Strathcona Park, in East Vancouver, is a weedy wet sandbox of a ballpark.
Two diamonds square the western edge of this 10-acre park, a greening project on the False Creek Flats after the city dump closed on this property in 1939.
With overgrown outfields, tennis and basketball courts shrinking the centre fields, and aluminum bleachers backed by squatting camper vans, the constant visitors here are territorial crows and can collectors. On the horizon is a paint manufacturing plant while the backstops are border by Prior Street, a fire hall and the backside of vegetable warehouses. These two diamonds make the perfect setting for the inaugural season of the East Ā鶹“«Ć½Ó³»Baseball League. Opening weekend begins Friday night.
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More to know than whoās on firstĢż
An adult league for recreational baseball unlike any other in the region, the EVBL plays without a pitcherās mound or an outfield fence. And uses shortened base paths. But make no mistake, this is hardball: overhand fastballs and inadvertent sliders, lead-off steals, three outfielders, regulation leather-wrapped baseballs and wooden bats. Pitches donāt arch and should never bounce off home plate. The Bad News Bears have grown up, and the sandlot is reserved for adults.
āItās basically making baseball fun again,ā said Jasmine Coble, who was wearing suspenders when she cracked a two-run double to push the East Van Black Sox over the All-City Ringers in a pre-season game in early April. āThere are a lot of boring moments in slow-pitch and not everyone knows what āorthoā is but there are a lot of people out there who enjoy the game and donāt just want to play because theyāre bored with their office jobs.ā
Full disclosure: I play for the Ringers. Like a few others in the EVBL, Iāve never swung a wooden bat.
In Vancouver, there are a half dozen recreational adult leagues offering some form of the three-strikes-and-youāre-out game. They all play variations of softball or slow-pitch, which uses a larger ball (coloured bright yellow or white), can limit the number of fouls a batter is allowed to hit, and is characterized by a lob that drops slowly toward ā ideally right on top of ā the plate from a flat pitching platform. The famously drew together artists, writers, journalists and other creative nomads, such as Sarah Silverman (once, allegedly) and as well as Canadaās and the , George Bowering, to play ball beginning in the 1980s and now shares some recruits with the EVBL. In orthodox baseball, often called āortho,ā pitchers deploy an underhand windmill similar to competitive softball, a distinct sport sometimes distinguished by the name fastpitch and typically played by women at a highly competitive level such as the Olympics, but only before it was dropped in 2008 after four Summer Games.
You might know the baseball MLB or Little League or whiffle ball, but as you can see, this game has plenty of variations ā all of them argued for and against by purists. ()
Nonetheless, all versions hold true to the poetic, iconoclastic tenets that make baseball what it is: there is no game clock; the defence controls the ball; players, not the ball, score points.
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Failing on the way up, up outta here
For its first season, the East Van Baseball League counts five teams plus the Ringers, a 26-member roster of rotating subs available for exhibition games or when core players are on the D.L. ā likely caused by hangovers or band tour schedules and since, as one league director, Sean Thomas said, āYou have to be fit to play baseball but you donāt get fit playing baseball.ā
The EVBL, its directors and players pride themselves on an East Van identity just sincerely enough to lampoon it. A Facebook thread asked who will be getting a tattoo of their team emblem. The love is real, but donāt limit this league and its players to stereotypes. Someone answered that heād ink āEVBLā across his knuckles. At least four members of the Isotopes are branded with team colours.
The majority of players work in the arts and run or contribute to small-businesses, dedicating their lives to crafting, creating and performing. They take risks, which suits the āpunk rock temperament and vibe of the league,ā said Thomas, exclaiming, āand East Vancouver!ā
Success is hitting the ball and reaching base just once out of every three (or four) attempts at the plate.
āItās a game where you have to be OK with failing,ā he said. āThe only way to get better is to fail a lot and that is very true to many small businesses, any musician can identify with that, anybody who tries to book a tour, or play a concert, or put out art into the world can identify with that. Baseball is game of failure and learning from that failure. There is not a lot of opportunity to have fun failing ā baseball is one.ā
Thomas, one of four men on the EVBL board of directors, said the league had to turn away players after the five rosters (and the substitute list) were filled. They could stack teams with former college and semi-pro competitors looking for more action, but they wonāt do that. Thomas plays competitive hardball in the competitive menās Pacific Coast League with the Ā鶹“«Ć½Ó³»Mounties while fellow director Evan Wansbrough came of age in the heavily scouted B.C. Premier Baseball League with the North Shore Twins.
