History lesson

For those of you who’ve not seen it, Friend of the Blog Todd Devlin has written what has to be the definitive word on baseball in Ottawa over at the Canadian Baseball Network.  It really doesn’t get any better than this; clearly this exhaustive piece involved a considerable amount of research and a significant investment of Todd’s time.  No stone has been left unturned as Todd chronicles the entire history of Lynx Stadium, all the way from 1989 when it was just a gleam in the late Howard Darwin’s eye, to its present day vacancy. 

The article should serve as a good history lesson for members of City Council who may have forgotten some of the facts surrounding the demise of the Lynx, their shoddy treatment of the team’s second owner (Ray Pecor) and their collective culpability in driving AAA baseball out of Ottawa -

Following the 2000 season, in which the Lynx drew a franchise-worst 2,339 fans per game, Darwin sold the team for $7 million — and handed over his field of dreams — to Vermont businessman Ray Pecor, who also owned the class-A Vermont Expos.
 
Pecor put his young Vermont general manager, Kyle Bostwick, in charge of the triple-A franchise, and provided him with a full front-office team. In a lot of ways, it was a fresh start for an organization that had, in just five years, become a shadow of its former self.
 
“We were very, very excited to take over and to do some great things,” said Bostwick, who remained the team’s GM until the end. “And (JetForm) was just a beautiful facility. It was a wonderful representation of baseball in Canada.”
 
The new ownership ramped up marketing efforts and got the message out that, indeed, Ottawa’s baseball stadium was not only still open for business, but it was still showcasing some of the best baseball in the country on a nightly basis. The new front-office team also provided Lynx fans with an enhanced experience at the ballpark, including in-game promotions and activities throughout the stadium, something that had been lacking in the past.
 
“We were asking people to give us a second chance,” Bostwick said. “For the most part, the fans responded.”
 
They certainly did in the beginning. For the first time in franchise history, attendance increased at Lynx games in 2001, up nearly 26%.
 
“There was new excitement and buzz,” Bostwick said. “The trend was definitely there.”

Quite honestly, this was a chapter that I’d forgotten as well, and I suspect that I’m not alone.  Ever since the Lynx left, the commonly preached story was that the decline in attendance (and interest in baseball in general) began after the first baseball strike and was steady.  Clearly, not so.  Unfortunately, we’ve heard this account so often that it has been accepted as dogma and, in my view, continues to cloud the reasoning of decision makers with respect to the legal issues surrounding the Lynx.

This is but one chapter in Todd’s comprehensive telling of the story.  I commend all of it to you.

A link to Todd’s ongoing work – The 500 Level, appears on this blog’s Friends of the Lynx blogroll.  Thanks to Todd Devlin for sending along the article.

Timely

In the never-ending search for content, it’s nice when the local paper of record can come through.  This was served up this morning by the editorial staff of the Ottawa Citizen:

“The treatment of the Ottawa Lynx Triple-A franchise would not have been so bad had the city (Ottawa Stadium’s landlord) just ignored the team. But instead, the municipality took actions that doomed the club. And there was no direction to staff for any of this. The only public discussion was that Ottawans wanted a baseball facility that would hold an International League club. That’s all.

 

Instead, city staff sold off the east parking lot beyond right field to big-box retail to garner funds. Then it sold off chunks of the west parking lot for the same reason. If that wasn’t enough, the city stopped street parking during game days in large chunks of neighbouring Vanier and Overbrook. The municipality strangled the life blood of the tenant for which the stadium was designed. Stupid management.

 

The Ottawa Senators have kicked tires twice about running the stadium and both times concluded the obvious — not enough parking. That’s the city’s fault. Only the City of Ottawa could build a $20-million stadium, then kill it through its own greed for property money. It even scared away a second tenant, the Rapidz of the Can-Am League, with talk of high rent.

 

Break-even for a baseball team at the stadium is about 4,500 people a night, at least for the old Lynx. Probably fewer for a new team. That’s roughly the number of people who can park in the lot that’s left. Where’s the room for profit?

 

Now three parties are interested in bringing sports back to the stadium. Let’s hope they are treated better than former Lynx owner Ray Pecor, a businessman too good for this community who took large losses to keep baseball in a city that wasn’t even his home. Municipal staff treated him like a piece of lint on a jacket.”

 

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/opinion/editorials/Ottawa+strikes/2311034/story.html

And…. we’re back

In a somewhat limited capacity this evening.  The old domain (ottawalynxblog.com) is gone, although if I want to spend over $300US, register.com will sell it back to me.  Let me think about that for a… no.  For now, the blog’s back to its old address, ottawalynxblog.wordpress.com.  The Can-Am blog has also been resurrected.

More soon, but for now, it’s good to be back!

Hits and misses

Final MLB rosters were set a few days back, but what are you gonna do?  Quick status report on some of the FLPs that the blog follows.

