Dempster has stories for days
Pitcher from Gibsons starred for Cubs, won World Series with Red Sox
The Province is featuring five athletes, one builder and one media member being inducted to the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame on May 31 at a reception at Parq Vancouver.
They join sports medicine’s Alex McKechnie, who revolutionized physiotherapy and has worked with the biggest names in sports; swimming’s Tom Johnson, who among other accomplishments was on 10 Olympics coaching staffs for Canada; the 1900-18 Rossland ladies ice hockey team, which was undefeated in organized play for 17 years; the 1991 national men’s rugby team, which reached the World Cup quarter-finals and included 23 players either born in B.C. or who played rugby in the province, as well as B.C.-born coach Ian Birtwell; and W.A.C. Bennett Award winner Alex Nelson, founding member and three-time president of the North American Indigenous Games Council, women’s rights crusader, and soccer coach for 42 years. Today’s feature is on Ryan Dempster.
Ryan Dempster had already brought the house down a couple of times before doing his Harry Caray routine as a guest on Wait Wait ... Don’t Tell Me! last summer.
Well, not quite the house — the National Public Radio program was being broadcast live outdoors in front of a crowd that was bigger, the Gibsons native reminded the audience, than many he pitched in front of as a Florida Marlin.
“It was amazing, it was at Millennial Park in front of 20,000 people,” Dempster said.
And it sounded like all 20,000 loved his impersonation of the late Caray, the one-of-a-kind announcer who called Major League games for 53 years, the final 16 of them as the voice of the Chicago Cubs.
“I remember watching Harry when I was 10 years old, it was ’87, one of those I-got-it-you-got-it balls in centre field fell in for the tying run, it should have been a Cubs win, and I remember Harry on WGN going (in Caray’s voice), ‘There’s a drive to left field, it should be the game, oh Jesus Christ.’ I was like ‘What? Who is this guy?’
“So whenever Cubs games were on it was fun to listen to him. The fact he could talk for an entire inning and it meant nothing about baseball was just, to me, incredible.”
So, which of his many accomplishments is Dempster most proud of? It’s a difficult question to answer.
There’s a ball diamond named after him in his hometown of Gibsons on the Sunshine Coast; there are the two appearances for Canada at the World Baseball Classic (one of which he came out of a three-anda-half year retirement to pitch in); or the fact he’s a two-time National League all-star.
Dempster is the only pitcher in the long history of the Cubs — they were established in 1876 — to have started a game and earned 30 saves in the same season (joining only two others in major league history to have accomplished the feat).
Stories like the time he went into the clubhouse on a bitter cold day in Denver to bring buns and wieners back to the dugout to cook them on the heater during a game, even offering one to the third base ump, earned him a spot on The Sporting News’s 99 Good Guys.
So where would playing in an NHL all-star celebrity game in 2002 rate?
“That was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done in my life,” Dempster said. “I was on a line with Jari Kurri and Phil Esposito.
“Growing up, I loved Jari Kurri and his ability to score. (Former Stanley Cup champ) Butch Goring was our coach and he said, ‘You’re going to be on a line with Kurri and Esposito.’ Espo looks over at me and says, ‘Hey kid, when we’re out there put your stick on the ice and we’ll find it, don’t worry.’”
Sure enough, Dempster said, the puck kept winding up on his tape.
“It was uncanny and so much fun. One of my fondest memories.”
Then there are those two World Series wins, one as a player with the Boston Red Sox in 2013 and one as an executive with his beloved Cubs in 2016, the Cubbies’ first World Series title since 1908.
“Winning the World Series as a player stands taller personally,” Dempster said. “But for the overall worth of the Cubs winning the World Series after 108 years, what that meant to so many people ... the fans and neighbours, people I know from restaurants, people from along my career there who supported me and are huge Cubs fans like Bill Murray or Eddie Vedder and John Cusack, to see these guys (so happy), it was more than just winning a World Series, it was epic to see everyone go through it all.”
Dempster, 41, was 132-133 lifetime in the majors. Divorced, he has three children: Brady, 12; Finley, seven; and Riley, who is nine. She is doing fine, her dad said, after being diagnosed with DiGeorge Syndrome four days after birth.
Also known as 22q11.2 deletion syndrome, it affects swallowing, breathing and speech, causes heart defects and gastrointestinal problems, among other maladies. Riley spent the first two months of her life in hospital. To spend more time with her when she was four and five was one of the reasons Dempster left $US13 million on the table and retired from baseball with a year remaining on his contract in Boston.
The Dempster Family Foundation will hold its ninth annual charity event on June 23 in Gibsons, raising money for 22q awareness.
“Riley still has some little challenges here and there, but she’s doing very well,” he said. “She goes to a public school in Chicago, she reads up a storm, makes her way through her little physical things she has to take care of.
“From where she was to where she is now, we’re blessed, man. And she’s done so much for other kids with 22q ... she’s done more good for humanity, for the good of people, than I have in my entire life.”
The B.C. Sports Hall of Fame induction ceremony is on May 31.