EXTRA BASES XV -- Dandy Wood, Lutton, Birnie, Fab 50s, Baseball Canada banquet
Tip O’Neill Candidates, BA top prospects

By BOB ELLIOTT

We often get asked who will be the next Canadian to make the majors.
And we always hedge our bets. It’s impossible to know for sure.
It could be C Cole Armstrong (Surrey, BC) who was at Triple-A Charlotte and Double-A Birmingham in the Chicago White Sox organization.
Maybe it will be outfielder Mike Saunders (Victoria, BC), who spent a portion of the 2008 season with the Tacoma Rainiers. The Seattle Mariners prospect has the country covered: his grandpa Calvin runs Minnehaha commercial hunting and fishing lodge (Gander, Nfld.), his father Dr. Derek Saunders moved to Victoria, B.C. in 1981 and mom Jane is from Mississauga, Ont.
Or it could be reliever James Henderson (Calgary, Alta.) who spent some time at Triple-A Iowa in the Chicago Cubs system.
We do know for a fact who the newest Canuck to play in the majors was -- and it was not Boston Red Sox catcher George Kottaras (Markham, Ont.)
Outfielder George (Dandy) Wood it turns out was born somewhere in Prince Edward Island according to the good folks Retrosheet, who were given the information by the hard-working SABR researchers.
You have never heard about Wood?
Well, neither had we until this week.
But he was a Dandy.
Born Nov. 9, 1858 in PEI -- the town as yet unknown -- he made his debut with the Worcester Ruby Legs of the National League, May 1, 1880, played 13 seasons, including one year as playing manager, umpred three seasons and died April 24 In Harrisburg, PA. He’s buried in a cemetery at Franklin, Mass. Baseball-reference.com lists his place of birth as Boston.
Wood is not the first later-day discovery as a lot of Canadians in the 1800s lied about their birth place to gain employment.
After the 1880 season in Worchester, he spent five years with the Detroit Wolverines, then in 1886 moved to the Philadelphia Philies for 5 1/2 seasons and then on to the Baltimore Orioles of the American Association.
He spent 1982 with the Cincinnati Reds and then retired.
In all, he played 1,280 games, one of 13 Canadians to appear in more than 1,000 or more game.
Larry Walker (Maple Ridge, BC) led all Canucks appearinging in 1,988, in a career which spanned from 1985 to 2005. The others:
Matt Stairs (Fredricton, NB) 1,662, 1992-2008; Terry Puhl (Melville, Sask), 1,531, 1997-91;
Jack Graney (St. Thomas, Ont.) 1,430, 1908-22; Jeff Heath (Fort William, Ont.) 1,383 1936-49; George Gibson (London, Ont.) 1,213, 1905-18; Frank O’Rourke (Hamilton, Ont.) 1,131, 1912-31; Pop Smith (Digby, N.S.) 1,112, 1880-91; Tip O’Neill (Springfield, Ont.), 1,054, 1883-1892; Bill Phillips (St. John, N.B.) 1,038, 1879-88; and Arthur Irwin (Toronto, Ont.), 1,010 1890-1894.
Wood had 228 doubles, 132 triples, 68 homers and 418 RBIs, retiring with a career .273 average.

