Some say baseball is suffering a downturn in Ottawa ( Photo: C.J. Roussakis )
Ottawa can be a baseball city, said Jim Dean, president of Little League Ontario and District Two administrator of the leagues from Ottawa West to Arnprior.
He cites the 1993 season of the Ottawa Lynx as an example. Back-to-back World Series wins by the Toronto Blue Jays helped create a surge in popularity for minor league baseball across Canada in the early 1990s.
“We set international league records for [average and total] attendance,” said Dean, who worked with the now-defunct triple A team for 15 years.
Another trickle-down effect is possible, given the Jays’ phenomenal performance in the first two months of this season, and would be most welcome in Ottawa where the Rapidz, the Canadian-American league successor to the Lynx, filed for bankruptcy last September after just one season.
“Right now we’re in a bit of a down cycle,” said Dean, referring to current enrollment in Ottawa-area recreational teams.
“But we’re starting to get more players at the T-ball level, which will hopefully be the start of an up cycle . . . [and] we have very large men’s hardball and fastball leagues.”
Dean also said Ottawa-area players in the past have been drafted to the professional leagues and pointed to a recent article in the Ottawa Citizen about T.J. Burton, who grew up in Ottawa and is now in the Houston Astros farm system.
But Bill Ruddy, president of West Carleton Minor Baseball, said that as much as he tried to market his teams this year, he could not attract enough players to field a rookie level for six and seven-year-olds.
“Is Ottawa a baseball city? I don’t know,” said Ruddy. “Not really. I’d like to see it more so. I hope they keep the stadium and put another Can-Am or triple A team there.”
A new team would have to compete against possible Major League Soccer and Canadian Football League franchises but, according to both Dean and Ruddy, baseball has its own unique appeal: it’s an intelligent game, a game for thinkers and, although you don’t get in shape playing it, you need to be in shape already to play.
“I realize that my kids aren’t going to get the cardiovascular exercise they need playing baseball,” Ruddy said. “They could get it from playing soccer, but soccer to them is so boring.”
Ruddy sees to it that his teams get out to play twice a week, with a practice every second week.
House league for West Carleton runs from the beginning of May to the end of June, at which point players can try out for the competitive league. This league lasts the rest of the summer and plays against teams from Kanata, Ottawa South and the Glebe.
“It’s a team sport, but you can also maintain individuality,” said Dean.
“If you’re a parent watching your kid play soccer, what you see is a bunch of kids swarming the ball. In baseball, a parent can
see what their kid is
accomplishing."