Go Jays Go!!!

All of Canada is watching as the Toronto Blue Jays try to win the World Series but there is also a strong connection between Medicine Hat and the Blue Jays. Former Medicine Hat Blue Jay Greg Morrison joins Brian on the Porch to talk about the connection and his efforts to keep the legacy of baseball alive in Medicine Hat.

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Transcript

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The J's, partially through. My dad said, hey, Greg's available. Chris McKenna was the GM. Do you remember him? Yeah. And he said, you know what we remember, Greg. They signed me as a local guy. As an extra guy. Didn't even play the first game. And, once I got in there, I think I went one for four or the next game, I think I hit a home run and, I got an extra three years of baseball out of it playing with the Blue Jays. So pretty special, I loved it. Medicine has always been good to me. This episode of Bring Back the Porch, brought to you by Bernie Leahy, River Street Realty. Let's get you home. Harry Carey, the great baseball announcer with the Chicago Cubs, always used to say it's a great day for baseball. It's a great day for baseball in Canada because the Toronto Blue Jays are going to win the World Series. I hope I didn't put the jinx on them, but one more win and they'll do something they haven't done since 1994. And I'm very pleased to welcome to the porch Greg Morrison from The Medicine at Mavericks, because Greg has a unique perspective on the connection between Medicine Hat and the Toronto Blue Jays, because you were a member of the medicine that Blue Jays back in 1995 96. I think it's memory serves. 95 a Dodger in Great Falls, 97 a Blue Jays. So I got to do two tours in the Pioneer League. And so you've got, connections to both teams. So where are your where's your heart in this one. Yeah. Cheering for the underdog. So you know LA they've been there enough. They've they've won enough. You know since the Jays won it 9293. They're it's funny how time goes. Right. You're probably with me on, how the years pass and you judge your life and and not just the soundtrack, but in baseball seasons. Yeah, yeah. Like, who wasn't, was playing in the playoffs that early. I remember a performances by whoever and yeah. Think great memories because we always remember where we were when certain events happened. Like Joe Carter hitting a home run to win that World Series. And what a moment that was. You have seen baseball from the ground up, from the bottom leagues, the rookie leagues. And I wanted to get your perspective. I think, on what everybody's talking about right now. Tree is savage. Here's a kid who in June was playing and at a level ball, which was, where you were in your career, and then he's pitching and setting records in the World Series. I don't think we've ever seen anything like that. Yeah. And to start in Dunedin and work his way all the way up, I think, before that last start, I think they said he had eight major league starts and five of them have been in the playoffs as well. So, he has that unique overhand delivery with that split and Gausman throws one as well. But to salvage his is more of kind of it's got that arm side run. And the hitters just aren't used to seeing that in so much that you're seeing those hitters switch hitters spin around on them, which on rare occasion they will. These generally you want a right handed pitcher and a left handed batter. But some of those guys are mixing it up. They're going righty against them just so they can have that ball coming into their bat swing a little bit as opposed to away. So yeah, it's exciting to watch who's a first rounder. So by by no means was he you know a long shot to get to the big leagues. But, yeah, it's fun to watch him and many other guys. You got Lucas as well. He's been a ten year minor leaguer. Having a chance, you know, one, one win away from winning a World Series ring. So I think everybody's getting behind these guys. You were in the minor leagues. Do you have any connection with any of the people that are involved in the World Series right now? You know, ironically, one of their, professional, scouts from the Jays, it wasn't when I was with the Jays, it was when I was actually in college at the National Baseball Institute in 1994. He was, a college teammate of mine. He's been with the Jays for 26 years and just happened to be flying back to Toronto from L.A. watching the game because he's a pro scout and, shot me a text. He he ran into somebody who knew me on the flight and just shot me a text. So, you know, I'm getting up there a little bit. The guys that I know, they'd be kind of coaches or front office. Obviously there aren't too many, guys playing in their 40s, although it's happening. You're seeing it. Yeah. But, yeah, but still in the game and the Mavericks has provided me that opportunity. Albeit it's summer college, it's amateur kids, but, you know, to see these prospects that are 19, 20, 22 years old come through Medicine Hat still, just like they did many moons ago. Still keeps that passion and keeps me on the field, which I'm very excited to do. Yeah, baseball is a rather small community, though. When you look at it between the minor leagues, in the major leagues, there's people who have been in and out and