Fab 50s: Howie Birnie’s first season in baseball was 1959. He played for coach Matty Eckler at Toronto Playgrounds.
Jim Lutton drove his brother Ted to Alexandria Park for the Oshawa Legionnaires practice in the spring of that same year and hung around for a game of catch. At the end of practice Ted was asked to coach the team.
“I’ll coach if my brother Jim manages,” Ted said.
“But I don’t have a car,” Jim said.
“Not to worry, you can drive mine when I’m working, I work only a couple of blocks away from your house,” said Red MacDermott, an Oshawa policeman.
And so, Lutton was involved with the 1959 Oshawa junior program.
Here they are now still together.
Still in baseball.
Each just finished their 50th season.
How many ground balls have they seen go through the wickets?
How many great kids lives have they affected over the decades?
How many disputes between umpires have they seen? Have they been involved with, as both umpires as well?
How many have OBA meetings have they attended over the years?
Both survived so long with a wonderful sense of humor and they adapted as the attitude of the players changed.
Lutton’s most recent visit to a doctor for hand surgery almost earned him a spot on David Letterman.
Birnie compares Lutton’s post-game emails to the media on how the Legionaires did as showing a similar style to the legendary Hall of Fame scribe Ted Reeve.
Birnie knows the rules front and back and while he has a deep love for the game, he has a deeper dislike for the bad umpiring we saw in the World Series.
“As a player I used to yell at the umpires all the time -- until I became an ump,” Birnie remembers and he winks and says “Oshawa, Lutton’s umps were the worst. I seldom lasted the whole game in that park.”
The deal for Lutton in Year I was to walk to the police station and borrow the cruiser or wait for MacDermott to pick him up.
One night MacDermott was driving Lutton home when the car ran out of gas.
They were walking home when a car stopped and offered them a lift, to either the gas station or home. MacDermott told the driver just to take them home.
“Why didn’t we let him drive us to the gas station and back to the car, rather than going in and waking up your wife?” Lutton asked.
“Well, I didn’t have the heart to remind the guy I nailed him for impaired driving two weeks ago and he’d lost his license.”
Lutton remembers working the plate in a Port Hope-Oshawa playoff game.
First pitch of the game was a low strike at the knee.
Lead-off man “What kind of an f---ing call was that?”
Second pitch was a little lower, ball one, 1-1 count.
Hitter: “Same f---ing spot, same f---ing spot!”
Lutton: “Ok, let me get this straight ... do you think both pitches were in the same spot?”
Hitter: “Yeah!”
Lutton: “Ok, the count is now 0-2 then, understand? You understand catch?”
The next pitch was a high fastball, which resulted in a swing and a miss, strike three.
The hitter headed back to the bench.
Now, the third base coach came running: “Hold it, Jimmy you called the second pitch a ball.”
Lutton: “Oh you’re right, I did called it a ball, but I had it wrong, your hitter straightened me out. Ask him.”
Over to the dugout Lutton and the coach went.
The hitter re-told the same story.
The coach pointed to the end of the bench and told the hitter he could watch the game from there.
Problem solved and Lutton didn’t eject anyone.
Lutton is a life member, an OBA past-president (1975-76) and was a Syl Apps (Kingston, Ont. -- Canada's first capital) recipient winner in 1991.
We first met Lutton in 1967 and saw Birnie play for the Leaside Maple Leafs the next year. We didn’t meet Birnie until the mid-1970s.
We consider both dear baseball friends and once when Lutton was honoured we wrote he was older than the walls of Kinsmen Stadium and had attended Queen’s University a year after Sir John A. Macdonald, a father of Confederation in our first capital ... Kingston.
You should have seen all the nasty emails we received from irate Lutton supporters who didn’t know our long-term relationship. 
Adults will casually mention that they played for Leaside as a kid. Next time Birnie sees them he’ll say “in 1974 you used lived at 14 Oak Street (or where ever) apartment 2C?”
Birnie has the records. He can look it up.
Birnie is also keeper of the shrine known at Talbot Park in Toronto, friend to right-handed hitters aiming to clear the Screen Monster and for to left-handed hitters when right fielders set up 420 feet away from home plate. (“Get back in the park,” comes the cry from the other dugout as a long drive dies in a mitt.”)
We know one man who drives along Eglington on his way to work, sees Birnie watering or raking and honks the horn. On our friend’s way home Birnie is there again watering and raking, so he honks his horn again.
“I’ve said in meetings I sometimes wonder about all the fuss is about guys playing for different teams,” Birnie said. “I remember East York had two kids from Peterborough playing with East York addresses. The other teams claimed that they weren’t living there. Carmen Bush said ‘well if someone wants to follow them home, go right ahead.’ No one ever did a thing.
“Those two guys turned out OK, Greg Hamilton went on to Princeton, now puts all the Team Canada teams together and does a great job. Rick Johnston was a great competitor for Team Canada and now makes his living running a hitting facility (The Baseball Zone) in Mississauga.”  
Birnie is the OBA registrar, an honorary member, an OBA past president (1991-92) and current Leaside president. But a better round-up of his remarkable career can be found here.
Four times in a seven-year span Lutton’s juniors reached the nationals of late and he served as Oshawa president from 1968-74 and from 1987-1993.
Birnie is rarin’ to go for season No. 51. Lutton, meanwhile, is coming off Dec. 14 hernia surgery and  has not worked high school basketball games since last spring, although we hear that none of the coaches or players are depressed.
Lutton is wondering whether he should return next spring. Maybe it’s time to get on the blower or jot him and email (jelutton@sympatico.ca) and tell him he had better darn well be back because Oshawa baseball will not be the same without him around. 
They named a building after Manny Eckler, Birnie’s first coach.
They should be naming ball fields after Birnie and Lutton.