2007 Lynx alumnus Joe Bisenius, begins the 2009 campaign in Reading.  Joe split 2008 between Lehigh Valley and Reading, appearing in just 43 games.

Another Ottawa pitcher, Brian Mazone appears to have just missed making the Dodgers 25 man roster – and not everyone is happy with that turn of events (WARNING: for those of you not fond of Hannah Montana, you may wish to turn your speakers down.  Or off).

On the brighter side, former battery mates J.A. Happ and catcher Jason Jaramillo have both made their respective MLB squads – Happ with Philadelphia and Jaramillo with the Pirates.  JJ’s promotion over Robinson Diaz was seen as a victory of his defensive ability and game calling talent.  Jaramillo will backup starting catcher Ryan Doumit to start the season, and will be reunited with Former Lynx manager, John Russell.

“I’m so excited,” Jaramillo said. “It was an unbelievable moment when I got called in and they let me know I made the ballclub. There’s a lot of stuff that flashed in my memory.

“It’s been a long road, but I’m ready to get started on this journey now.”

Happ, on the other hand, narrowly missed out on being named the Phillies fifth starter – he lost the final spot in the rotation to Chan Ho Park, and wasn’t entirely pleased about being sent to the ‘pen:

Asked what explanation he was given for the decision, a disappointed Happ paused a moment later in the day, then simply answered, ”He [Park] had a good spring,” before quickly adding, ”I feel like I had a good spring as well.”

”If I can get a job in the bullpen and if I can have some success down there, then I think an opportunity will come where I can get back a starting job,” Happ said.

”If he’s one of the best 12, I think he’d benefit from being up here,” pitching coach Rich Dubee said. ”I think he’s proved himself last year at Triple-A and I think he proved himself somewhat up here. I think the key factor is how much work he gets if he does make our staff.

”He’s not a guy we want to let sit around and not get any work because he’s still in the process of becoming a consistent major league pitcher.”

Finally, blog favorite Joe Thurston has made his way back to the bigs, this time in a St. Louis Cardinals uni.

La Russa declined to go into much detail as to why Barden started over Freese in the opener, but he was more forthcoming about the choice of Thurston. The coaching staff has liked Thurston’s defensive play at third base, and the hope is that his left-handed bat will help against Snell.

Thurston also took the No. 8 spot in the batting order — a spot that evidently will be occupied by Cardinals pitchers less often in 2009. La Russa acknowledged that Thurston fits the profile of the “second leadoff” hitter, but didn’t want to stack left-handed hitters in three consecutive spots — ninth, first and second.

In last night’s game against Pittsburgh, Joe went 2-5 and drove in two runs.

Joe Thurston beats Pirates catcher Ryan Doumit’s tag – April 7.

Blog neglect

And not for lack of information – in fact, there’s so much FLP type news it’s been impossible for me to keep up with.

First off – it doesn’t appear that Jason Jaramillo will be cracking the lineup for the Pittsburgh Pirates.  With an average in Spring Training well below the Mendoza line (around .148 last time I checked), he may have lost the back-up role to Robinson Diaz.

 

Former Lynx manager, John Russell has some tough decisions to make.

Meanwhile, FLP J.A. Happ is locked in a duel with Chan Ho Park for the fifth spot in Philadelphia’s rotation.  J.A.’s ERA in ST is hovering just above 3 (3.15), while Park is just below at 2.87.  Philly GM, Ruben Amaro Jr. has indicated that either could be used in relief as well.  One wonders if the fact that J.A.’s a southpaw will tip the scales in his favor.

J.A. in Philly red.

Interesting find over on Bobby Valentine’s blog * (Valentine is the manager of the Chiba Lotte Marines of the Japanese Pacific League) -

I’m looking forward to getting to know Gary, who is a very talented artist, as well as a very talented baseball player. He’s from Connecticut yet I had never met him before last year. Gary was a player for the La New Bears last year, a team that we had a working agreement with in Taiwan. He did a fabulous job for them, hitting .323 and slugging .500 and with an almost .400 OBP. Gary can play first base, in the outfield, and of course DH. I’m looking forward to his contributions.

Obviously he’s not the highest-paid player on our team ― he may be the lowest-paid player, or one of them ― but I think his contributions will be very, very large.

He’s the type of player who just wants an opportunity; he’s always fought for everything he’s gotten. He reminds me truly of our fans; who never give up. When they believe in something, they give their all, every minute of the day, and fight to the bitter end. Gary seems to have that same kind of spirit.

As a token of his gratitude to Valentine, Gary arrived in camp with a gift for his new manager -

In his debut with the Marines, Gary hit two doubles in a 9-1 win over the Tohoku Rakuten Eagles.

* unfortunately, Valentine has elected to discontinue his blog.

All good things…

Elsewhere, the Chiba Lotte Marines said they have acquired the services of infielders Chase Lambin and Gary Burnham.

