ST. MARYS, Ont. – The Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum’s Class of 2017 was inducted on Saturday afternoon, and what a class it was.
Headlined by all-time greats Roy Halladay and Vladimir Guerrero, the list of inductees also included former Baseball Canada president Ray Carter and the senior men’s national team that captured gold at the 2015 Pan Am Games in Toronto. Doug Hudlin, a longtime umpire at many levels in British Columbia – the first Canadian ever asked to work the Little League World Series – was inducted posthumously.
Ernie Whitt, manager of the men’s national team since 1999, was inducted into the Hall for the third time. He’d already gone in as a player in 2009 and with the 2011 Pan Am gold-medal winners in 2012.
Joined on stage by players Jeff Francis, Brock Kjeldgaard, Jasvir Rakkar, Chris Robinson, Tim Smith and Skyler Stromsmoe, Whitt spoke on the team’s behalf, praising its chemistry and marvelling at how well his group always seemed to mesh together quickly for short international tournaments despite often not seeing each other for a year or more.
Canada won gold in 2015, playing on home soil in Ajax, Ont., when American reliever David Huff threw away a pickoff attempt at first base in the bottom of the 10th inning. Right-fielder Brian Bogusevic, backing up the play, threw wild to third. The two errors combined to allow Pete Orr to score the winning run all the way from first base.
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As to why Huff would try a pickoff throw to first with the tying run on second base, Whitt surmised that the lefty “really didn’t want to pitch to Tyler O’Neill”, the Mariners power prospect who was at the plate at the time.
Carter was the longest-serving president Baseball Canada has ever had, having been in that role from 2000-16 before handing it off to current president Jason Dickson. Under his stewardship, Canada captured 13 international medals, including the two Pan Am golds.
The Nanaimo, B.C., native was the driving force behind the establishment of the women’s national team in 2004, and beamed with pride on the podium in saying that Canada’s women are now ranked second in the world.
Carter also developed the Challenger Baseball Program, which provides children with cognitive and physical disabilities the opportunity to play the game.
As he finished his acceptance speech, Carter reflected back to 1948 – his first week of school in Grade 1, in a one-room schoolhouse in Tsawwassen, B.C., and thanked his teacher for bringing a bat and ball to the schoolyard, sparking his love of the game.
Guerrero, a Montreal Expo for half of his 16-year career, delivered his speech in Spanish with the help of interpreter Jesse Guerrero, though he did finish with a thank you in French to all the Expos fans under the big white tent on the grounds of the Hall. The nine-time all-star said he was very grateful and thankful to Canada for giving him his first opportunity in the major leagues, and beamed when he reminded the crowd that his son Vladimir Guerrero Jr., the top prospect in the Toronto Blue Jays system, was born in Montreal and is eligible to play internationally for Canada.
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Halladay was the final speaker. The tall righty, arguably the best pitcher in Blue Jays history, was well-known for his almost robotic demeanour on the mound, but he welled up when going through his list of thank-yous, especially when he spoke of Bus Campbell, the Blue Jays area scout in Colorado who gave him pitching lessons from the age of 13 right up until he and the Jays drafted him in 1995. Campbell passed away nine years ago.
An eight-time all-star, one of only five pitchers to win the Cy Young Award in each league and one of only two with a post-season no-hitter on his resume, Halladay ranks second on the Blue Jays all-time WAR list. Yet in his acceptance speech, he was self-deprecating, remembering the ugly 2000 season in which he posted a 10.64 ERA in 19 appearances, 13 of them starts.
That ERA stood as the all-time worst for a major-league pitcher with at least 40 innings pitched until 2011, when Baltimore’s Brian Matusz posted a 10.69.
Halladay told a story, very tongue-in-cheek, about that disastrous 2000 season, claiming it occurred in the last start before he got sent down.
The big righty said that he was in trouble in the very first inning, and his pitching coach came to the mound with an observation. “Roy,” said the unnamed coach, “I’ve noticed you always seem to get into trouble around the same time every start.”
When Halladay inquired when that time was, the coach answered: “The national anthem.”
After getting lit up in the third inning of the same game, Halladay said the coach came back out to the mound, but with no advice to offer. He just wanted to give the effects guy at the stadium the opportunity to reload the fireworks that had gone off every time Halladay had given up a home run.
The funny side of Halladay was one we almost never got to see when he played – the only time I remember him smiling on the field as a Blue Jay was towards the end of his Jays career, when John McDonald and Marco Scutaro turned an especially dazzling double-play behind him.
The ceremony was attended by several former inductees, including Pat Hentgen, who went in just last year, Paul Beeston, Pat Gillick, Tom Henke, Tony Fernandez and Ferguson Jenkins.
