Darren Parker hired by RG Properties

The former president and owner of the Victoria Seals, Darren Parker, has been hired by RG Properties as their senior vice-president of sales and marketing. The hiring was announced on Wednesday. The move is a good one for RG Properties, as Parker has proven skills in producing entertaining sporting events that put a lot of bums in seats. His experience in minor-league and independent baseball can only improve the (recently morose) atmosphere at the SoFA.

It's probably not a coincidence that multiple media outlets are reporting that the transaction to move the Chilliwack Bruins of the WHL to Victoria is a done deal. Darren's father Russ is owner of the WHL's Regina Pats and both Parkers know a thing or two about running a major junior hockey franchise. 

I wouldn't be surprised if Darren Parker didn't do much work for the Victoria Salmon Kings of the East Coast Hockey League (Oops, ECHL -- sorry!). I'm betting that the move of the Bruins to Victoria will be made public as soon as Chilliwack is eliminated from the WHL playoffs. With Chilliwack being down three games to one in a best-of-seven series against the Spokane Chiefs, the Bruins could have officially played their last game in Chilliwack by as early as this Saturday night.

North American League down to 10 teams?

Originally announced as a 16-to-20 team league, the North American League may have shrunk down to only 10 teams. Ballpark Digest is reporting that a 10-team schedule is being drawn up after the recent eviction of the Schaumburg (Illinois) Flyers from their ballpark. That leaves the Eastern Division with only five squads. Rumours are circulating that one of the Western Division teams would be taken out of play in order to get back to an even number. It's likely that this organization would be the hastily-assembled Henderson (Nevada) Roadrunners, one of three league-owned teams.

The black clouds continue to gather on the North American League's horizon. Unconfirmed rumours that the Rockford Riverhawks are planning to jump ship to the Frontier League continue to circulate. That would leave only one team in Illinois, a scenario that would likely kill the Lake County Fielders (who lack a proper ballpark in which to play anyway). The result would be only three teams in the Eastern Division, all of them in Texas. There is also talk of adding a fourth team in the Lone Star State, but this would be a travelling team named after the city of McAllen.

Another unconfirmed rumour has the NAL considering putting a team in Kamloops for the 2011 season. Victoria fans may remember that the Seals played a pair of mildly successful exhibition games in Kamloops prior to the 2010 season.

It will be interesting to see how things play out for the still unstable North American League.

Tampa Bay sends ex-Seal De la Rosa to minors

The Tampa Bay Rays sent ex-Victoria Seals hurler Dane De la Rosa to their minor-league camp today after he struggled with the big club during spring training. De la Rosa posted a 12.60 ERA in five relief appearances this month.

De la Rosa will likely start the season in AAA with the Durham Bulls.

Jeff Duda signs with Québec Capitales

Former Victoria Seals pitcher Jeff Duda has signed with the Québec Capitales of the Can-Am League (roughly AA baseball). Duda had a pretty decent season for the Seals in 2010, posting a 4-3 record in 21 appearances with a 3.90 ERA and 1.47 WHIP in his first year of professional baseball.

Duda was signed by the Seals in June of 2010 after excelling for the Okotoks Dawgs of the Western Major Baseball League. Duda also pitched for Canada in the 1998 Little League World World Series, setting a LLWS record by striking out 17 batters.

Best of luck in 2011, Jeff!!

Photo courtesy of Christian Stewart.

Another North American League team bites the dust

Another blow was dealt to the North American (formerly Golden Baseball) League today, as the Schaumburg (Illinois) Flyers were evicted from their ballpark. This leaves the NAL Eastern Division with only five teams and one of those teams, the Lake County Fielders, is also without a ballpark in which to play the 2011 season.

It will be interesting to see how this shakes out, but don't be surprised if the entire Eastern Division of the NAL collapses and the league pushes forward with only six (sort of) former Golden Baseball League teams -- three of which will be league owned. The Parkers are looking smarter by the day.

Dane De la Rosa is fourth ex-Seal in the minors

This entire off-season, I have been under the mistaken impression that three former Victoria Seals are currently in the affiliated minor leagues. Well it turns out that there is a fourth ex-Seal and he just might be the closest one to the big leagues.

Dane De la Rosa briefly pitched for the Seals in 2009 before his contract was sold to the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs of the Atlantic League. During his July/August 2009 stay in Victoria, De la Rosa had an 0-1 record with one save and a 2.45 ERA in six relief appearances. We were impressed with his stuff when he arrived, touting him as a potential closer for the Seals. It turns out that his upside was a bit higher than we thought.

