June 23, 2023

By Bob Elliott

Canadian Baseball Network

Mario Antonelli and Steve Cassidy are two graduates from Ottawa’s Glebe Little League program.

1B Antonelli later played for the Ottawa-Nepean Canadians.

OF Steve Cassidy was a heck of a player, as was his brother 1B Bruce, who had soft hands around the bag.

Brother Bruce went on to star with the Ottawa 67s and played with the Chicago Black Hawks. A Carlingwood grad, that was Bruce Cassidy raising the Stanley Cup as his Vegas Golden Knights ruled the world.

Yet, another Glebe grad went far in her field.

Rachel Steinberg works for PA Media (Press Association, like our version of Canadian Press), covering Crystal Palace soccer in Great Britain and writing baseball.

And big-league ball is in London, England this weekend as the Chicago Cubs and the St. Louis Cardinals take their rivalry for a two-game series.

Over 130,000 fans will pack into London Stadium, which has undergone an 18-day transformation to become a state-of-the-art ball park.

Rachel (Ottawa, Ont.) played Glebe Little League, moved around before landing in the United Kingdom in 2017, and in 2019 became a full-time sports journalist.

Working for PA Media, Rachel covers Crystal Palace in the Premier League. Yet, over the years Rachel has kept the diamond fires burning brightly writing about the likes of ...

_ OF Gabriel Rincones, Jr. who was born in Venezuela, played for Scotland, attended Florida Atlantic and was a third-round draft in 2022 of the Philadelphia Phillies.

_ Identical twins, Drs. Kelly and Kirstie Wright, of the British League’s Sheffield Bruins.

_ The London Series’ return. The New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox are played a two-game series in London in 2019.

Besides writing for her bugle, Steinberg is part of a collective called Bat Flips and Nerds (batflipsandnerds.com), believed to be Europe’s biggest baseball podcast.

They discuss the majors, the domestic game and beyond including the Dominican League with Arlenis Peña and Antonio Puesan and Home Run Derby X (won by the former New York Yankees’ Nick Swisher) in 2022.

And interest has cranked up a notch after Great Britain edged Colombia 7-5 for its first World Baseball Classic win in Phoenix this past March.

At the post-game press conference, Gordon Edes of Bally’s Sports, asked the Great Britain manager, “Sir do you have a speech ready for when The King or the Prime Minister phones tonight with congratulations.”

Without batting an eye or cracking a smile manager Drew Spencer answered: “Thank you Your Majesty … but we have to win another game to qualify.”

The win did not come as Team GB lost 2-1 to Mexico. Team GB also lost 6-2 to Team USA and 18-7 to Canada.

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Rachel is genuinely influential in both her day job and spare time, a woman who is passionate about growing awareness and her love of the game in the UK. It’s not limited to big leagues.

A finalist for the National Council for the Training of Journalists sports journalist of the year award for 2020, Rachel won it in 2021.

At age seven Rachel named her ginger, female cat after Jays catcher Charlie O’Brien. Rachel lived in Ottawa until 18, moved to New York to do her under grad at New York University.

That meant her graduation ceremony took place in the newly-built Yankee Stadium. And we’re guessing Rachel was the only grad wearing Toronto Blue Jays jersey under her graduation gown. Rachel told us “it felt wrong not to wear it, being in that building.”

After graduation Rachel returned to Canada gaining her masters degree at the University of Toronto. Next was back to the US for a fellowship in California, a “wee” stint in Toronto again, then two years in Vancouver before moving across the pond.

Globetrotter Rachel has pictures of herself wearing something Blue Jays related on every continent save Australia (that includes Antarctica). Rachel has been to Oceania but it was in the days before smartphones.

Rachel was in Toronto for the Bat Flip Game -- Game 5 of the American League Division Series as Jose Bautista went deep to allow the Jays to eliminate the Texas Rangers in 2015.

Adds Rachel, “The game will likely forever be the best sporting event I will ever attend.”