By: J.P. Antonacci

Canadian Baseball Network

Regarding the news that baseball will return to the Summer Olympics in 2020, Joe Heeney has just one question – what took so long?

“I think it never should have left. It’s kind of a no-brainer,” said Heeney, an infielder with Canada’s 1984 Olympic team.

“Especially in Tokyo, in Japan, they’re baseball crazy over there, so I think that’ll be great. They may have to rejig it slightly, maybe make it an under-23 tournament, but it should be there 100 per cent.”

The Etobicoke native and his teammates became Canada’s first baseball Olympians after the Cuban national team joined the Soviet boycott of the Los Angeles Summer Games. Canada, regarded as one of the top baseball nations in the world, was asked to pinch hit.

It was the thrill of a lifetime to be playing for his country at Dodger Stadium, Heeney said.

“For a young guy, to know that you were in the Olympics with all those great athletes – it’s an unforgettable experience.”

Facing off against international stars and an American squad stacked with heavy hitters like Barry Larkin and Mark McGwire, Canada finished a respectable fifth out of eight teams.

“When I look back, we were playing the best in the world, so the chances of tearing up that tourney were pretty tough,” Heeney said.

The Canadians dropped an extra-inning game to Nicaragua and scored a moral victory by beating eventual gold-medal winners Japan in the preliminary round.

With “elder statesman” Bobby McCullough locked in at shortstop, Heeney was deemed a utility player. He was ready to play all over the diamond but only appeared in one game, as the designated hitter in a 3-1 loss against Korea.

“I was proud of the guys and the way we played. We were a real team,” he said. “We really stuck together and picked each other up. That was the only way we were going to be successful.”

Team Canada was assembled in Windsor, where coach Eric Mackenzie and the Baseball Canada brain trust chose 20 players – including future major league outfielder Kevin Reimer and pitchers Mike Gardiner and Steve Wilson – to take part in a four-game pre-Olympic tournament in Holland.

Heeney had a great series, notching three multi-hit games and driving in five.

It wasn’t a surprise that the smooth-fielding shortstop hit his stride overseas. Heeney said he always loved sporting the red and white.

“That’s when I really started to be a proud Canadian, when I put the jersey on.”

Earlier in his career, Heeney had made the cut for Canada’s first national junior team, along with Reimer and Rob Thomson, a fellow Olympian who played in the minor leagues and today is the New York Yankees bench coach.

Heeney tried out for the junior team in Windsor after being recruited by famed Blue Jays scout Bob Prentice, who saw him play with the Cambridge Terriers of the Intercounty Baseball League.

He was the final cut at the 1982 Canadian senior team tryouts but made it the following year as a 17-year-old, holding his own at the Intercontinental Cup in Brussels, Belgium.

“To beat Cuba was pretty big. To see how good they were was amazing,” Heeney recalled of the powerhouse island team. “That was my first taste of international competition overseas, and I just loved it.”

Being escorted to and from the ballpark by gun-toting guards at the 1983 Pan-Am Games in Caracas, Venezuela, was another eye-opener for the Etobicoke kid.

Heeney admits to a bit of naiveté in thinking that having a great tournament would be his ticket to the major leagues. The reality was that Canadian players hadn’t yet garnered widespread attention.

“We weren’t even in the draft until the early ‘80s,” Heeney said.  “(Major league teams) still weren’t sold on Canadians. You had to be perfect, actually. But slowly we opened the door.”

Heeney opened eyes at Connors State College in Oklahoma when he was named an All-American in 1983. He believes he was the first Canadian to get a baseball scholarship to Connors State, the beginning of what Heeney describes as “a pipeline” of talent from north of the border to the Sooner State. (Journeyman MLB catcher George Kottaras from Scarborough is a fellow Connors State alumnus.)

“I’m proud of that, because I sort of blazed the trail,” Heeney said.

It was a trail he almost didn’t start out on. The two-sport athlete was drafted by the Toronto Marlies and played one season (1980-81) in Markham with the Waxers of the Ontario Junior Hockey League, where he was second in team scoring behind future NHL star Adam Oates.

“Hockey was in my blood. It was a tough decision,” Heeney said.

Encouraged by his father, Jack, he returned to the diamond, and ended up playing in seven international tournaments.

“I can proudly say I was in three bench-clearing brawls representing my country,” Heeney said with a laugh.

After a trip to Cuba for the 1987 Intercontinental Cup and several other stints with Team Canada, Heeney finished up his playing days as an all-star shortstop and later player-manager with the Intercounty Toronto Maple Leafs.

He also coached several Etobicoke-based rep teams and ran a baseball camp with former minor leaguer Nick Rico, a giant of Etobicoke baseball.

Three decades later, Heeney still takes great pride in being an Olympian. That feeling was magnified when the members of the ‘84 squad – a team Heeney believes should be enshrined in the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame – reunited on the field at Rogers Centre before a May 30 Blue Jays game against the Yankees.

“It was unbelievable. I got a chance to tell some of my teammates who live across Canada how much they did for me as a rookie, and how much I respect them,” Heeney said.

“Brought back amazing memories. All the guys had the same feeling – it was a summer we’ll never forget.”