Baseball Beginnings: The Vancouver Canadians

Summer 2011 & 2012

With every unanswered ring, my heart beat faster. I wasn’t sure if I’d be more relieved for someone to pick up or to be sent to voicemail.

Sitting at a desk in the basement of my parents’ house in June 2011, I was cold-calling players that had just been drafted by the Toronto Blue Jays.

It was my first proper reporting pursuit — unpaid, of course —  and it came about through a friend, Jeremy, who was involved with the Vancouver Canadians. 

The publisher of a website called FutureJays.com was searching for contributors and contacted Jeremy, who knew about my career aspirations and suggested I’d be a fit. The website was affiliated with Fox Sports, which for me meant that I felt I was already just one step removed from the pinnacle of the industry. After the publisher reviewed posts I’d written on a long-lost blog, I was deemed an acceptable choice to be a Vancouver Canadians beat writer for the 2011 season.

The Canadians played a formative role in my sports-obsessed childhood. Going to Nat Bailey Stadium was a summer treat, especially if the Canadians won and kids were allowed on the field after the game to collect autographs from the players.

While the postgame autograph tradition was eventually phased out, a new ownership group took over in the late 2000s and revitalized the organization and the ballpark. In 2011, the Blue Jays replaced Oakland as the Canadians’ parent club and that only increased the attention around the team.

The timing was perfect for me as I graduated from high school and prepared for my post-secondary education.

So, with an Olympus audio recorder I bought from London Drugs a few days earlier placed on the desk and the list of questions provided by the publisher on my computer screen, I started dialling.

I was among a group of contributors assigned a handful of drafted players to track down. The goal was to publish an interview with all 55 Blue Jays draft picks.

The task itself was simple: get the player on the phone, ask them the questions and submit the answers in a Q&A format. 

That first part, however, proved difficult enough for me.

I had no concept of how to contact someone in the capacity of a journalist or connect with a communications department to facilitate access. I certainly didn’t have the conventions of introduction or interviewing down pat, either. Frankly, I was intimidated by the very idea of calling a stranger and asking if they would answer a few questions.

Those factors combined to form my dilemma: If the player answered the phone, I’d have to quickly work up the courage to introduce myself and hope adrenaline kicked in from there. If the call went to voicemail, I felt less pressure to deliver my lines but there was no guarantee I’d get a return call.

Both options triggered anxiety. And my early returns didn’t help the cause.

I called the highest drafted prospect on my list multiple times to no avail. Eventually, his voicemail inbox was full and he never called me back. (It turned out he didn’t sign with the Blue Jays until right before the Aug. 15 signing deadline for draft picks so he wasn’t exactly keen to chat at the time.)

As I failed to reach other players, what little confidence I had started with was stripped to nothing. Each attempted call was more painful than the last.

I viewed it as a success that I managed to complete two Q&As. I don’t think the publisher was too pleased — but hey, I wasn’t being paid, right? 

Once the Canadians season started in mid-June, the work was straightforward: go to the ballpark to interview a player and a coach — typically the hitting coach for hitters and the pitching coach for pitchers — about the player’s skill development and write a profile about it. 

My nerves from the draft calls carried over into the first few in-person interviews, though. 

I gravitated toward the team’s most sympathetic players and their stories of persistence and determination rather than the top prospects who seemed destined for major-league stardom. 

I wasn’t starstruck as much as I was afraid to appear uninformed or come off as confrontational. It was safer to stick to subjects that wouldn’t potentially put me in a vulnerable position

That began to change when I returned to Vancouver for the 2012 season after completing my first year at the College of Sports Media, where stellar instructors and a curriculum loaded with practical learning supercharged my development.

Phoning draft picks? Not a problem. I still didn’t reach all the players I was assigned but improved my output from the prior year and felt much more comfortable with the process. And those top prospects? Bring them on.

The Canadians rostered plenty of them on their way to a Northwest League championship that season. It made for a memorable summer as I documented their progress and dreamed of my path forward as a sports writer.

Although I wouldn’t have predicted it at the time, I got a glimpse of that future toward the end of the season when Blue Jays general manager Alex Anthopoulos visited Vancouver for a weekend in late August.

Since there are no suites for executives to congregate at Nat Bailey Stadium — they wander through the stadium like anyone else and tend to sit together behind the plate during the games because the press box is small — I had an amusing encounter with Anthopoulos before the game on Sunday afternoon.

One of the perks of a Sunday game is the A&W root beer floats for charity.

Anthopoulos was standing on the concourse near his seat when he noticed a few people, including me, with floats. He inquired to no one in particular about where he could get one. I was within earshot and pounced to fill him in with the details. 

The idea of drinking a root beer float on a sunny Vancouver day delighted Anthopoulos and he arranged to buy some for himself and the rest of the Blue Jays’ scouting caravan. Even the GM of an MLB team can indulge in the sweetest pleasures of the ballpark.

Similarly, I learned to appreciate the benefits of the setting and the opportunity at hand over those two summers covering the Canadians.

Once the beginner’s nerves wore off, I looked forward to the pregame interviews with players and coaches in the empty bleachers during batting practice. The satisfaction of an insightful conversation far outweighed the fear of screwing up.

I’m also thankful I shared the press box for most games with Steve Ewen, a veteran reporter for The Province newspaper who couldn’t have been more helpful and inspiring.

Every eager journalist should have the good fortune to grow in an environment that allows them to find comfort in the role while still challenging their instincts and refining their reporting abilities. I certainly found that at the Nat.