back and forth, and you get to know these people outside of the diamond so that you have those connections. Medicine hat does have a special relationship to the Blue Jays, though, because from 1978 until I think was 2003, we had their rookie team here. You were a member of the team here back in the day. You still hold the Pioneer League record for I think it's home runs in the season. Yeah. It's been since tied. Someone from the Anaheim Angels. Last name Jackson. He got 23 right. In the last year when the Pioneer League went from affiliated ball. He tied that record. So I had it for almost 20 years. He's tied it. And, since we're we're tied for the home run record in the Pioneer League as as affiliated professional. So, yeah, it was quite the year. The baseball look like watermelons that year. You know, it was just whether it was a first pitch fastball or first pitch slider. Just seems like I could get that sweet spot on the bat, on the ball. And, you know, to do it in my hometown was pretty special. Yeah. Playing for your hometown. Was that difficult or was it easy? It was easy. You know, I had two years with the Dodgers. It was like a it was like a new start, you know, those first two years of the Dodgers, I put so much pressure on myself as a player to say, hey, you know, I've never been here before. I got to do good, you know, almost feel like, the weight of the world on your shoulders sometimes. And then when I got released from the Dodgers, I had just been at home. I'd been working. Working with a sledgehammer, ironically. Which, when you talk about sports specific, swinging, that I don't think it was a coincidence. Swinging that 5 pound sledge for about five months. And, yeah, the Jays, partially through. My dad said, hey, Greg's available. Chris McKenna was the GM. Do you remember him? Yeah. And he said, you know what? We remember, Greg? They signed me as a local guy. As an extra guy. Didn't even play the first game. And, once I got in there, I think I went one for four or the next game, I think I hit a home run, and, I got an extra three years of baseball out of it playing with the Blue Jays. So pretty special, I loved it. Medicine hat's always been good to me. Bill Poole's always been good to me. He owned the team at that time. Big. You know, I still. He's still my mentor. I like to lean on him. Talk to him at least once a year about the baseball and hockey world. So, yeah, it was it was exciting being a local guy. I would think one of your big memories, too, would be the chance to play against the Toronto Blue Jays at Athletic Park. No, you weren't a member of the Blue Jays. You were on the other side of the field. Yeah. So, you know, I went and played college baseball for one year before the Dodgers drafted me. And if you were a Canadian and if you didn't have an opportunity to play in the States, you would go to the NBA. It was out of Surrey. Most of these guys were, you know, 19 to 25 year old guys. Most of them were on the national team. You know, I went there as a real young guy, 17 years old, early graduate, and, yeah, I went out there. I got an invite from my team Canada coach, and it was pretty special. We're hitting outside in January. Can you imagine? So, you know, to me, it was in the rain and it was cold, but it was still, able to be outside in January. And that was really the beginning of my opportunities there, of course, making Team Alberta, Team Canada, but really going to the NBA and then getting drafted. That's where the doors opened up for me. You were unusual because at that time, there weren't a lot of Canadians that were involved in baseball. We've seen it explode since then. But you were kind of in on the ground floor there. Yeah. And you think of you can think of a handful of names. Larry Walker. Right. These are guys kind of coming out of British Columbia. Maple Ridge, I believe you're correct. Yeah. Who was it that came out of Millville there? I think he's still coaching. There would have been in the 70s. You know, I'm. I'm for Houston, right? Yeah, yeah. And he's coaching in Houston now. It'll come to us probably soon, but, Yeah. So you'd have to be pretty darn good. But leagues like the CBL with the Mavericks, they were around in the 60s. So you would see some American guys come up, they would play with the Canadians, and all of a sudden this coach would come up and the Canadian would get an opportunity. So it's not so different 50, 60 years later, right in Madison that we're still very small, small town. You know, our coaches with the Mavericks are from the states. Most of them, obviously, there's me and another local coach, Chad Martin, but it's the same model. It's these amateur kids coming up trying to play, playing for the love of the game, to maybe get an opportunity at the next level. And we've seen a few from the WNBA make it into the major leagues as well. Yeah, absolutely. Every year. So, Medicine Hat, we've had a couple Mike Soroka was going to come pitch for us. He went in the first round. He couldn't come down, but he was ready to come down and play for us. So, Yeah, the league is it's stronger than ever. The league is growing. You know, I was talking to a young pitcher today in Colorado, and I said, you know, you get a unique snapshot of Canada if you come to our league because you'll play in