De la Rosa was signed by the Tampa Bay Rays prior to the 2010 season and he spent last year pitching for the Charlotte Stone Crabs (Advanced A, Florida State League) and Montgomery Biscuits (AA, Southern League). De la Rosa made 47 relief appearances for Montgomery and sported a nifty 9-3 record with a 1.97 ERA and 1.26 WHIP. Most impressively, he addressed what was previously one of his biggest flaws -- surrendering too many walks. De la Rosa only walked 3.2 batters per nine innings while averaging 9.3 strikeouts per nine. He was even promoted to the Durham Bulls for the AAA playoffs, but he did not appear in any games with Crash Davis' old team.

Just before Christmas, De la Rosa got the amazing news that he was added to the 40-man roster by Tampa Bay and was invited to spring training with the big club. For now anyway, De la Rosa is sharing the same clubhouse as Manny Ramirez. With an impressive spring, De la Rosa could break camp with the big club, but at the very least he'll start the 2011 season at AAA with the Bulls.

The Rays play their first spring training game on Friday afternoon against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Here is an updated list of the ex-Seals who are currently playing in the minor-league system of MLB teams:

Player	Year(s) played for Seals	MLB organization	Likely starting level for 2011
Dane De la Rosa	2009	Tampa Bay Rays	AAA
Austin Bibens-Dirkx	2009	Chicago Cubs	AAA
Chris Bodishbaugh	2009-10	Chicago White Sox	Advanced A
Anthony Pluta	2009-10	Los Angeles Angels	Advanced A or AA

Terrence McClain to play in Italy in 2011

The sound of "Detenuto Musica" (Convict Music) just might be resonating throughout a ballpark in Northern Italy this summer, as former Seal Terrence McClain has been signed to play for an Italian professional baseball team. T-Mac will be playing for the Godo-Verona ("North East") Knights in the Italian Baseball League (IBL). Their season is set to kickoff in April. For the Victoria Seals in 2010, McClain posted a .330 average with 14 homers and 63 RBI in 339 at-bats. For this blogger at least, T-Mac was one of the most enjoyable Seals to watch at Royal Athletic Park last season.

While some might snicker at the thought of Italian professional baseball, the league should not be discounted. There are a number of big name American players who have been lured to the league, including former Toronto Blue Jay Josh Phelps. If you are looking for a primer on Italian professional baseball, I highly recommend the book Baseballissimo by ace musician and writer Dave Bidini. Although Bidino followed a Serie B team, the Nettuno Peones, the book gives the reader a great insight into the passion that a significant number of Italians have for baseball.

We wish T-Mac all the best in Italy. Based on Bidini's writing and my own trip to Italy a few years ago, he's in for an experience that he will remember for the rest of his life.

The logo that will adorn T-Mac's 2011 uniform

Editor's note: In the last month, this blog has been read by Italians more times than from any country in the world other than Canada or the United States. We'd like to think that the Italian T-Mac fan club got its start right here...

Finding photos of Charlie Strandlund's big day

Talk about being a procrastinator. I was loading some photos onto my PC today when I realized that I totally forgot about the pictures that I took of the last Victoria Seals game, the game in which the Charlie Strandlund played all nine positions.

To document the event, I made a point of taking a photo of Charlie playing each of the nine positions. See below for the proof that ol' number 22 pulled the trick. Notice that in the picture of Strandlund in centre, outfielder Tim Rodriguez is playing second base. I also just realized that the last photo, the one with Charlie playing right field, was taken during the final inning that the Seals would ever play.

Colin Moro joins T-Rod on CornBelters

A pair of ex-Seals will be roaming the outfield for the Normal (Illinois) CornBelters this season. Colin Moro was recently acquired by the CornBelters, a team that plays in the Frontier League, in a trade with the Lake County Fielders of the new North American League. Moro will join another Seals alumnus, Tim Rodriguez, on the Normal squad.

Moro has been a hot commodity of late. The Fielders purchased Moro's contract from the Chico Outlaws just prior to shipping him to the CornBelters. The Outlaws bought his contract from the Victoria Seals (yes, they still exist as a corporate entity) less than one week ago. The Outlaws also picked up Victoria's old first baseman Matt Edgecombe in the same transaction.

Moro had a somewhat disappointing season at the plate for the Seals in 2010 after posting monster numbers for the Calgary Vipers in 2009. He hit .294 with 6 homers and 50 RBIs in 293 at-bats for the Seals. However, he did walk an impressive 50 times and was second on the team with a .423 on-base percentage.

There is no word yet on whether Colin will be sporting the same troll-like hairdo in Normal Illinois as he did in Victoria BC last summer. For the benefit of CornBelters baseball fans, let's hope so.

P.S. Colin, your presence at Royal Athletic Park will be missed in 2011.

North American League staggers toward 2011 season

It's been four weeks since our last update on the status of the North American League and a lot has happened in that time. On the plus side, the league has finally released its schedule for 2011, allowing teams to begin selling season tickets in earnest. Ballpark Digest, on the other hand, has referred to the NAL schedule as "one of the worst schedules we've ever seen in professional baseball." Ouch.

