By Kevin Glew

Canadian Baseball Network

Canadian Baseball Network founder Bob Elliott was inducted into the Baseball Ontario Hall of Fame on Saturday.

The Kingston, Ont., native was honoured, along with former big league catcher and current Blue Jays Central analyst Joe Siddall (Windsor, Ont.), former OBA secretary A.J. Walsh (Lindsay, Ont.) and the Chatham Coloured All-Stars team (a team that excelled in the 1930s), in a ceremony at the Brookstreet Hotel in Ottawa on Saturday

Though Elliott broke numerous stories about the Montreal Expos and Toronto Blue Jays in his close to four decades covering major league baseball, it’s his tireless efforts in shining the spotlight on homegrown talent that has earned him the Baseball Ontario Hall of Fame honour.

His Canadian Baseball Network website (www.canadianbaseballnetwork.com), which tracks the top Canadian draft candidates, college players and minor league players, has become the go-to source for Canadian amateur baseball information.

What’s not as widely known about Elliott is that he was a baseball coach in Ottawa in the late ’70s and early ’80s when his job permitted. He was one of the early coaches of what has evolved into the PBLO’s Ottawa-Nepean Canadians and he continues to coach sandlot ball in the Mississauga area to this day.

Elliott says he will cherish his Baseball Ontario Hall of Fame nod, which is his latest in a long list of honours.

After receiving the Career Achievement Award from Sports Media Canada in 2008 and being inducted into the Ottawa Nepean Canadians Hall of Fame in 2009, he was honoured with the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame’s Jack Graney Award the following year. In 2012, he became the first Canadian recipient of the National Baseball Hall of Fame’s J.G. Taylor Spink Award. He has also been inducted into the Kingston Sports Hall of Fame (2013), the Okotoks Dawgs/Seaman Stadium Hall of Fame (2014), the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame (2015) and was the recipient of the Premier Baseball League of Ontario’ (PBLO) Lifetime Achievement Award that same year. He was also named the Brian Williams Award winner by the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame in 2016. The Brian Williams award was not for speaking it should be pointed out.

“I’m humbled to be honoured by Baseball Ontario,” said Elliott, adding how nice it was to see former Canadians like Billy Courchaine, Conrad Young and former GM Don Campbell, who was responsible for rounding up all the troops.

“It's the hard-working coaches, executives and players that dedicate countless hours to baseball in Ontario that deserve the praise,” Elliott said. “I’m a writer, and writing about these players is a privilege and a passion.”

Elliott said he had to check with OBA HOFers Jim Lutton (Oshawa, Ont.) and Howie Birnie, (Leaside, Ont.) both former umpires, to see if this honour comes with an expanded strike zone for his pitchers next spring (“Only an inch on each side,” he joked.)

Canadian Baseball Network founder inducted into the OBA Hall