Don't Ya Dare Miss it: The seventh annual Baseball Canada banquet takes place Saturday Jan. 24 at the Renaissance Toronto Hotel at Rogers Centre in Toronto, Ont.
Many of the programs’ big-league alumni and current national team players attend the banquet each year, along with several professional and amateur baseball executives and dignitaries in what will be a perfect warm-up session for the upcoming World Baseball Classic at the Rogers Centre.
Baseball Canada will honour the best from its national teams and players both past and present, including its 2008 Olympic and World Junior clubs.
An auction will take place featuring several popular and exclusive items. Featured items include tickets to the 2009 MLB All-Star Game in St. Louis and to college football games at the University of Michigan and the University of Notre Dame. Also featured is a one-week stay at a luxurious golf and ski resort in Panorama, B.C., and autographed pieces of baseball memorabilia.
Tickets to the event, which will be emceed by Blue Jays radio Hall of Fame calibre announcer Jerry Howarth, cost $400 per person, $3,200 for a table of eight guests or $4,000 for a table of ten guests.
Baseball Canada has registered charitable status.
For more info, contact Greg Hamilton, director of national teams (613-748-5606, ext. 225, or via e-mail at ghamilton@baseball.ca).
To book a table.

Rids farewell: When the time came baseball men knew what to do ... as if it was a sunny summer evening and there was a hot prospect to see.
Alex Messier (Montreal, Que.), who scouts for the Los Angeles Angels drove six hours in a snow storm to say a final farewell to Minnesota Twins and Toronto Blue Jays scout Jim Rildey.
Jayson Bryans (Windsor, Ont.), of the Kansas City Royals made the drive from western Ontario.
Cleveland Indians prospect Nick Weglarz (Stevensville, Ont.) made the drive from a wedding in Ajax and turned around and headed back after paying his respects.
Jim Fanning (Dorchester, Ont.) and Tom Valcke (St. Marys, Ont.), of the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame made the snowy trip together.
Fanning, the former Montreal Expos manager and GM as well as being of a Milwaukee Braves scout told Ridley’s twin sons Shayne and Jeremy along with daughter Shannon how he had signed Ridley to a contract with the Braves in the early 1960s.
“Our man in Montreal Roland Gladu had signed Ron Piche and he told me 'we have to go to Toronto to see this kid outfielder who could really fly,” Fanning said. “We took him over to Maple Leaf Stadium for a workout. They had tin fence in the outfield. Let’s say it was a noisey workout.”
Ridley peppered the fence with line drives and decided he’s try school first, so Fanning set him up with his school Buena Vista University in Iowa and then Ridley turned pro.
Check out all the wonderful tributes to Rids at EXTRA BASES XIII.