A quick check of the schedule shows the Edmonton Capitals and the Calgary Vipers playing each other a grand total of 25 times in the 96-game regular season. Both teams also fly to Maui to play an eight-game series against the Na Koa Ikaika. Incidentally, it appears the league has greatly reduced the number of inter-division games (presumably, to cut down on the already hefty travel costs incurred by NAL teams). Neither the Capitals nor the Vipers will play a single game against an Eastern Division team.

The makeup of the league has also changed in the last month and more changes are likely to follow. The league has (wisely) dropped the Tijuana Embajadores in favour of the Henderson Roadrunners. The Henderson (Nevada) squad will be owned by the league will be basically a resurrected version of the ill-fated St. George Roadrunners. In fact, the same logo (and uniforms?) will be used by Henderson.

In other bad news, one of the Eastern Division teams is close to imploding. The Schaumburg Flyers recently had their business license revoked by the state of Illinois due to unpaid taxes. The team also owes over $920,000 in back rent to the Village of Schaumburg, who may evict the team from Alexian Field on February 24th. Although they aren't listed on the league's website, the Omaha (Nebraska) Flame will likely replace the Flyers in the Eastern Division.

The NAL divisional alignment is now as follows (location and former league in brackets):

Eastern Division
Edinburg Roadrunners (Texas; United League Baseball)
Lake County Fielders (Illinois; Northern League)
Rio Grande Valley WhiteWings (Texas; United League Baseball)
Rockford RiverHawks (Illinois; Northern League)
San Angelo Colts (Texas; United League Baseball)
Schaumburg Flyers (Illinois; Northern League) or Omaha Flame (Nebraska; expansion franchise)

Western Division
Calgary Vipers (Alberta; Golden Baseball League)
Chico Outlaws (California; Golden Baseball League**)
Edmonton Capitals (Alberta; Golden Baseball League)
Henderson Roadrunners (Nevada; Golden Baseball League**)
Maui Na Koa Ikaika (Hawaii; Golden Baseball League)
Yuma Scorpions (Arizona; Golden Baseball League**)
** = league owned

If the Flyers can't make a go of it in the NAL in 2011 then another chain of events could be set off. Their withdrawal from the league would leave only two teams in the Midwest (the Rockford RiverHawks and the Lake County Fielders) which would place additional travel burden on the Eastern Division teams. It's a 7-hour drive from Rockford to Omaha and an 8 1/2 hour drive from Zion (Illinois), home of the Lake County squad.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. It's entirely possible that the entire Eastern Division collapses and the new North American League operates in 2011 with only the remaining six Golden Baseball League teams (three of which are league owned). But your guess is as good as mine...

Seal Blubber Bits

• In a bit of a surprise move, the Chicago Cubs failed to make ex-Seal Austin Bibens-Dirkx a non-roster invitee to their major-league camp. Instead, he'll join the Cubs' minor-league camp and likely start the year back in AAA with the Iowa Cubs.
• Former Victoria Seals hurlers Chris Bodishbaugh and Anthony Pluta will start the 2011 season somewhere in the Chicago White Sox and LA Angels minor-league system, respectively. We'll continue to follow our ex-Seals on this blog as they attempt to climb the ladder to the big leagues.
• It's a sad milestone, but the Victoria Seals website has gone bye-bye (but rest assured, we're going nowhere -- no pun intended). Here's what you see when you go to http://victoriaseals.ca :

Ex-Seal Tim Rodriguez traded to CornBelters

Tim Rodriguez will be doing back flips in Normal, Illinois this season after being involved in a three-way trade. The Chico Outlaws, who acquired his rights from the Victoria Seals, first dealt him to the Winnipeg Goldeyes of the American Association. The Goldeyes then turned around and traded Rodriguez to the Normal CornBelters for a player to be named later. The CornBelters play in the independent Frontier League.

Rodriguez hit .230 with 6 homers and 23 RBIs in his 39 games with Victoria last season after being acquired from the Yuma Scorpions. He was a disappointment with the Seals after posting a .349 average with 6 homers and 51 RBIs with the Scorpions. Despite his second-half drop in production, Rodriguez still finished in a tie for third in the Golden Baseball League with 74 RBIs. In addition to his back flips, Rodriguez is perhaps best known as being the first player in North America to be struck out by female knuckleballer Eri Yoshida.

North American League down to 12 teams

The North American League (NAL), which was announced with much fanfare back in November, seems to be stumbling towards the starting gate for the 2011 season. Originally billed as a 16 to 20 team circuit containing clubs from the old Golden, Northern and United leagues, the NAL is now down to 12 teams and only two divisions according to their recently-launched website.

