C’s hope season, revamped park cover all the bases
If you build it, they will come.
Like Kevin Costner’s iconic movie character Ray Kinsella, Vancouver Canadians president Andy Dunn has his own field of dreams. It’s called Scotiabank Field at Nat Bailey Stadium, and it’s now bigger.
Thanks to off-season renovations, there are about 750 extra seats to fill. That doesn’t figure to be a problem for the C’s, who played to near-capacity crowds last season.
Tonight’s Northwest League home-opener against the Hillsboro Hops of Oregon is sold out, and if Vancouver’s marvellous weather continues there figures to be many more of those this summer.
The C’s opened this season with an eight-game road trip that concluded Thursday in TriCities, Wash. Vancouver took a 3-4 record into that game, having gone 2-3 against the Volcanoes in Salem-Keizer and splitting the first two games against the Dust Devils.
The C’s have been the Single-A short season affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays since 2011. And the team has been on quite the run. Vancouver had strung together three consecutive Northwest League championships before losing in last year’s final to Hillsboro.
Although their relationship is still a young one, a number of former C’s have already moved up the minor-league chain and played for the Blue Jays.
Outfielder Kevin Pillar (2011) and pitcher Roberto Osuna (2012) are former C’s who are on the current active roster of the Blue Jays. Pitcher Marcus Stroman (2012), who went 11-6 with the Blue Jays last season, is missing this season with a torn ACL. And the Jays’ top draft pick this season, right-hander Jon Harris (29th overall), will make his professional debut tonight against the Hops.
The new seats at The Nat, located down the left-field line and beyond the wall in left field, will increase capacity to nearly 6,000. Dunn says they were needed to meet demand.
“I think we averaged 4,800 or 4,900 last season,” says Dunn. “We were about 96 per cent capacity last year. We were getting to the point where we were turning people away and that’s no fun. People are like, wow, you are selling the place out a lot and I’m like, that’s not fair for the guy who drives in from the Valley on a Saturday night and wants to take his kids to a ball game and the only place he can get a ticket is from a scalper.
“That’s not the experience we want. So it was time to put in some more seats.”
Tonight’s game is the first of 38 home dates for the C’s. The home schedule includes seven of the team’s popular nooners (1:05 p.m. starts) and nine “fireworks extravaganzas.”
Fans tonight can expect some heat from Harris, who was first drafted by the Jays back in 2012 (in the 33rd round) when he was a six-foot, 160-pound Missouri high school student. The fireballer elected instead to go to Missouri State and — three years later, an additional three inches taller and 30 pounds heavier — he finally lands in Vancouver as part of the Jays’ organization.
The 21-year-old is 19-9 over three NCAA seasons with a 3.09 earned-run average and 243 strikeouts in 43 games. He was 8-2 with a 2.45 ERA in his final year. His 116 strikeouts in 103 total innings ranked 12th in the NCAA.
For his part, Dunn knows it’s more than just the baseball that brings people to the ballpark.
“We try to be very focused on the affordability,” he says.
“We work very hard as an organization to make sure this place is very welcoming of families. I love the fact that families can come to the ballpark and it not cost them a fortune and leave for home with a great memory. That is what it is all about.”