Short Stop in Saskatchewan

You could call it glove at first sight.

Western Canadian baseball fans may not have realized it at the time, but they were watching the best defensive shortstop since Ozzie Smith take the field.

That summer of 2009, a scrawny 19-year-old kid from the Dutch Caribbean island of Curacao made his way to the city of 15,000 people in Saskatchewan to suit up for the Yorkton Cardinals at Jubilee Park.

Majestic moonshots were not his calling card, and if you skipped batting practice you could still witness something special from Andrelton Simmons.

7th Inning Stretch: Owen Steele

He was the Man of Steel on the cellar-dwelling Yorkton Cardinals last year, but now he’s one of several masters on the mound in Medicine Hat.

With the Cardinals in 2018, Owen Steele had a minuscule 1.46 earned run average (ERA) and 46 strikeouts through 49 innings of work for the 14-33 Eastern Division squad.

Since joining the defending Western Canadian Baseball League (WCBL) champion Mavericks this summer, the Calgarian has a perfect 6-0 record, 49 Ks and a 4.37 ERA in 59.2 frames.

He’s been a reliable presence in Medicine Hat’s starting rotation and we caught up with the 5-foot-10 hurler to spotlight him in our 7th Inning Stretch series.

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 …