The current divisional alignment is as follows (location and former league in brackets):

Eastern Division
Edinburg Roadrunners (Texas; United League Baseball)
Lake County Fielders (Illinois; Northern League)
Rio Grande Valley WhiteWings (Texas; United League Baseball)
Rockford RiverHawks (Illinois; Northern League)
San Angelo Colts (Texas; United League Baseball)
Schaumburg Flyers (Illinois; Northern League)

Western Division
Calgary Vipers (Alberta; Golden Baseball League)
Chico Outlaws (California; Golden Baseball League**)
Edmonton Capitals (Alberta; Golden Baseball League)
Maui Na Koa Ikaika (Hawaii; Golden Baseball League)
Tijuana Embajadores (Mexico; expansion franchise)
Yuma Scorpions (Arizona; Golden Baseball League**)
** = league owned

Of note are the teams that are no longer listed as being part of the North American League. The Joliet JackHammers have bolted to the Frontier League and the Costal Bend Thunder no longer have a place to play after being locked out of their ballpark due to unpaid rent. The Orange County Flyers are also without a place to play and their owners are now running the show in Maui.

The remaining assortment of geographically disparate teams is starting to look like a list of clubs that no other league wanted. It wouldn't be a surprise to see the NAL go down to 8 or 10 teams by opening day. In fact, I'm not convinced this league will make it through to the end of their inaugural season. It's starting to look like the Parkers did the right thing by folding the Victoria Seals, thereby ending their contractual obligations to the Golden Baseball League. If the NAL goes down in flames, they'll be glad they avoided a very ugly financial mess.

Victoria to land semi-pro baseball team?

I heard an interesting rumour recently that a "professional" baseball team might be headed back to Victoria. Now keep in mind that this rumour is entirely unsubstantiated at this point, but it's somewhat believable given the quote from Victoria Mayor Dean Fortin in the Times-Colonist article of November 21, 2010.

Apparently, the geography of the league might even allow the Victoria team to travel exclusively by bus, which would certainly help the financial viability of the franchise. I did some research to try and identify this league and the likeliest possibility is the Western Major Baseball League (WMBL), a collegiate semi-pro summer league that currently has 11 teams based in Alberta and Saskatchewan. I tried to confirm the rumour by sending an email to the WMBL President earlier today, but we have not received a reply as of yet.

The WMBL is an extremely stable league with an impressive 56-year history. The league is like a Canadian version of the prestigious Cape Cod League. Team rosters are made up of current and recent college players and unlike college ball, a wood bat is used. The league plays a 45-game regular season that begins on the first weekend in June and playoffs take place starting in late July.

Seals fans may remember that Jeff Duda made the jump from the WMBL to the GBL this past summer. In fact, Duda's old team, the Okotoks Dawgs, led the league in attendance in 2010 with an average of 2,174 fans per game.

In another piece of exciting news, Cranbrook BC was granted a conditional WMBL franchise just yesterday. If plans to build a new ballpark in Cranbrook unfold as expected, their new team could begin play in 2013. And check out what WMBL President Kevin Kvame had to say about the expansion team in Cranbrook:

President of the WMBL, Kevin Kvame, is looking forward to his league taking its first step into British Columbia. "The pitch that was made by the Cranbrook Group was very strong, and we see it as a good fit for our league's future plans. Cranbrook is an ideal candidate for expansion - it is a reasonable distance for travel, has a strong business community, a long history of baseball, and a proven track record of supporting its sport franchises.

Could this mean that the league is poised to make additional steps into British Columbia? We'll have to wait and see.

Ex-Seal Bibens-Dirkx survives Rule V Draft

Former Victoria Seals pitcher Austin Bibens-Dirkx was left unprotected by the Chicago Cubs for today's Rule V Draft, but he wasn't one of the 19 players selected. That means that he will remain in the Cubs' system and will likely be attending their spring training camp as a non-roster invitee. The Cubs' pitchers and catchers are set to report to camp in Mesa, Arizona in mid-February and it will be interesting to see if the ex-Seal can start the season with the big club.

Seal Blubber Bits

• Two other former Seals will re-start their affiliated professional careers in the spring. Anthony Pluta will be pitching in the Los Angeles Angels system and Chris Bodisbaugh will start the year with one of the farm teams of the Chicago White Sox.
• Friday is Baseball Bloggers Alliance Day. The Baseball Bloggers Alliance (BBA) was formed in 2009 and now includes over 230 blogs dedicated entirely to baseball. For more information on the alliance, check out an interesting interview with the BBA founder, Daniel Shoptaw.
• Despite much initial fanfare, the North American League seems to be going nowhere. One of the ex-Northern League teams, the Joliet Jackhammers now have a tentative deal to join the Frontier League. For more details on the North American League's issues, see the article that was recently published in the Winnipeg Free Press. Keep in mind that the piece is written from a Winnipeg perspective and that their team, the Goldeyes, will be joining the relatively stable American Association in 2011.
• The man who was the voice of the Montreal Expos for their first 32 years of existence, Dave Van Horne, has been named the winner of the Baseball Hall of Fame's Ford Frick Award. According to Wikipedia, the award is given to a broadcaster for "major contributions to baseball". Van Horne will receive the award at the HoF induction ceremonies on the 24th of July.

