Take Me Out With the Crowd

Take me out to the ball game, indeed.

Fans of the Western Canadian Baseball League (WCBL) turned out in force in 2022, setting numerous attendance records throughout the summer.

WCBL Playoff Preview

The Western Canadian Baseball League’s 56-game regular season is over.

And what a season it was, full of thrilling individual performances, record-breaking efforts and dramatic playoff chases.

We take a look at the four playoff series that will kick off August 8.

2022 Season Preview: WCBL Saskatchewan Clubs

The Western Canadian Baseball League (WCBL) season will mark the return of high-end summer collegiate competition to the province of Saskatchewan for the first time since 2019.

Needless to say, the East Division clubs – which will be joined by Alberta’s Medicine Hat Mavericks to form a five-team grouping – are excited to get back to the ballpark.

So, let’s take a look at what we can expect from each Saskatchewan-based team this summer …

Northern Exposure

The Western Canadian Baseball League (WCBL) has announced plans to soldier on with a 2021 season that will feature all-Canadian lineups for the first time in the summer collegiate circuit’s history.

Facing uncertainty over a number of COVID-19 pandemic issues – including health restrictions that will likely impact attendance and game-day activities, as well as unease about the timeline for the reopening of the Canada-U.S. border – the WCBL has made a number of significant changes for this year’s season.

2019 WCBL Award Winners

The Western Canadian Baseball League recently announced their 2019 award winners and all-star teams.

Here’s a look at the people who were recognized for their outstanding achievements in the 12-team WCBL, which calls Alberta and Saskatchewan home.

Let the Big Dawg Eat

“You win it.”

Visitors to Seaman Stadium may have become familiar with this phrase over the last two summers. Those seated close enough to the home dugout could hear Mitch Schmidt, the head coach of the Okotoks Dawgs, bark this motto to his charges dozens of times each game.

The spirited slogan was often used as encouragement to achieve a seemingly small task – you win an at bat, you win by stealing a bag on the base paths, you win by getting a bunt down, you win by inducing a ground ball, you win by punching through a third strike, you win by making a routine defensive play in the field.

After piling up all those little victories over the course of the 2019 Western Canadian Baseball League (WCBL) season, the Dawgs claimed the Harry Hallis Memorial Trophy with an 8-6 victory over the Regina Red Sox on Aug. 16th and will enter next year as the defending champions.

When East Meets West

We spent a lot of time examining the Alberta teams of the Western Canadian Baseball League (WCBL) with 2019 season previews for each club. But the six Alberta squads only make up the Western Division of the league. There are another six teams competing in the Eastern Division of the WCBL – all of them from Saskatchewan.

Here’s a quick look at each Saskatchewan-based team in the WCBL …

Q&A with WMBL President Kevin Kvame

With a major shakeup of the Western Major Baseball League, we posed five questions to league president Kevin Kvame about the new marketing strategy and the addition of an All-Star Game.

Here’s what he told us …

The Basepath Not Taken

The pursuit of baseball can take a person down several different roads.

For an elite few, it can result in a professional playing career. For others, it may find them paying forward what they know as a coach. For most though, the detour is more pronounced.

For Global Edmonton anchor Kent Morrison he went from playing baseball, to coaching ball, to telling baseball stories.