Neither player has major league experience but both had tryouts in Lotte’s fall camp last year. Lambin, 29, will make ¥20 million while Burnham, 34, will earn ¥13 million after both tied up one-year deals.

Bobby Valentine’s team also said it has released infielder Jose Ortiz, right-hander Winston Abreu and left-hander Wu Si-yo.

For someone who’s likely never made more than $50,000 in his 11 years in the minor leagues, $13M Yen (roughly $135,000 US) is the gold at the end of the rainbow:

“Guys who have been in the majors for two or three years can earn as much as $60,000 for a five-month season,” the 32-year-old Burnham said. “That’s why it’s not easy to get a free-agent job.”

Of course, there are exceptions to the rule, Burnham said.

The Rochester Red Wings, another Triple-A organization, set a cap of $8,000 per month — no matter who you are or how long you’ve been playing.

That would hardly stop a guy looking for work from signing, though. “Unfortunately, beggars can’t be choosers,” Burnham joked. “My definition of rich is being ahead of my bills for two years.”

He even started building his retirement fund two years ago:

“My goal is to make $250,000 by the time I’m 35,” Burnham said.

Certainly this contract, albeit only for one year, should put him well on his way to the $1/4M (for those of you paying attention, he’ll be 35 in October).  Last year in Taiwan, in 7o games Gary put up numbers which were beyond “respectable”:  .323 AVG, .401 OBP, .523 Slugging, .924 OPS – certainly deserving of a shot in Japan’s premier league, if not MiLB.

Congratulations Gary!

Far east tour

Much, much further east than the Coventry Road exit.  It is not surprising given the level of blog inactivity, that our man in the east, Hansioux, hasn’t checked in in a while.  For those of you just joining us, Hansioux is a fellow member of the Gary Burnham fan club – probably the founding member in Taiwan.  Hansioux provided the UOLB with regular updates about Gary’s progress as a member of the La New Bears. 

When we last updated the former Lynx 1B, he wasn’t seeing much in the way of regular playing time.  The good news is that things improved and he began to get in more and more games.  The “East Windup Chronicle” picks up the story as the La New Bears were heading in to the Olympic break:

Gary:  Well, the team let go of Andrew Lorraine go in mid July. I was activated and heard through some people that the team was trying to replace me for a utility guy that can hit. I was like…oh no! I asked my interpreter if they were bringing in someone else and he couldn’t tell me. It was terrible.

 So the team brought in a new player to check him out and see if he could help the club out. Brent Metheny. According to the interviews given by the manager and in the paper the reason to bring in Brent was to strengthen the roster and not to replace me. That made me feel good, but I really didn’t know who to believe.

In the meantime we had 6 games leading up to Olympic break and I have been hitting well. Not that I have been hitting poorly. I’ve been over .300 the entire time and driving in runs, but for the past six games I’ve been mashing the ball and I think my performance helped me stay. So that is where we are now. We’re on a three week break now. This is a huge time frame for me because as of Aug. 13th my tax bracket drops down to 10% and not 20% because I have been working in Taiwan for longer than 6 months. So this is a big victory for me so far.

Reading further in the article, the strain of facing the constant prospect of being cut was beginning to show.  It was nice to see that he hasn’t let his artistic ability go to waste -

Gary: … I’ve been working hard and I have a pretty big following and even bought a scooter and painted it. I call it the FIRE CAT………..the fiercest cat on the streets of Taiwan!!!!!

On Monday, the East Windup reported that Gary has signed with the Chiba Lotte Marines of the Japanese Pacific League.  Incidentally, the Marines are managed by Bobby Valentine who took the Mets to the World Series in 2000.  Knowing very little about baseball in Asia, I’ll still go out on a limb and say the calibre of play is higher in the Japanese Pacific League than in Taiwan; the 12 teams in the Pacific and Central Leagues represent the highest level of baseball in Japan.

Interesting also to note that the article claims that Gary is engaged “to a woman in the States”.  Here’s hoping for another break-out season for Gary in 2009!

Happy New Year!

The blog enters its fourth year and second full season after the Lynx left town with an apology for those looking for regular updates:  Clearly, frequent blogging has slipped lower on my list of priorities and I can’t honestly say that I expect that to change in the near future, notwithstanding the addition of time this year.