2010 MLB Awards – Bloggers vs. Journalists

As regular readers of our blog will know, we at the Victoria Seals Baseball Blog (VSBB) cast ballots for the Baseball Bloggers Alliance’s end-of-year Major League Baseball awards. These awards are similar to those given out by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWAA), although the Baseball Bloggers Alliance (BBA) has one additional category: The Goose Gossage Award for the top reliever in each league.

When voting started, I was interested in seeing how much difference there would be between the awards given out by the bloggers versus the traditional journalists. After compiling the results, I was taken aback by what I saw:

Award	BBWAA (Journalists)	BBA (Bloggers)
NL Manager of Year / Connie Mack Award	Bud Black, SD	Bud Black, SD
AL Manager of Year / Connie Mack Award	Ron Gardenhire, MIN	Ron Washington, TEX
NL Rookie of the Year / Willie Mays Award	Buster Posey, SF	Buster Posey, SF
AL Rookie of the Year / Willie Mays Award	Neftali Feliz, TEX	Neftali Feliz, TEX
NL Goose Gossage Award	N/A	Brian Wilson, SF
AL Goose Gossage Award	N/A	Rafael Soriano, TB
NL Cy Young Award / Walter Johnson Award	Roy Halladay, PHI	Roy Halladay, PHI
AL Cy Young Award / Walter Johnson Award	Felix Hernandex, SEA	Felix Hernandex, SEA
NL MVP / Stan Musial Award	Joey Votto, CIN	Joey Votto, CIN
AL MVP / Stan Musial Award	Josh Hamilton, TEX	Josh Hamilton, TEX

Surprisingly, there isn’t much difference between the awards handed out by the journalists and the bloggers. Of the eight awards in common between the two organizations, seven had identical winners. The only difference was in the AL Manager of the Year where the bloggers gave it to Ron Washington over Ron Gardenhire by a slim 74-67 vote, but the journalists gave it to Gardenhire over Washington by wide margin (108 to 81). Even in this category, I wouldn’t classify the difference as radical by any stretch.

I must admit that I was surprised to see the BBWAA award the AL Cy Young to Felix Hernandez, who only sported a 13-12 record thanks to the punch-less Seattle Mariners offense. Of course, Hernandez deserved the award buy compiling a league-leading 2.27 ERA in addition to a 1.06 WHIP and 232 strikeouts in 249 2/3 innings. But many times in baseball history, the baseball writers have given the Cy Young Award to a pitcher with an impressive won-loss record over a pitcher with better underlying statistics. The most recent example is from 2005, when the AL Cy Young went to Bartolo Colon (21-8, 3.48 ERA, 1.16 WHIP) and Johan Santana (16-7, 2.87 ERA, 0.97 WHIP) of the Twins finished third in voting.

Based on Hernandez’s win, I think it’s safe to declare that the BBWAA’s over-emphasis on wins is (thankfully) over. A major reason why this has happened is the turnover of BBWAA members in recent years. ESPN writers such as Rob Neyer, Keith Law, Jim Caple and Jayson Stark have been added as members and they are all well-versed in modern Sabermetrics. Nobody has to explain to them why pitching wins is an over-rated statistics.

In fact, many members of the mainstream media are finally getting on board the Sabermetric bandwagon. The Associated Press article announcing Hernandez’s win even mentioned the granddaddy of Sabermetric measures – Wins Above Replacement. It’s enough to make a geek break into tears of joy.

Of course, we shouldn’t get carried away praising the BBWAA for its recent modernization kick. Earlier today, the BBWAA rejected a motion by Jayson Stark to add an award honouring the best reliever in each league. The reason given? The award would always end up going to the reliever with the most saves! Although the Baseball Bloggers Alliance has inaugurated the Goose Gossage Award, the journalists couldn’t find it in their heart to add a new award to recognize the great work of hurlers such as Brian Wilson and Rafael Soriano. Keep trying Mr. Stark. We’re sure another BBWAA breakthrough can’t be far off.

Ex-Seal Bibens-Dirkx to make the Cubs in 2011?

Former Victoria Seals pitcher Austin Bibens-Dirkx continued his ascent to the big leagues by pitching in the Venezuelan Winter League this off-season. In fact, a Chicago Cubs blogger is touting Bibens-Dirkx as a candidate for the Cubs' bullpen in 2011.

Bibens-Dirkx played for Águilas del Zulia until his contract ran out on November 20th. In seven starts for Zulia, he posted a 2-2 record with a sparkling 1.60 ERA and 1.01 WHIP. Those are very impressive numbers considering the quality of hitters in the Venezuelan Winter League.