Picking ‘08 Tipster an uneasy task: It was a crowded ballot for the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame to pick the 2008 Tip O’Neill award winner.
The award is presented annually to the Canadian player to have excelled in individual achievement and team contribution while adhering to the game’s highest ideals.
More than 10 players made the ballot including post-season hero Matt Stairs (Fredericton, NB), 17-game winner Ryan Dempster (Gibsons, BC) and Justin Morneau (New Westminster, BC) runner-up in the American League MVP voting.
Not that it is a crowded team picture bu the likes of 3B-OF Mark Teahen (St. Marys, Ont.), RP Jesse Crain (Toronto, Ont.), LHP Erik Bedard (Navan, Ont.), RP Eric Gagné (Mascouche, Que.) LHP Jeff Francis (North Delta, BC), INF Peter Orr (Newmarket, Ont.), RP RJ Swindle (Vancouver, BC), RHP Scott Richmond (Vancouver, BC), RHP Shawn Hill (Georgetown, Ont.), C George Kottaras (Markham, Ont.), C Luke Carlin (Ayler, Que.) and LHP-1B Adam Loewen (Surrey, BC). didn’t make the ballot.
Check out the winner baseballhalloffame.ca for the announcement:
The alpha list:
LF Jason Bay (Trail, BC), Boston Red Sox.
Traded in a deal that sent Manny Ramirez to the Dodgers, Bay helped the Red Sox to post-season play. He hit 31 home runs batting .286 and slugging .522. With 165 hits, 101 RBIs and 111 runs in 2008 this was the fifth consecutive seasons Bay hit at least 20 homers and knocked in at least 80 runs. In 11 playoff games with the Red Sox (the first playoff games of Bay’s career), he was 14/41 (.341 average), including three homers, three doubles and nine RBIs. 
RHP Chris Begg (Uxbridge, Ont.), Team Canada-San Francisco Giants system.
Canada didn’t qualify for the medal round, but it was not for a lack of success on Begg’s part. He had a 1-1 record, an 0.75 ERA (3rd best), striking out 14 batters in 12 innings pitched.
RHP Ryan Dempster (Gibsons, BC), Chicago Cubs
Dempster’s 17 wins for the Cubs were third best in the NL. He started 33 games and struck out 187 in 206 innings. Dempster struck out the side in his inning of work at the all-star game at Yankee Stadium. He finished fifth in NL Cy Young voting and has also been nominated as Starter of the Year by This Year in Baseball and for the Roberto Clemente award.
RHP Rich Harden (Victoria, BC), Chicago Cubs
Harden was traded to the Cubs midway through the season and was helped through the stretch run, going 5-1 with a 1.77 ERA, striking out 89 in 71 innings. His combined record was 10-2 with a microscopic season ERA of 2.07, striking out 181 in 148 innings. Harden needed 162 innings pitched to qualify for the official ERA title.
C Brett Lawrie (Langley, BC), Milwaukee Brewers, Team Cananda National Junior Team, Team Cananda, Olympics.
Lawrie was drafted in the first round by the Milwaukee Brewers, 16th overall, the highest a Canadian position player has ever been selected. He won the MVP Award in the World Junior Tournament in Edmonton. He hit .469 (15-for-32) with three homers and four triples and 16 RBIs. Lawrie was added for the Beijing Olympic roster. Rob Butler (East York, Ont.) was the only previous athlete to have played for both Canadian National teams in the same season in 1988. Lawrie signed for $1.7 million US (the fourth highest bonus given a Canadian player).
C Russell Martin (Montreal, Que), Los Angeles Dodgers
Martin had another all-star season for the Dodgers, batting .280 with 69 RBIs, 90 bases on balls, 18 stolen bases and a .385 on-base percentage.  In the post-season he had a home run, three doubles and six RBIs as the Dodgers were eliminated in the National League Championship Series by the Philadelphia Phillies. His 155 games played is a season record for Canadian catchers, as was his number of at bats (553), walks (90), and runs (87).
1B Justin Morneau (New Westminster, BC), Minnesota Twins
Morneau finished second in MVP voting to Dustin Pedroia of the Boston Red Sox. Morneau hit .300, led all major leagues by playing in all 163 of the Twins games, amassed 187 hits (5th in AL), 23 homeruns, 47 doubles and 129 RBIs (2nd) while compiling a .499 slugging mark. He made the AL all-star team and won the Home run Derby at Yankee Stadium. Morneau also captured his second Silver Slugger Award, becoming only the second Canadian to win the award more than once (Larry Walker, three times). He won the Twins MVP Award for 2008, and also the Bob Allison Award for Leadership. He was nominated for the Marvin Miller Award, the Pepsi Clutch Hitter of the Year, the Hitter of the Year, by This Year in Baseball, and the Hank Aaron Award.
OF-1B Matt Stairs (Fredericton, NB), Philadelphia Phillies, Toronto Blue Jays
Stairs began the season with the Jays and finished it taking a World Series victory parade down Broad Street in Philadelphia. He hit 13 home runs with 49 RBIs in only 337 at bats playing for the Jays and Philadelphia Phillies. His 255th career home run was by far the biggest of his career, as he belted a 450-foot shot in Dodger Stadium while pinch-hitting in the eighth of Game 4 of the NLCS with the score tied 5-5.  The home run was a game winner and put the Phillies a win away from a berth in the Series. They beat the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in five games as Stairs won his first ring.
3B Ashley Stephenson (Mississauga, Ont.), Team Canada Women
Stephenson led Canada to a silver medal at the 2008 women’s World Cup with a .625 average (10-for-16), including a pair of doubles. Ashley was walked six times, scored seven runs and driving in nine runs. An all-star third baseman Stephenson was Baseball Canada’s Women’s National Team MVP.
1B Joey Votto (Etobicoke, Ont.), Cincinnati Reds
Votto finished second in National League Rookie of the Year voting  to Cubs catcher Geovany Soto with a .297 average. He had 156 hits, 24 home runs, 32 doubles, 84 RBIs and a .506 slugging percentage. The Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame points out those numbers would have won him the NL Rookie of the Year Award in most years. When Jason Bay became the first Canadian to be named NL Rookie of the Year in 2004, he hit 26 home runs with 82 RBIs and a .282 average. Votto has been nominated for the Hank Aaron Award and the Rookie of the Year by This Year in Baseball.
OF Nick Weglarz (Stevensville, Ont), Team Canada, Cleveland Indians system
Weglarz led the Canadian Olympic team in Beijing with a .400 average (10-for-25) and a .750 slugging mark. He had two home runs and a pair of doubles. At Single-A ball in the Indians organization, Weglarz knocked 10 homeruns and had 41 RBI in 106 games.