Weyburn, where there's a few thousand fans, population with 30 fans, and then you'll go to Okotoks and you'll play in front of 5000 fans. So medicine that we're kind of right in the middle. We're about 1500 to 2000 fans per game. So it's a great league. And it's a great opportunity for these kids. And baseball is played on a diamond. And when you look at Athletic Park, it truly is a jewel. And you have done a lot of work on that park. Yeah. You know, between the support we've gotten federally or municipally, throw in the passion of the local group of guys out there, pulling weeds out of the cracks of the asphalt because we're just there nonstop. Right? So, athletic Park, add an interesting story to, Ted Grimm. You know. Where my area. That ballpark was built in 1978. And about ten years ago, he told me, he said, you know, Greg, this was $1 million. And you can imagine how big that number was back then. But for the courage for them to see that investment right. In sports. And I don't know what came first. Did the Oakland A's Pioneer League team come first or the ballpark? I don't know that story. If you build it, they will call you. That's right. But, you know, and to this day, it's it's a beautiful ballpark, for the amenities, for the size of our community. Obviously, there's been some inputs over the years. But it still works great for a city our size. Baseball history in Madison that goes back over 100 years to was, there were teams. The monarchs, I believe, was the name. And they played in the original Athletic Park. You know where that was? Oh, you'd have to refresh. Was it across the river or was it down? It was across the river, if you know where. Firehall. Number one is. Yeah, that would probably be the right field corner. Well, Shamrock bottle would be down the left field side, third base side. And the ballpark was sort of the diamond was was there and it was there for quite a few years until they came across the river. So and then the old athletic park, before the new, grandstand that used to be there. It was, I think it was an old green, grandstand. Well, they had to I think it sort of fell to the wayside when they were building the Arena Convention Center. So, yeah, it's had a couple of different, looks. But you have kept baseball alive in Medicine Hat through the Mavericks over many years now, and you have built, quite a success story in Medicine Hat. Well, I appreciate that. You know, when you're getting to live your passion out like you yourself are doing, it's it doesn't feel like work. In fact, sometimes you got to tell yourself to get home because you're at the ballpark too long. But I think, you know, it took some vision of the original owners, and I gotta say, guys like Jim Hearn, Jim Turner, Warren Schaefer, Mike Keck, they got it started. They knew when the Jays left in 2002, we got to keep something here. We got to keep a high level of baseball. Back then it was called the WNBA. The wimple. There was a name change, I think around 2018 to the CBL, but it's the same league. In fact, when I look at that trophy, when we want it, in 2018, there was my hometown and my dad just missed that year was 1972 Unity Cardinals. My dad played in the mid late 60s in unity, but it's on the trophy so you can think of the name changes, the history, the towns. Right. Jamie Campbell came out and just couldn't believe the storied history of the baseball stadiums. Right. He's still talking about us. You'll see him on Sportsnet. He's got a mavericks t shirt on him or a Regina Red Sox hat on. So, we're on the radar as it goes in. And out east. Our league is just growing, and baseball in the prairies is a it's a great thing. And you're helping to keep the baseball going in Madison that through, some of your programs where you work with some of the young kids on the field, they get a chance to come out and play with their heroes of the day. Yeah. As a kinesiology, that's that's my academic background. I knew early on that baseball development, you want kids to learn how to swing and throw when they're eight, nine, ten years old? By the time they're 19, it's hard for me to work with a lot of those kids. So, you know, I'd love nothing more to have half of our mavericks be in local kids. It's a tall order, similar to the Tigers. It's such a great league. Competitively. But there's no reason we can't have two, three, four Medicine Hat kids on our team every year. And it does start young. You got to learn young. It's a passion of ours. Whether it's an eight year old or a 12 year old or a 20 year old from California. We're on the field. And it's the same game, right? It's. You're just trying to show those guys to keep it simple, to have fun and keep that passion out there. I think it was a was it Babe Ruth? No. Roy Campanella used to say you have to be a man to play it, but you got to have a lot of little boy inside. Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, think of these blue jays, right? The stories, the the tears welling up from Vladi. These guys are human and they let us in to their human element this year, I think, like, no other year. Just Snyder talking about the story of losing his brother and his family being at the game. You know, Campbell, I think might even was getting a bit emotional there and that big win. So tonight and tomorrow, we'll see if there's two games. I think Canada's pulling. There's a couple guys. He's some of our junior Mavs. They're pulling for the Dodgers. So I don't hold it against them. They're just not welcome back to the ballpark anymore. That's right. But I think everybody loves an underdog. You know, on us, Mad Hatter's that storied history. We're trying to pull footage to, and we're sharing it on our account, and people are just like, wow, where did that come from? Right. It's it's cool to remember your past when it comes to this stuff. I think a Babe Ruth said you can have a bunch of individuals or really great players, but if they don't play as a team, they're not worth a dime. And to me, that's the hallmark of this Blue Jays team. And you can see it how they support each other in the dugout and you got guys like Clement. I mean he he hit I don't know how many times he got on base in a row. I mean everyone talks about Shohei okay. He's he's another world talent. But a guy like Clement never heard of them until probably the last year. Oh that's right. You've got those guys. All those role players are all in it and they're all pulling the same direction. And that's what makes this team special. Yeah, and I find myself kind of googling during the game because the names I don't know a lot of those guys. And Ernie, you know, he'd been up in the big leagues since 2021 and, you know, not spectacular numbers. He but he just grew into his opportunities. And you just got to be happy for these guys. He man, as, these guys that are, you know, they're going to be starters next year weather hopefully with the Blue Jays. It's a game of opportunity. And those guys have really made the most of their opportunity. And it's family too. You probably saw the clip of David Sanchez, his father videoing. Is that bad? A leadoff home run. Yeah. And his reaction. Yeah. Yeah. I mean it's like I said, they have let us into their clubhouse like no other year and people are really getting behind it. That's something you can't fake. That's something that is a cultural thing. And you can look all the way up to the top. Mark Shapiro, I had the privilege of meeting him ten years ago, and they're just authentic. They he came from the Indians. It's a cultural thing. He was about trying to customize things for the players, give those guys what they need. And then right down to a guy like Pat Gillick. It's always about the player. It has to be about the player with this stuff. Right? So, they've really done something right culturally. A lot of those guys played together in the minor leagues that have come up. So they've been there when, you know, the paychecks weren't, and they're there for the passion and the excitement. So hopefully it's the beginning of a bit of a run for Toronto. You know, usually these things come a bit streaky, but maybe they'll they'll be one of these teams for another 2 or 3, five years, which would all be great for Canada and Canadian baseball. And the Blue Jays have done a marvelous job of spreading that word. Canada's home team, that's sort of their mantra. Yeah. I remember when guys like Gord Ash and Pat Gillick and, Bobby Cox and some of the players would come through here in the middle of winter to meet people from medicine that just to prime the pump and talk about baseball. That's right. Well, and when I was talking to Mr.. You all the other day, it was, it was Oakland A's for one year and then the Blue Jays. Right. Well I think the Blue Jays knew enough that they wanted to be out here in the West and have some representation. Right. So that was a smart play, probably on all sides of, Canada's team. You know, the Pioneer League only had two Canadian teams at that point rate. It was, Lethbridge and Medicine Hat. Right. So, I'm not sure Oakland moved to probably somewhere to the States. Right. But it was a good fit for the Blue Jays to be in our town. As we, record this, we're on the cusp of November, a long way from the first crack of the bat. In the next season. So, what are you doing with the Mavericks now? You know, to take you through a day today. Was talking to a 19 year old pitcher from Colorado and just talking about our program and his availability to come up and pitch. You know, recruitment is a big part. I like to help out with our head coach. Ryan Reed will be returning, this afternoon. Might be talking to a sponsor or trying to help, plan our youth camps. So I'm so lucky to be able to do the on field side of baseball. The off field side of the business and baseball operations in my hometown. It's. I'm very blessed. The community has been amazing to me. They have been. I bought this team in 2009. Originally my conversations were to maybe coach with the prior ownership group and who knows, three weeks later, I owned a baseball team, which I didn't even know what a PNL sheet was at that point. So, the growth, that I've had in the league has had, it's much appreciated. The support through the community and our sponsors. So. Well, the Mavericks provide, lots of good summer entertainment, a great place to go and watch a ball game. And Greg Morrison, I thank you for your visit here. We could go on much longer, but you have to be somewhere else. So thanks for your time. Well, thank you and I appreciate what you're doing for the community as well. Thank you.