Although the Montreal Expos are ancient history to the young players who will play in the retro-themed Victoria HarbourCats uniforms this spring and summer, the former franchise still strikes a fond chord of remembrance among Canadian baseball fans of a certain age.
HarbourCats head coach Todd Haney is a Texan but has a connection to the Expos closer than most, even former diehard fans of the tri-colour, because he played for Montreal during his MLB career.
“I love the hat and the uniforms. They are nostalgic and look great,” said Haney, as he prepared his charges this week for the start of the West Coast League season.
The players gathered at Wilson’s Group Stadium at Royal Athletic Park have plenty to chase, both in terms of wins and a starry list of alumni who have come before them. The HarbourCats were 38-15 last regular season and WCL playoff finalists to the league-champion Corvallis Knights. Although they have yet to slay the Knights dynasty and win a championship, the HarbourCats have recorded three of the top-eight regular-season records in league history.
“Our approach has not changed and that is to put as much pressure on the opposition defence as possible,” said Haney, of his club’s aggressive approach to hitting and base running.
“We have seven returnees, four pitchers and two position players, and they understand our approach and the program we are building as we look to win our first championship.”
Among them is veteran pitcher Jake Finkelstein from Richmond, the Montana State hurler who was key on the mound last season for Victoria: “Winning so many games last year was fun and we want to stay gritty and scratch out runs like we did in 2023, backed by pitch support.”
The Victoria offence will be bolstered this season by the addition of hard-hitting outfielder brothers Lucas and Manny Ramirez Jr., the sons of gregarious former Boston Red Sox and Cleveland Indians (now Guardians) star Manny Ramirez, the 2004 World Series MVP, who hit 555 career home runs in MLB.
The WCL is part of a series of summer-collegiate leagues across North America in which top university and college players extend their seasons into summer following the end of their collegiate seasons.
There were 37 WCL alumni on MLB opening-day rosters this year, including AL all-star Adley Rutschman, 2020 AL Cy Young Award winner Shane Bieber and two-time AL Gold Glove Award winner Steven Kwan. A total of 62 WCL alumni appeared in MLB games last season. There are five HarbourCats alumni who are playing or have played in the MLB in the 10 previous seasons of franchise history, including current Chicago White Sox slugger Andrew Vaughn and hometown Victoria pitcher Nick Pivetta with the Boston Red Sox. Another former HarbourCats pitcher from sa国际传媒, Cade Smith of Abbotsford, is with the Cleveland Guardians. Slugger Nathan Lukes, currently with the Toronto Blue Jays’ Triple-A affiliate in Buffalo, came out of the HarbourCats to play for the Jays and infielder Alex De Goti with the Houston Astros, and now in the Texas Rangers system.
The quest in 2024 begins with the Harbourcats taking their tri-colours onto the diamond Friday night in Kamloops to play the season opener against the NorthPaws. That three-game set will be followed by three games in Kelowna against the Falcons starting Monday with the Victoria home opener June 7 at Wilson’s Group Stadium at Royal Athletic Park against the Wenatchee AppleSox. That will be the first of 27 home dates though Aug. 7 at RAP, where the HarbourCats were 25-2 last season.
Joining Finkelstein as a key returning HarbourCats pitcher is six-foot-four Burnaby product Flynn Ridley, who was all-conference and 6-2 with a 2.00 ERA this past season with the Ottawa University Braves in Kansas: “It’s my third year with the HarbourCats and I will be taking more of a leadership role. I lead more by example than being loud. You get to play alongside [MLB] drafted players in this league and you get to see up close the margins that separate them from the other players and how they prepare for and approach the game and how competitive they are.”
The HarbourCats were third in WCL regular-season attendance last year with a per-game average of 2,437 fans, behind the Edmonton Riverhawks’ 3,880 and the Portland Pickles’ 3,070. The Nanaimo NightOwls were eighth with 1,080 at Serauxmen Stadium.
That makes it special for Island players, such as returning hometown HarbourCats pitchers Sam Jordan and Mason Chamberlain, to display their baseball talents in front of family and friends.
“I learned a lot with the HarbourCats last season. There is talent all over this league,” said Chamberlain, the Victoria Mariners product and Lambrick Park Secondary graduate, who is with Missouri Valley College.
“The fans really help us and push us at home, for sure.”
Jordan, out of the Victoria Eagles and Trinidad State Trojans of Colorado, was the youngest player on the HarbourCats last season and comes into this season a year wiser.
“I was nervous at first last season facing better opponents than I have ever seen, including drafted guys, but after that it became pretty normal for me and I treated each outing as just another game,” said the Oak Bay Secondary graduate.
“The experience was good and showed me what I have to do this year with the HarbourCats in the WCL and what it will take to get to [NCAA] Division 1.”
Victoria averaged 3,013 fans for their two post-season games at Royal Athletic Park last season. Only the Pickles bested that at 3,397. There won’t, however be playoff games at Royal Athletic Park this season due to the set-up time needed to expand the park to 14,000 seats for the Touchdown Pacific Canadian Football League game on Aug. 31 between the sa国际传媒 Lions and Ottawa Redblacks.
That means the last home set against Corvallis from Aug. 5-7 will be the final appearance for the HarbourCats at Royal Athletic Park. The playoff venue for the HarbourCats, who have made the post-season six of the past seven seasons, has yet to be announced should the team make it. The WCL playoffs — a best-of-three opening round followed by one-game semifinals and final — are an odd, rushed and truncated beast at the best of times because the players have to get back to school and their NCAA teams by mid-August. There have been occasions when key players have already left before the playoffs.
But at least the regular-season finale should be one to remember as the Knights make their first visit to Royal Athletic Park since 2019. That should be a boffo and telling series featuring the two 2023 WCL playoff finalists. The Knights, named for the wife of Nike co-founder Phil Knight and team primary sponsor Penny Knight, won their seventh consecutive league championship with a 5-0 win over Victoria in Corvallis last August. The Knights have won 10 WCL championships since 2008 and had nine alumni in MLB last season, including star Adley Rutschman of the Baltimore Orioles.
The 2024 playoffs will again feature three rounds beginning with two best-of-three divisional playoffs in both the North and South divisions starting Aug. 10. The one-game semifinals are Aug. 14 and the championship game Aug. 16.
The HarbourCats are playing their 11th season in the WCL, minus the two seasons scuttled by the pandemic. They have now firmly added to the baseball lore of the capital and Royal Athletic Park, which has included a New York Yankees farm team between 1946 and 1954 known as the Victoria Athletics and Tyees. The HarbourCats have also followed the Single-A pro Victoria Mussels and Blues from 1978 to 1980, the pro Victoria Capitals of the defunct Canadian Baseball League in 2003, the amateur collegiate Victoria Royals in 2004 and the Victoria Seals of the independent pro Golden League in 2009 and 2010.
The colour theme this year is Expos, but the HarbourCats in past seasons have acknowledged old Victoria teams by wearing throwback jerseys on special nights.
That includes the powder blue of the Mussels, which dryly comedic film star and former Saturday Night Live great Bill Murray once donned for a game at RAP in 1979 because of his connection to owner Van Schley, and in which former Mussels knuckleballer Tom Candiotti pitched on his way to the majors.
“We are proud of our support, longevity and stability in the community,” said Jim Swanson, managing partner of the group that owns both the HarbourCats and NightOwls of the WCL.
“People have confidence in us and what we provide year to year in terms of the product and entertainment on and off the diamond.”
