Ringing praise for diamond imports

By Jack Etkin, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Originally published 07:04 p.m., May 16, 2008
Updated 07:05 p.m., May 16, 2008

Rusty Kennedy / Associated Press

Twins first baseman Justin Morneau, named American League MVP in 2006, wears No. 33 in homage to two Canadians with ties to Colorado sports - Patrick Roy and Larry Walker.

The Canadian confrontation has been years in the making and should occur Sunday.

Minnesota Twins first baseman Justin Morneau finally will face Rockies pitcher Jeff Francis. Bragging rights in British Columbia are at stake, although Francis, winless in eight starts this season, has more pressing concerns.

Morneau, born four months after Francis in 1981, never batted against Francis when they played on different summer teams in the 10th grade. The following two summers, they were batterymates for the North Delta Blue Jays.

That was in 1998 and 1999, so long ago, Morneau was a catcher, Francis was throwing 79 to 80 mph, albeit with what Morneau calls "unbelievable control," and Canadian players in the big leagues were rare enough that they were singled out in ways now obsolete.

No one knows that better than Larry Walker, who began his career with Montreal in 1989, enjoyed his decadelong heyday with the Rockies and finished playing with St. Louis in 2005.

"I think it's gotten to a point now where you see these guys playing and you don't always hear, 'Canadian Russell Martin, Canadian Justin Morneau,' " Walker said. "You just hear their names. The Canadian part isn't thrown in there no more, because I think there's much more of us now. There's not an emphasis that you have to tell everybody where we're from. We're good now. We're good, and we fit in with everybody else."

In sheer numbers, there hasn't been an appreciable increase in the number of Canadian-born players in the major leagues. But in terms of impact players, there definitely has with the likes of catcher Martin, Morneau, outfielder Jason Bay, pitchers Erik Bedard and Ryan Dempster, closer Eric Gagne, Francis when he's right and pitcher Rich Har- den when he's healthy.

The Chicago Cubs' Dempster, a native of British Columbia who made his major league debut in 1998, has lived through this transformation of Canadian players.

"More so in the past, the group always seemed to be kind of these bench guys or these fringe guys," said Dempster, who lives in the Denver foothills. "Now you're talking about MVPs and All-Stars and Cy Young Award winners. Gagne won a Cy Young. Morneau won an MVP."

And, to complete the thought, Morneau, Gagne, Martin and Bay have been All-Stars.

Francis was a first-round draft pick, taken ninth overall in 2002, the same year Baltimore pitcher Adam Loewen, another native of British Columbia, was the fourth overall pick. Last year, the 11th player drafted overall was pitcher Phillippe Aumont, a right- hander from Quebec who is in the Seattle organization.

"Our team in the World Baseball Classic next year is going to be pretty good," Morneau said.

In the first WBC in 2006, Canada beat South Africa and the United States before losing to Mexico. Walker was a coach that year for Team Canada and recalled going to dinner with about 15 of the Canadian players in Tampa, Fla., where the team was practicing before WBC play.

"These guys that come from different parts of the country from different organizations," Walker said, pronouncing the latter word organ-eye-zations in his Canadian accent. "As a coach, I was sitting there going holy (bleep). The stories you hear and hearing the 'ehs,' I thought I was back home. It was neat."

The WBC fostered a camaraderie that already existed among Canadian major leaguers. Few in numbers, they have a band-of- brothers link, coming from a country where the masses regard baseball as an amusement rather than a passion.

"It's something we're proud of, to be from Canada playing baseball," Francis said. "It's a country where people play hockey. To be playing baseball, it's sort of an against-the-odds kind of thing."

Francis said Toronto's consecutive World Series triumphs in 1992 and 1993 sparked an interest in baseball among current Canadian big leaguers who were then youngsters. Rockies scouting director Bill Schmidt agreed and pointed to 1994 and the Montreal Expos, the best team in the majors when a strike in August ended the season and a team that included Walker.

Schmidt cited the efforts of Greg Hamilton, director of national teams for Baseball Canada. Hamilton annually picks 50 of the best 15- to 16-year-olds from across the country for a junior development camp and selects the Junior National Team. Francis and Morneau were members of that team in 1999, the first year Hamilton took it to Florida for an instructional camp.

And more Canadian players are attending college in the United States, where the exposure and competition are better.

Dempster said "when you have numerous (Canadian) guys doing well," in the big leagues, it makes the decision easy for young Canadians to pursue the sport.