There’s much to catch up on and I hope to get into some of the overdue news items in the coming days.  First up, as most remaining Lynx fans/followers know, FLP Jason Jaramillo was traded to Pittsburgh for catcher Ronny Paulino.  Now that the books are closed on the 2008 season, it’s noteworthy that from a statistical standpoint,  J.J. (arguably) took a bit of a step backward:

Year	Team	Lg	Age	Org.	Level	Unif	Pos	Ln	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	HBP	IBB	SH	SF	DP	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
2002	OKL	Big12	19	-	NCAA				46	104	18	34	8	1	3	17	0	0	11	13	0		3	3	2	.327	.381	.510	891
2003	OKL	Big12	20	-	NCAA	-			57	213	44	82	18	1	9	42	0	0	22	25	0		1	6	5	.385	.432	.606	1038
2004	OKL	Big12	21	-	NCAA				61	240	48	84	12	0	8	57	0	0	34	23	3		0	1	13	.350	.435	.500	935
	PHI	GCL	21	Phi	Rk		c		1	3	1	2	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	.667	.667	.667	1334
	BAT	NYPL	21	Phi	A-		c		31	112	11	25	5	0	1	14	0	1	12	27	1	0	0	2	3	.223	.299	.295	594
2005	LAK	SAL	22	Phi	A		c		119	448	46	136	28	4	8	63	2	3	44	72	2	3	1	1	15	.304	.368	.438	806
2006	REA	East	23	Phi	AA		c		93	322	35	80	25	1	6	39	0	1	32	56	4	0	1	5	13	.248	.320	.388	708
	SCR	IL	23	Phi	AAA		c		2	6	0	1	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	1	0	.167	.143	.167	310
2007	OTT	IL	24	Phi	AAA	15	c		118	435	52	118	13	4	6	56	0	1	50	79	5	3	2	4	18	.271	.350	.361	711
2008	LEH	IL	25	Phi	AAA	15			115	421	48	112	20	0	8	39	1	1	42	82	6	4	2	2	12	.266	.340	.371	711

 

Fewer hits, runs scored, RBIs and walks, coupled with a lower average, and higher strike out totals.  Not dramatic declines, but the numbers in the areas where he did improve were also not that impressive – slugging percentage (up 10 pts) was offset by a 10 pt. decline in OBP.  Home runs were up 2 – from 6 in 2007 to 8 in LHV.  All of this of course, following what should have been a franchise move to a more baseball “friendly” environment – a “better stadium”, more fans and “better” weather.  Funny how that worked, huh?

With Lou Marson getting the September call up to the Phillies in the fall of 2008, the writing may have been on the wall for the former Lynx catcher; Marson seems to have supplanted J.J as the Philadelphia catcher of the future.  The trade may also have repercussions for another blog “favorite”, Chris Coste (whom we affectionately dubbed “complainer” and “the suck”).

The deal for Paulino also gives the Phightins’ ample flexibility when it comes to the futures of fellow backstops Chris Coste and Louis Marson. Coste, a local hero of the first kind, is likely to be dealt in spring training for either a relief pitcher or another bat off the bench. It has been rumored that both the Baltimore Orioles and Florida Marlins have some interest in the right-handed hitting Coste.

More tomorrow, including another FLP update.

Catching up

FOTL and the blog in general, Tricia catches me up on some of the goings on of the alumni of your Ottawa Lynx.  Honestly, if I had a shred of decency, I’d hand the reins of the blog over to Trish; most of what has appeared in the FLP department is courtesy of her work.

FLP updates

National League
PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES-Named **Pete Mackanin** bench coach and Sam Perlozzo
third base coach.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS-Named Matt LeCroy manager, **Rich Gale** pitching
coach, and Ramon Aviles coach for Hagerstown (SAL).

Atlantic League
NEWARK BEARS-Named **Tim Raines** manager and signed him to a two-year
contract.

Thanks Trish!

Some time ago, friend of the blog Neate Sager fired over a quick report on the whereabouts of the Ottawa Lynx’s unofficial photographer, Patrick Shanks.  Some of you may know that Patrick is also in a soon to be famous local “garage” band.

Neate reports:

“Thought you might like seeing this… I am in awe a redheaded guy can wear a red shirt in public and pull it off.”

(courtesy of Andrew Carver’s Natcaprock blog)

Waffle house

September begins with an explosion of pop-garage sweetness down at Popes Lane (I idly wonder if there’s any connection with my neighbours in Pope House). The lane’s inhabitants were having their Labour Day shindig, replete with inflatable castle, champagne and live entertainment from Ottawa’s pancakinest duo, Shanker and Romps.

Merchandising action!

That garage in full!

As always, more later.

Set for life?

Sorry about how quiet it’s been over here (for too long).  If things go as I expect shortly, I’ll likely have more time for this blog.  [cough]

But back to today’s title.  Given the recent news out of Philadelphia, I wondered if fears for my retirement may be misplaced – stock market crash notwithstanding.

With the enviable task of repeating as World Series champions ahead of them, the Phillies turned to a former bat boy to take over as their general manager.

Ruben Amaro Jr. signed a three-year contract Monday to become general manager of the Phillies a quarter-century after he was handing lumber to Hall of Famers Mike Schmidt and Steve Carlton as a starry-eyed teenager.

                                                                                    +

 

Just sayin’…