May 17, 2024

By Bob Elliott

Canadian Baseball Network

George Farelli will not like this story.

Not one bit.

Why?

Because it is about George Farelli. And not because it is a rip job ... simply because it’s flattering and it’s all about George.

George is our longest most-tenured employee at the Canadian Baseball Network. Don’t try to look him up on our list of current contributors or our first-class Honour Roll.

Why? Because he is not there. He didn’t want a thumb nail sketch with some background on his love of the game.

From 1999 until September of 2023 George filed like clockwork our weekly list of Canadians in the minors. As well as who moved up, who moved down, who was traded and who was our Player of the Week. All the transactions that were fit to print.

In all, we counted 494 weeks.

He was our Cal Ripken. Doing his job. Week in. Week out. Never complaining when we were a day late in posting due to travel.

For 21 seasons ... April to September.

Here is how easy it was to replace George.

_ Pete Berryman is now doing the minor-league stats and filing them.

_ Ryan Isaac posted the page on 2024 Canadians in the Minors.

_ Kevin Glew posted the Player of the Month, as it took a while to adjust for us to adjust to life without George.

_ And now Tyson Shushkewich will select the Player of the Week.

We know that besides friends and families of Canucks in the minors, ex-teammates, ball fans from coast to coast, they will have a loyal follower in George.

So, instead of one man doing the work ... yep, all it took was four people to replace George.

We are going to miss him and his weekly dispatches which arrived with a much better on-time than Air Canada, VIA Rail or the Red Rocket.

George will no doubt keep us on our collective toes if we make a mistakes.

George has told us in the part that the best of his research exercise was and still is to this day ... are new finds. He said that discovering previously unknown Canadians who played in the minors and adding their career details to my database, is always a rush.

In 1999 there were 55 Canadians in the minors. Last year — despite the elimination of two short-season teams — there were 169 Canadians on affiliated and foreign league rosters.

He admits that his connection to the Canadian Baseball Network over the years led to many of these new finds.

Another recent example of a great “new find,” involved the discovery of Richard G. Knowles (Hamilton, Ont.) who played with Britain’s London Thespians in the London Baseball Association from 1889 to 1894. He was inducted into the British Baseball Hall of Fame in 2012, and is the third Canadian to be so honoured.

An embarrassing one came to light in a 2012 email from LHP Kevin McLeod (Sydney, NS), selected by Oakland in 1987. He asked why he was not in our database of Canadians drafted that year. Before the 1991 season, Canadians were difficult to track since only Canadians attending U.S. schools were eligible for the draft. Canadian high schoolers could be signed as it was in the old days: first come, first serve. Best offer wins. He was a 10th round selection from the University of Toledo. Twas all my fault.

Kevin pitched 81 games during his four seasons in the minors (16-13, 3.62, with three saves) with the class-A Madison Muskies, class-A Medford A’s, class-A Southern Oregon A’s, class-A Modesto A’s, class-A Hamilton Redbirds and the double-A Huntsville Stars

And then in January of 2022, George discovered that the Minnesota Twins had selected Kevin’s son, LHP Christian MacLeod in July of 2021 in the fifth round from Mississippi State. All of which made Christian, who pitched three seasons (5-2, 4.01 in 20 games) for the class-A Cedar Rapids Kernels and class-A Fort Myers Mighty Mussels, World Baseball Classic eligible.

I remember writing “really, truthfully we don’t have anything against the MacLeod family and apologize to both.”

George’s list of faves changes from year to year, but usually he focuses on younger pros. Currently he is closely following relative newbies, Owen Caissie (Burlington, Ont.) of the Chicago Cubs organization; Tyler Black (Stouffville, Ont.), Milwaukee Brewers; Myles Naylor (Mississauga, Ont.), Oakland A’s; Damiano Palmegiani (Surrey, BC), Toronto Blue Jays; Dylan O’Rae (Sarnia, Ont.) Brewers and Matt Wilkinson (Ladner, BC), Cleveland Guardians.

So thanks for all the numbers, all the player of the week selections, all the hard work, the friendship and all the memories.