games – 19 of them starts – and collected 94 strikeouts, a pair of saves and a 4.68 ERA. DeSilva was the 1989 Western Athletic Conference Player of the Year while playing for Brigham Young University (BYU) and he was named the 1998 Pitcher of the Year in the independent Northeast League as a member of the Ottawa Lynx. He was also traded from the Tigers to the Dodgers for outfielder Eric Davis in 1993. DeSilva – who was selected as Calgary’s Pitcher of the Year in 2000 – returned to the Cannons for 26 games in 2001 and closed out his career playing in the Venezuelan League.

**Mike Gulan** (middle right) was in the middle of a three-year stint with the Cannons that saw him play 327 games for Calgary between 1999 and 2001. The Steubenville, Ohio native was one of the better hitters on the team and earned the club’s “Mr. Hustle” award at the end of the 2000 season. A second-round pick of the St. Louis Cardinals, the third baseman/outfielder batted .317 with 40 doubles, 17 homers, 74 runs batted in (RBI) and 230 total bases in 119 games in 2000. He was even better in 2001, leading the Cannons in games (124), at bats (485), hits (157), doubles (44), RBI (92, total bases (271) and extra-base hits (68). Gulan played a handful of games with the Cards in 1997 and a half-dozen contests for the Marlins in 2001. The righty slugger spent the 2002 campaign in Japan with the Yokohama BayStars before returning to the United States for a couple minor-league seasons. Gulan has been inducted as a member of the Kent State Sports Hall of Fame.

Second baseman **Amaury Garcia** (top right) was a speed demon on the base paths. After stealing 17 bases in his 119 games for the Cannons in 1999, the Dominican nearly doubled that total by swiping 35 bags in 120 PCL games in 2000. The seventh rounder also scored 177 runs over those two Triple-A seasons, clubbed 30 home runs and produced 100 RBI. Garcia, who was declared the most popular player on the Cannons in 2000, finished his playing days in the Mexican League before joining the Washington Nationals as a hitting coach in the lower levels of the minor leagues between 2012 and 2019.

First baseman **Nate Rolison** (bottom left) had a monster season in his first year with the Cannons. The Petal, Mississippi product led Calgary in runs (88), hits (146), RBI (88), walks (70), total bases (258), extra-base hits (63) and on-base percentage (.423). He also finished second on the team in homers with 23. Such numbers helped earn the 1995 second-round pick MVP honours from the Cannons and an eight-game callup by the Marlins. “I felt like I was on my way,” he said in a 2020 interview. “I was the organization’s player of the year. I had excelled that year in Triple-A. I felt I’d have the opportunity to make the (Marlins’) club the next year, to compete for a starting job. You never know about the business side of the game, how things might work out. But I felt good about where I was at.” After breaking three bones in his wrist in the fall of 2000, however, that was Rolison’s only MLB stint. But he continued to play in the minors upon his recovery from wrist surgery, including another 40 games with the Cannons in 2001-2002.

Centre fielder **Julio Ramirez** (centre) was a useful member of the offence in Calgary, picking up 45 runs, 52 RBI, 18 doubles and 20 stolen bases in 94 games for the Cannons. The Dominican-born Ramirez managed to make his way into 84 MLB games with the Marlins, Chicago White Sox, Anaheim Angels and San Francisco Giants. The Cannons were the first pro team in Cowtown that he played for, but not the last. In 2010, Ramirez joined the Calgary Vipers of the independent Golden League. He suited up in 82 games for the Vipers and scored 69 runs while smacking 18 long balls and producing 73 RBI. Ramirez also posted a .322 batting average and a .411 on-base percentage.

Skipper **Lynn Jones** (top left) was entering his second season as manager of the Cannons. As a player, the Pennsylvania product roamed the outfield for the Detroit Tigers and Kansas City for eight seasons, claiming a World Series title with the Royals in 1985. He got into coaching in the 1990s, beginning with a first base coaching gig with Kansas City for two seasons. From there, Jones joined the Marlins organization and worked his way through the minors as a manager. By the time he got to Calgary he had spent five seasons at Single-A and one year at Double-A. With the Cannons, he went 117-164 and saw numerous players graduate to the MLB ranks. Jones was promoted to Florida’s coaching staff in September of 2000, when he was named a base coach with the Marlins, as well as an outfield and base-running coach. In 2003, Jones was hired by the Boston Red Sox and he served as the team’s first base coach in 2004-05, winning another World Series ring in the process. He continued coaching with the Cincinnati Reds and the Braves before joining the coaching staff of Thiel College in 2013. Jones – a three-sport athlete at Thiel who set a single-season batting record in 1974 – was inducted into the college’s Hall of Fame in 1987. Jones and his brother, Darryl (who also played in the majors), were the subject of a documentary feature video that was screened in 2018.

Pitching coach **Randy Hennis** (top middle) had a brief taste of MLB life on the mound, but oh what a morsel it was. The second-round pick of the Houston Astros in the 1987 draft worked his way up to the big leagues in 1990 after excelling in the minors. The UCLA grad only got into three games but he threw up zeroes in his two bullpen appearances and one start. Through 9.2 innings, the righty gave up no runs and only one hit. His only start took place on Oct. 3, 1990, a game he recalled later in an interview. “The game was on ESPN, so everybody got to see me again. I had a no-hitter through five innings. Ron Oester got a broken-bat double in the sixth. I finished the sixth and was leading 2-0. My father flew in for the game, which meant the world to me. I gave my dad the ball from the last out I pitched,” Hennis told Houston Chronicle columnist Ken Hoffman in 2012. “It is funny even to me when I see my name mentioned statistically with great pitchers who had normal careers. I tell people that I wanted to retire at the top of my profession with a 0.00 earned run average. I didn’t give up a hit in my first nine innings pitched. So I threw a no-hitter, but it took me three games to do it.” Hennis started the following season with the Triple-A Tucson Toros. He cruised to a 4-0 record until an arm injury delivered a knock-out blow he would never fully recover from. His comeback bid ended in the mid-1990s and Hennis turned to coaching, which led him to Calgary for two seasons.

Thanks for checking out our latest set of Alberta baseball cards. Let us know what you think about the players and cards in the comments below.

We are in the process of developing an online digital archive of Alberta baseball card sets with this In The Cards series. If you have baseball cards (or team programs from Alberta squads) you’d like to donate – or lend – to our cause, please email us at AlbertaDugoutStories@gmail.com with more information.