Austin played this past season for the Tennessee Smokies (AA) and the Iowa Cubs (AAA) and had a combined 10-7 record with a 3.78 ERA and 1.17 WHIP. He also held opponents to a .224 batting average and had 2.1 strikeouts for every walk surrendered.

You may remember that the Cubs signed Bibens-Dirkx when he was with the Seals on July 3, 2009. At the time of his signing, he was leading the Golden Baseball League with 54 strikeouts in 48 2/3 innings pitched.

Perhaps the biggest obstacle to Bibens-Dirkx suiting up with the Chicago Cubs next year might be looming in the next week, since the Cubbies left him unprotected for the Rule V Draft. This draft of veteran minor-leaguers takes place at the upcoming Baseball Winter Meetings in Orlando, Florida (December 6th to 9th). The smart money is on Bibens-Dirkx becoming the first ex-Seal to appear at the MLB level. In about a week's time we should know the organization with which he'll continue the journey.

See more of our past coverage of Austin Bibens-Dirkx.

Download our iPhone app!

The Victoria Seals Baseball Blog and 76 other blogs in the Baseball Bloggers Alliance now have an iPhone app! The app is free and it's compatible with the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. An Android version will follow soon.

To download the app go to the Apple web site.

Thanks to Julian Levine of Splashing Pumpkins (an excellent blog on the San Francisco Giants) and Notice Software for making this happen.

GBL morphs into North American League

Friday's announcement that the remaining teams in the Golden, Northern and United Baseball Leagues were merging came as no surprise. The GBL will indeed absorb the other two troubled independent leagues and form the North American League. The new circuit, which will be the largest professional baseball league outside of the big leagues, will likely play the 2011 season with between 16 and 20 teams.

Contrary to the previously-rumoured divisional alignment, the new league will probably play with three divisions -- one for each of the now defunct leagues. Effectively, the three independent leagues are pooling resources to try and survive. We'll see if that strategy works, but there's no guarantee that the new North American League will even make it through the upcoming season.

Given how this scenario is playing out, it's not a shock that the Victoria Seals decided to cease operations less than two weeks ago. North American League teams are expected to play 75% of their games within their division and 25% against the two other divisions. In 2010 terms, that means the Seals would have played three-quarters of their games against GBL teams: Edmonton, Calgary, Maui (which came under new ownership a few days ago), Tijuana (an expansion team that will be known as the Embajadores) and whichever other teams attempt to make a go of it (likely league-owned teams based in Arizona and California). However, the remaining Seals games would have been played against clubs from the old Northern and United Leagues, which are based entirely in Illinois and Texas. That's way too much travel for an independent-league team.

As a baseball fan, I really hope that the new league survives. But they sure are faced with an uphill climb.

Seal Blubber Bits

• The Times-Colonist reported that Victoria Mayor Dean Fortin has been approached by a local group regarding the possible return of professional baseball. No details were provided by the tight-lipped mayor. 
• In the same article, Brian Rios was quoted as saying that he would likely sign with the Calgary Vipers. So much for his plans to retire...
• The inaugural league meeting for the North American League will take place at the end of this month in Northern California. I'm sure many more details on the new league will be made public following the conclusion of these meetings.

Media coverage of the Seals' demise - Hmmm...

It has been interesting reading all of the recent stories about the (late?) Victoria Seals in the media.

An alert reader pointed me to an excellent article by Alex Pomerant, the law student who was the man inside the Seamore the Seal costume. The piece paints an interesting picture of what it's like to be the mascot of a professional baseball team and explains what the team meant to the local community. Incidentally, I had the pleasure of pinch-hitting as the mascot in one professional game back in 1999 when I was working for the Asheville Tourists. It was a difficult and smelly job being Ted E. Tourist that night (it was July in North Carolina after all), but it was one of the most memorable nights of a wonderful summer. I totally understand where Alex is coming from.

Tom Hawthorn wrote yet another great article in the Globe and Mail on the Victoria Seals.  In addition to hitting on many of the high points of two fantastic years of Seals baseball, Tom also presents an alternative to the "blame the city" mentality that was so prevalent after the announcement that the Seals were ceasing operations.

Even Ballpark Digest has got into the act by publishing an article comparing the Seals to a canary in a coal mine. The piece concentrates on the second reason given by the Seals' ownership for pulling the plug: the instability of the Golden Baseball League.

Many league observers, myself included, are still trying to figure out the full story regarding the Seals' demise and the related changes coming to the GBL. One observer has even speculated that the Seals could return to an expanded GBL in 2011 with a better lease deal from the City of Victoria and that last week's announcement could have been simply a ploy to improve ownership's bargaining position.

We'll continue to follow this story as it unfolds.

Northern, United and Golden leagues to merge?

Ballpark Digest is reporting that the remaining teams in the Northern and United leagues are about to merge with the Golden Baseball League for the 2011 season. The new league is expected to fly under the banner of the Golden Baseball League.