Thinking ahead like true sports commissioners, they have an expansion play and aspire to replicate the league in cities throughout Canada and Cascadia.
The strong and sudden interest, āsurprised the whole of us,ā said Thomas. āThe response has been more than we could handle. We could add four or five more teams and easily double the size of the league right now.ā Instead, growth will be steady and staunchly committed to building community. They named the teams and Wansbrough designed the logos; the emblem for Murder is a crow.
The league has several charming contradictions, the major one being that the EVBL is an organized, governed league with expansion ambition overseeing the childlike spirit of the sandlot.
āWe often go back and forth about how much structure weāre putting around this,ā said Thomas. āItās hard not to because ball is a very structured game, but sandlot ball is the truest form of playing in a backyard or farmerās field or park in an urban setting where there is no league, there is nothing to it but a group of people getting together to play for the love of the game.ā
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Next up, Mr. October
Wansbrough, one of the leagueās creators and its spiritual guide, is more widely known as Evan October, the frontman for punk rock band the Isotopes.
He crafts his bandmatesā stage names so they double as baseball puns. Currently on tour are Dallas Duststorm, Tony Hustle and others. āJustin Safely aināt bad either,ā Wansbrough wrote to the Courier while on tour in Italy. Heās responsible for designing the logos for the EVBL original five and wonāt reveal the plan ā āNo Way!ā he declared when asked ā for expansion franchises. Unlike almost every recreational league in the existence of adult amateur sport, EVBL teams will not name themselves.
āMy vision was to have a league that represents each of the neighbourhoods in East Van in a classic and tough way with a tip of the cap to history where it exists. It's a league of gangs. We wanted to give everyone something to be proud of,ā he wrote. āThe idea with maintaining creative control over the league is to preserve and ensure quality. You start giving everyone a say and soon you're ordering up camouflage jerseys with āLong Dong Silversā across the front in hunting orange. There's plenty of leagues where that s*** flies, but not here.ā
A teenage prospect with the North Shore Twins, Wansbrough, 31, chose music over sport at a time when he and his teammates were being scouted by university programs.
The Isotopes Punk Rock Baseball Club formed in 2007, taking its name from the animated ballers seen in The Simpsons and regularly padding their ranks to enter slow-pitch tournaments or hold pick-up games with the East Van Black Sox, a team that exists to play the āTopes and could otherwise be named the Swindlers after its . The EVBL team has four band members, including a pitcher in Wansbrough, who is named October in honour of clutch post-season performer Reggie Jackson, not Derek Jeter.
From this hybrid posse of athletic artists, community-building punks and closeted jocks, came the EVBL. Not everyone makes the cut.
āI know 35 dudes who could strike me out who I havenāt invited out to this,ā wrote Wansbrough, who he didnāt graduate high school because he refused to play Led Zeppelin for his music credit. āWe want to attract folks who are creative with a passion or nostalgia for baseball in its purest form. The way you remember it from when you were a kid.ā
In one pre-season inning, three batters were beaned. In the same game, at least two bats shattered and there were also two balks, only one of them caught by the self-officiating teams. Players discussed Black Flag writing credits and popped cans of Postmark, the official beer sponsor of the EVBL. Post-game events are held at league sponsor Whatās Up? Hot Dog!, the East Hastings Street restaurant and unofficial clubhouse. The trophy case sparkles with hardware topped with a pink, Homer-coveted, doughnut.
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Pastime for the ages
At Strathcona Park during a springtime dust-up between the Black Sox and Ringers, the benches of the southwest diamond are within spitting distance from one another, the same width of one basemanās gut, an opponent could point out in the spirit of the leagueās theatrical trash talk.
The insults are supposed to fly as if between Hatfields and McCoys, but instead, come game time, the radio manager at CiTR approaches the opposition to say, in his considerate way, āThanks for holding back on that slide, man.ā The runner, when attempting to steal second, slid early and away from the baseman. No Chase Utley rule will be invoked amongst these comrades.
Does trash talking happen? Safely away from the field of play. āIāve noticed it happening more on the internet than in person,ā said Courtney Garvin, a guitarists with the Courtneys who plays for her neighbourhood Mount Pleasant Murder.Ģż
In addition to embracing proper baseball pants (no shorts despite the Courier cover photo), the EVBL upholds traditions, such as the that inspired the lead to this story. Strathcona may not be Fenway, and these aging kids are no Kid, but baseball is a timeless sport that builds history each day itās played. A message from the official league email address arrives from āHonus Wagner,ā not the real man, it should go without saying, but still a historical figure and sports legend. , a shortstop who played 21 seasons of professional baseball, was among the first five men inducted in the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1936.
