January 23, 2024

By Bob Elliott

Canadian Baseball Network

Another new year and another Canadian Baseball Network expert is placed.

Peter Berryman, who has run our weekly Canadians in College master list and our weekly Canadians in College stats update for years, has been hired by the Kansas City Royals. Peter was hired as a major league strategy analyst by the club on Jan. 16.

Peter did not get the job because of the Canadian Baseball Network. He got it on his own. Peter was a runner-up as an intern for the Houston Astros a couple of years back and was also working for Slack Sports, which operates GamePlan, a provider of athlete development and game preparation software, built to help teams take their player and team development to the next level. This platform is used by over 40 pro sports teams, including six of the past seven World Series winners.

Now, football fans might recognize the name. Well, Peter’s pop Tim (Pop) Berryman (Burlington, Ont.) was the middle linebacker for the undefeated and untied University of Ottawa Gee-Gees in 1975. He was nicknamed Pop not because he had children, but because he “Popped” opposition running backs. Made them stand up straight. They ran the table under coach Don Gilbert going 11-0 and beating the Calgary Dinosaurs 14-9 at Varsity Stadium.

Peter, who played for the Auburn Tigers, will act as a liaison between the research and development team and the major league staff. That will involve travelling to spring training as well as home and away games. He will perform ad-hoc analytics tasks for the coaching staff to prepare for a series/game.

As well he will help build and interpret advance scouting reports for the coaching staff. During the offseason, he will work with the research and development team to provide data driven insights at all levels of the organization.

Canadians already with the Royals are minor leaguers RHP Eric Cerantola (Oakville, Ont.), LHP Jordan Woods (Oakville, Ont.), minor-league coordinator Scott Thorman (Cambridge, Ont.), Yannick Plante (Hearst, Ont.) strength and conditioning coach, triple-A Omaha, plus scouts Chris Reitsma (Calgary, Alta.) and Adam Stern (London, Ont.).

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Poppa Tim was general manager of Birmingham Thunderbolts in the XFL. In 1995, Tim and Entertainment Ventures Associates brought hockey to Louisiana. By 1998, Tim and company helped lead the Louisiana IceGators to numerous East Coast Hockey attendance records. The IceGators averaged 9,775 fans in the first season and followed that with an average of 11,443 the second year. In that second year 28 of 35 home dates were sellouts. Year three saw an average of over 11,000 in hot and steamy Louisiana, not exactly previously considered a hockey hotbed.

From there Tim wrote the business plan for the Arkansas RiverBlades hockey team and put a plan and personnel in place for the Arkansas Twisters to average almost 14,000 fans per game and lead all arenafootball2 teams in attendance.

Tim played seven years in the Canadian Football League after being the first player selected in the 1976 CFL entry draft by the Edmonton Eskimos. He went on to receive various awards during his pro career while starting at linebacker for both the Ottawa Rough Riders and Toronto Argonauts for six years. He was a starting linebacker on the 1982 Argonauts Grey Cup team.

He then worked as a corporate sales/finance manager for Xerox Corporation in both Ottawa and Greensboro, N.C. From Xerox, Tim moved to Americas Research Group as vice president.