It appears that the teams will play an abbreviated schedule in 2011 and that there will indeed be the four divisions mentioned in our previous blog post: Canada, Midwest, West Coast and Texas. It's still unclear which teams will make up the Canadian division, since none of the remaining teams in the Northern or United leagues are based in Canada. I can't imagine a two-team division with just Edmonton and Calgary...

Back from the dead?

OK, Seals fans. I am truly confused.

Two days after "ceasing operations", the Victoria Seals have exercised the 2011 contract options for Jeff Duda, Matt Edgecombe, PJ Bevis, Andrew Arreola, Henry Calderon, Mike Koons, Joe Sergent, Jino Gonzalez, Jason Kershner, Terrance McClain, Colin Moro, Wilver Perez, Tim Rodriguez, Charlie Strandlund and Brandon Villafuerte. One can only assume that these options have been exercised in order to give the Seals the right to sell each player to the highest bidder. Or is there more to it?

But wait, there were more surprises today... WREX in Rockford, Illinois is reporting that the Rockford RiverHawks will join the GBL in 2011. In addition, three other Northern League teams (Schaumburg, Joliet and Lake County) are expected to join the GBL and Omaha is another possibility. These moves would gut the Northern League.

Apparently, the GBL might contain 16 or 17 teams next year featuring four divisions: Canada, West, Midwest and Texas. Even if the five aforementioned teams join the GBL, where will the other 12 teams come from? Edmonton and Calgary could obviously be part of the Canadian division, but you can't really have a two-team Canadian division (the Winnipeg Goldeyes just left the Golden League for the American Association). Then again, maybe another league might merge with the GBL.

If you can shed some light on the situation, please leave a comment to this blog post. Stay tuned.

Dave Niehaus (1935-2010)

November 10, 2010 has been a terrible day for baseball fans in the Pacific Northwest. Here in Victoria, we learned of the demise of our beloved Seals. Later in the day we got a little perspective on the severity of our loss after finding out about a true tragedy. Dave Niehaus, voice of the Seattle Mariners since their inaugural season in 1977, passed away on Wednesday after suffering a heart attack.

I'll defer to the Associated Press for a recap of his Hall of Fame career and life. But I'd like to offer up the following audio tribute to Mr. Niehaus, courtesy of YouTube. The clip comes from the greatest moment in Mariners' history -- "The Double" -- from 1995. It was one of my most memorable moments as a sports fan and I was lucky to share it with Bubba in the left-field bleachers in the Kingdome.

Dave Niehaus, you will be missed.

City clubs the Seals, ends professional baseball in Victoria

Seals owner Darren Parker greeted some thirty members of the local sports media (including the Seals Baseball Blog) with the same handshakes and casual "thank you for coming" comments you would hear at a funeral. And that is exactly what transpired over the next hour.

"We are disappointed to announce that the Victoria Seals have ceased baseball operations as of today" Darren spoke, much to the surprise of none of the attendees after rumors started flooding morning news reports, the Times Colonist, and social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

Staff and players were informed yesterday of the situation. General Manager Roxann Bury spent most of the night and early morning texting and talking to players about the situation, and where the Seals go from here.

It's quite clear however, that they go nowhere right now. Many of the key players from last year had already been retained on options, and all of them are disappointed to not be coming back to the city they called their home last summer. No names were given, other than T-Mac, whom Darren expressed as being saddened by the announcement. Immediate tasks for Darren are to find homes for all of his boys, whom you could tell he felt badly for.

Darren himself was noticeably shaken up at times during the announcement, as were other members of the Seals staff in attendance. Curtis Clarke, Mike Walker and Roxann Bury stood quietly during the conference, hearing many of the comments themselves for the first time.

Most of the conversation around the root cause of why this happened centered around the City of Victoria, and their inability to support and partner with a professional sports team in a city-run venue. Darren was quick to point out that at this level, you don't run a franchise to make money, you do it because you love the game. Still, you need to at least break even. Over the two years here, the Seals experienced losses mentioned as being "well over a million dollars".

It seems the city treated the Seals like crap, never embracing the "partnership" aspect of the agreement. For instance, being a union facility only city workers could work at the venue. No volunteers were allowed to help - which is the life blood of many small market teams. Even when given advanced warnings that games were selling well, or big crowds were expected, the city was not able to step up to help, and the Seals paid the price. Where big games could have helped fill the needed revenue void, all they did was lower the fan's experience at the park.

The lease was way too high, the revenues from concession and alcohol sales were nowhere near what they should have been, and the facility was never upgraded as expected. The Seals couldn't acquire sponsors for things such as hot dogs or beer - huge revenue draws for sports teams.

The Seals even asked about buying RAP and managing it, in much the same way as the Salmon Kings ownership group owns the SOFA, and the city's response was a flat NO due to more "union agreements". Something about the fact that the facility would be required to sit dormant for two years if sold...