"It's more tangible . . .," Dempster said. "I remember when I was trying to do it, there was only a few guys (in the majors), and I was like, 'This is going to take a mountain to climb to get there.' "

When Walker broke into the majors with Montreal in 1989, he was only the fifth Canadian to play for the Expos, who came into existence in 1969. Morneau wears No. 33 in homage to Patrick Roy and Walker. And when Morneau made his major league debut June 10, 2003, at the Metrodome, it just happened to be against the Rockies.

Before the game, Walker sent one of his bats over to Morneau. In addition to signing his name, Walker wrote "To Justin, Make Canada Proud."

Morneau has done just that by hitting .302 this year with seven homers and 32 RBI, by making the American League All- Star team for the first time last year, when he also became the first Minnesota player to hit at least 30 homers in consecutive seasons since Gary Gaetti in 1986-1987, and by winning the American League Most Valuable Player Award in 2006.

After a more humbling experience, Francis received some unexpected cheer from a fellow Canadian. While giving up six runs in five innings and losing his major league debut, Aug. 25, 2004, in Atlanta, Francis yielded two home runs to Chipper Jones, the second of which knocked Francis out.

Chris Reitsma, who grew up in Calgary and still lives there, was in the Braves bullpen that night.

"So I just put in a note, 'Don't worry, man, Chipper does that to everybody,' " Reitsma said. "Just trying to encourage him a little bit, and he's done well for himself since then."

When Francis faces Morneau for the first time Sunday, broadcasters understandably will make references to their Canadian heritage. That's news-of- the-day information, but when the Twins and Rockies go their separate ways, Francis and Morneau will return to the business-as-usual path Canadian players now follow.

"You don't hear the line, 'Not bad for a Canadian kid, not bad for a hockey player,' " Walker said. "Well, you don't hear that stuff no more. It's just, 'This guy's a good player.' And they don't mention where he's from."

etkinj@RockyMountainNews.com

Surprise package

After Justin Morneau won the American League Most Valuable Player Award in 2006, Larry Walker, winner of the National League MVP with the Rockies in 1997, commemorated the honor with a gift.

In a large glass display case, Morneau received two MVP rings, with diamonds spelling out "AL" in Morneau's case and "NL" in Walker's, followed by "MVP."

Their names, MVP year and statistics and No. 33 were on the sides of the rings. Walker also had each ring cut into three sections so the information could be read more easily.

"He had it put in a frame, and he signed it and he got me to sign it," Morneau said. "It's in my office hanging up, and it's the coolest thing I have. And he did that on his own without me asking. That's the kind of guy he is."

Walker said, "We had to ship these two big templates to him, and there was a certain spot he had to sign. I left him a message saying I got this guy who's putting this mural thing together" and asked, "Can you do one for Justin as well?"

"I wouldn't have done it for anybody else," Walker said. "It had to be a Canadian. Hopefully, a Canadian doesn't win an MVP every year; I'm going to be out a lot of money every year making big-(blank) rings for everybody."

Presence felt

There has been a small increase in the number of Canadian-born players on Opening Day rosters of big-league teams in recent years but a significant rise in the number of Canadian-born impact players. Canadian players on Opening Day rosters numbered 12 in 2000, 11 in 2001, 10 in 2002 and 2003, 11 in 2004, 15 in 2005, 14 in 2006, 19 in 2007 and 14 this year.

* 2000 (12)

P Rheal Cormier

P Jason Dickson

P Ryan Dempster

OF Rob Ducey

IF Danny Klassen

3B Corey Koskie

P Aaron Myette

P Paul Quantrill

OF Matt Stairs

P Dave Wainhouse

OF Larry Walker

P Jeff Zimmerman

* 2008 (14)

OF Jason Bay

P Erik Bedard

P Jesse Crain

P Ryan Dempster

P Jeff Francis

P Eric Gagne

P Rich Harden

P Shawn Hill

P Adam Loewen

C Russell Martin

P Scott Mathieson

1B Justin Morneau

OF Matt Stairs

1B Joey Votto

Best of Canada

* Rocky baseball writer Jack Etkin considers Hall of Fame pitcher Ferguson Jenkins to be the best Canadian-born baseball player of all time. Do you agree? Go to Extras on the home page to see an audio slide show in which he ranks his all-time top 10 Canadian players.

• May 16, 2008

  11:35 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  wrigleyville23 writes:

  Ryan Dempster was an All-Star, too, in 2000 for the Florida Marlins.

  www.wrigleyville23.com