Prospecting: OF Mike Saunders (Victoria, BC) made the highly-respected Baseball America Top 10 prospect list amongst the Seattle Mariners farmhands. Signed by Wayne Norton (Port Moody, BC), Saunders hit .239, with three homers and 16 RBIs at Triple A Tacoma Rainiers. He batted .290, with eight homers and 30 RBIs at Double-A West Tennessee. Saunders missed a month to represent Canada in the Olympics. RHP Phillipe Aumont (Gatineau, Que.) is ranked third after going 4-4, with a 2.75 ERA at Single-A Wisconsin. Also signed by Norton, Aumont was judged to have the best fastball in the Seattle system. The M’s fastest base runner is Tyson Gillies (Langley, BC) and he was voted as having the best outfield arm. ... OF Nick Weglarz (Stevensville, Ont.) came in at third on the Cleveland Indians list. Weglarz hit .272, with 10 homers and 41 RBIs at Single A, Kinston, despite missing a month for the Olympics. Signed by scout Les Pajari, he was adjudged as having the best strike-zone discipline by managers. ... C Cole Armstrong (Surrey, BC) ranked as No. 9 in the Chicago White Sox system and also was named the best defensive catcher. Armstrong, signed by Al Goetz of the Braves out of Chipola where he was a teammate of Adam Loewen (Surrey, BC), hit .275 with two homers and 17 RBIS at Triple-A Charlotte and .252, with six homers and 31 RBIs at Double A, Birmingham.  

Letters of Intent: For both the spring of 2009 -- our 2009 In College list will be coming soon -- and the fall of  2010.

WBC-seeing u soon: Once again the World Baseball Classic dates at the Rogers Centre
Game 1, Saturday, March 7 -- Team Canada vs. Team USA, 2 p.m.
Game 2, Saturday, March 7 -- Italy vs. Venezuela, 8 p.m.
Game 3, Sunday, March 8 -- Winner Game 1 vs. Winner Game 2, 8 p.m.
Game 4, Monday, March 9 -- Loser Game 1 vs. Loser Game 2, 6:30 p.m.
Game 5, Tuesday, March 10 -- Loser Game 3 vs. Winner Game 4 5 p.m.
Game 6, Wednesday, March 11 -- Winner Game 3 vs. Winner Game 5 6:30 p.m.
(Losers of Game 4 and Game 5 are eliminated.)
(Game 6 will decide first and second-place placings for the second round.)

Post away: Have a favorite memory or story of the Jim Lutton, Howie Birnie or a past the Baseball Canada banquet send us an email to:
bobelliott49@gmail.com and we’ll post it ...

Bobby:

Nice, deserving and overdue praise on Jim Lutton and Howie Birnie. They are from the Toronto area and have only met each briefly at the nationals years ago and years apart, but every community has a staunch Mr. Baseball and they deserve to be recognized for their continued devotion to our game.

Tracy

Bob:

The Baseball Canada banquet is the No. 1 date on my calendar each winter. It’s something I look forward to each year. Where else can I tell friends about how I sat one table down from a lady holding up her cell phone so her daughter could hear a presentation to the Team Canada National Junior Team program MVP.
And then three years later follow on your web site to read that the same player went in the first round of the June 2008 draft -- good for you Brett Lawrie. As Larry Walker once said to Justin Morneau: "You make Canada proud."

I’ll be there.

Chris