Both Darren Parker and his father Russ, a thirty year veteran of running professional sports teams admitted that with a different venue to play in, or with better city support, the team would have remained viable.

Darren remains the Seals owner, and will remain living here in Victoria with his family. He commented that he has fielded offers from "other Mayors" about options, and would also welcome offers from other ownership groups both local and outside of Victoria. In the back of the room, while all the negative talk about Victoria swirled through the air, Langford Mayor Stu Young stood quietly listening, and checking his email. Langford at this point though, is not a short-term solution, as there is no venue capable of holding the Seals. The future? Who knows.

Darren made special note thanking the fans of Victoria, the corporate support they received, and the dedication of his staff. He pointed to the shared sense of community he had hoped the Seals would bring, and the positive impact the team had on families in the area. Speaking from my own experience, bringing the kids out to the ball park many times over the summer provided moments they will cherish for years. The charity work the Seals did, both on the field with 50/50 sharing, and off the field, were a key part of what the Seals stood for in the community, and will be missed.

Seals' staff members Roxann Bury, Mike Walker, and Curtis Clarke

Was it all about the city though? The GBL will have big problems next year as well, and would have regardless of what happened to Victoria. They are currently in danger of having six or fewer teams in the league - at least two of them league owned, which is not a sustainable model. How much of a factor did the potential demise of the GBL play into the decision is unknown, but it had to have some impact on the decision. There was some talk about other leagues such as the Northern league, but other leagues are having similar issues due to the economy in many cities. Darren was quick to point out that at this level, with these expected revenues, the league has to remain a "bus league" to achieve true success. Having to fly to far-away locations is a killer.

Oh and the scoreboard is for sale as well, if you want to impress your neighborhood, or just keep track of major league games at home...

So that's it blog fans. Over the next while we will spend some time analyzing and recapping, complaining and bitching, and generally feeling sad about the loss of our boys in blue. After that? Who knows. We invite you to share a few last comments, share some stories of the old boy if you like, and take this one out with a bang. Damn guys, we hardly knew ya. Rest in Peace.

Bad news for Seals fans?

Check out the press release from the Seals this afternoon:

VICTORIA SEALS TO MAKE MAJOR   ANNOUNCEMENT
Press conference called for Wednesday at 1:00 p.m.
For Immediate Release
Tuesday November 9, 2010
Victoria, BC – The Victoria Seals announce that they will be holding a press conference to make a major announcement regarding the future of the franchise tomorrow afternoon at 1:00 p.m. (PT)... 

We have known for some time that most of the teams in the GBL are in dire straights. My hope was that somehow we'd see the three solid Canadian clubs in the GBL survive, perhaps by merging with another independent league. It looks like that might not happen. Stay tuned for more details as they become available.

UPDATE:
It appears that the Seals are folding. The T-C seems to have been granted an inside scoop on the story.

Take me out to the ball game

While I was travelling last week, I helped pass the time by re-watching a couple of innings of the original Baseball documentary by Ken Burns on the Air Canada entertainment system. One of the innings features the wonderful version of Take Me Out to the Ball Game by Carly Simon and I immediately made a mental note to put up a blog post about it.

Most of us know the song from the seventh-inning stretch at baseball games, but what not everyone realizes is that the version normally sung at the ballpark is only the chorus and that the full lyrics contain a little-known and somewhat unconventional story. The complete lyrics to the song, which was composed in 1908 by Jack Norworth, are shown below:

Katie Casey was baseball mad,

Had the fever and had it bad.
Just to root for the home town crew,
Ev'ry sou
Katie blew.
On a Saturday her young beau
Called to see if she'd like to go
To see a show, but Miss Kate said "No,
I'll tell you what you can do:"

[Chorus]
Take me out to the ball game,
Take me out with the crowd;
Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack,
I don't care if I never get back.
Let me root, root, root for the home team,
If they don't win, it's a shame.
For it's one, two, three strikes, you're out,
At the old ball game.

Katie Casey saw all the games,
Knew the players by their first names.
Told the umpire he was wrong,
All along,
Good and strong.
When the score was just two to two,
Katie Casey knew what to do,
Just to cheer up the boys she knew,
She made the gang sing this song:

[repeat Chorus]

Note (Courtesy of Wikipedia): The term "sou", now obscure, was at the time common slang for a low-denomination coin. Carly Simon's version, produced for Ken Burns' 1994 documentary Baseball, reads "Ev'ry cent / Katie spent".

What I find interesting is that it's the female character in the song that wants to go to the ballgame, even though her boyfriend suggested that they take in a show. It obviously wasn't out of the ordinary to be a female super-fan back in 1908, otherwise Jack Norworth wouldn't have created a song based on such a keen female "rooter". In any event, the full Carly Simon version sure would sound good at Royal Athletic Park, don't ya think?