Verge: Romanin starting first Canadian Perfect Game Collegiate Baseball League franchise in St. Catharines
Photo: Dead Red Sports
December 18, 2024
By Melissa Verge
Canadian Baseball Network
He identified a gap in Canadian baseball.
Then, he turned it into an opportunity and ran with it.
With his new franchise coming to St. Catharines this summer, Mal Romanin, the former Blue Jays director of communications, is bringing something different to the Canadian baseball scene.
Coming to the city in June 2025, his team will be the first Canadian franchise to join the Perfect Game Collegiate Baseball League (PGCBL).
The league expansion will give talented Canadian kids an opportunity to play elite baseball at home, Romanin said.
“This model is to stock it with as many Canadian kids as we can,” Romanin said, who purchased the team with his investment company, Dead Red Sports and Entertainment.
He was motivated in part by the purity, the commitment, the exuberance for the game that he sees in college baseball players when they take the field. Romanin observed this first hand, with his son, Mattingly Romanin who played college ball (yes, named after Don Mattingly, who is now the Jays bench coach.)
That’s the sweet spot for Romanin, at the grassroots level.
“That will be my happy place, being with a bunch of exuberant yet mature ball players who are incredibly committed to their journey,” he said.
This team (with the name still to be determined, you can join the naming contest here: https://deadred.ca/ ) has been years in the making. Romanin was let go from the Jays during a restructuring of their communications team in 2018, and from there taught Sports Public Relations at Centennial College for five years.
He’s been working at securing a PGCBL franchise full-time for a year now, making 10 trips down to New York State to visit with owners, talk baseball, and observe the teams already in the league. He met with counselors, mayors and city staff in different communities, before settling on St. Catharines as a perfect fit for the new PGCBL team. Their mayor, Mat Siscoe, is passionate about the game, he said, and they already had the facility with the old stadium, George Taylor Field, there from the old New York Penn-League.
Many MLB players started their careers in St. Catharines, including Vernon Wells, Pat Hentgen, Carlos Delgado and Jeff Kent.
Romanin is starting from scratch - they don’t have a sponsor, a manager, coaches or players yet - or a team name. But that will all be created over the next few months, before the season begins this summer. He’ll be drawing immensely on the experience he gained working with the Jays, he said, helping him to find success in this new opportunity to grow Canadian baseball.
It’s a new adventure for Romanin, entering his third career related to the sport, after 12 years with the Blue Jays and five with Centennial. He’s now focused on preparing for the upcoming inaugural season of his team.
“I’m really thrilled this has come to be and worked out,” Romanin said. “And we’re going to be moving forward and getting this thing off the ground, and providing this avenue for kids to play in Canada.”
For more information on the new team, visit Dead Red Sports and Entertainment here: https://deadred.ca/ or on Twitter: DeadRedOfficial https://x.com/DeadRedOfficial.