History rules the young league.
Just ask .
Madison, a fictional character more enjoyed in fantasy than known in reality, like Santa Clause, is an L.A. beat writer taking a break from the Dodgers to cover the EVBL āon a personal assignment [ā¦] in an attempt to rediscover the thrill of the game.ā His writes about Vin Scully, loves sandwiches and may have tried to kill himself before turning finding meaning among East Vanās baseball misfits.
Thomas wonāt reveal the identity of the scribe who calls Strathcona Park a āglorious little heap of grass.ā
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My boyās gonna play in the big leagues
When they expanded the league from informal dust-ups between the Isotopes and Black Sox, Thomas said he heard several common phrases from EVBL players: they hadnāt played baseball since they were 13; they had only played slow-pitch; they wanted something other than aggressive, obsessive menās hardball.
For women, the story was a little different.
Somewhat like the Isotopes Punk Rock Baseball Club, pop punk band the Courtneys formed a slow-pitch team and play in a recreational summer league. āWe did it because we already had the hats,ā said Garvin.
Hardball is a new game for the athlete who grew up near Victoria playing softball and soccer and who saw herself as a āweirdly freaky jock, the kid on the team wearing all-black,ā but a jock all the same. She is adapting to the heavier bats and faster pitches. āI got up there and took my first swing, and I swear it was five seconds after the ball crossed the plate.ā
A 34-ounce slugger is too heavy, she said. āI can see why so many people play softball now. Itās so much easier, but actually baseball is more fun. Itās intense, itās kind of thrilling.ā
Jessica Sands played competitively with the Burnaby Oakeys and also made the Softball B.C. team as a teenager in Delta. She was scouted by a U.S. university, but unlike many of her teammates, she turned down the invitation because the sport didnāt present a future after graduation. āThere was no end game,ā she said. āIt even stopped being an Olympic sport.ā
Sands pursued her career in music touring with various bands and also produces a sports comedy podcast, the . She applauds the incremental increase in athletic opportunities for girls, and is fan of multi-sport talent . And really, who isnāt?
āI love to see all of the girls playing baseball now,ā said Sands. āI came in just before all of that happened, so Iām happy to see there is more of a culture of acceptance. I would have loved to have played baseball growing up and thatās why Iām so excited to play now.ā
Thomas shares a perceptive personal memory about playing baseball in the ā90s with Burnaby Minor. As a high schooler, heāll never forget one pitcher who didnāt just rack up strike-outs, but could also hit the lights out. That head-turner eventually dropped out of baseball to pursue a career in soccer, and today Canadians celebrate her as one of the worldās all-time goal scorers.
āIt was Christine Sinclair,ā he said. āShe was an unrivaled baseball player and athlete. It always stuck with me why there werenāt more girls playing. Clearly, athletic women can play hardball.ā
Coble, she of the suspender and walk-off double from way back at the beginning of this article, played competitive womenās fastpitch and is accustomed to a speedy windmill delivery with movement, which she finds much more rewarding to hit than the āoh, just another rainbowā seen in slow-pitch.
She might have played hardball with male peers, but growing up in Vernon there werenāt options and now, as an adult, she knows senior menās leagues arenāt renowned for their inclusivity. Occasionally picked up to play for the Isotopes before joining the Black Sox in the EVBL, she said baseball āis a nice adjustment to back to the fast swing.ā
The EVBL seems to put a smile on everyoneās face.
āThis is the most exciting thing Iāve ever done in my dadās eyes, being the one who gets called up for teams,ā said Coble, who was voted the MVP for her game-winning hit. āBeing a little bit of a ringer in my own and the fact that itās hardball, itās really blown his mind.ā
The East Van Baseball League regular season begins Friday, April 15 and 16 at Strathcona Park.
The East Ā鶹“«Ć½Ó³»Black Sox play the Ā鶹“«Ć½Ó³»Isotopes at 6 p.m. Friday, April 15. On April 16, the Mount Pleasant Murder play the Railtown Spikers at 12 p.m. followed by the Strathcona Stevedores versus the Black Sox at 3 p.m.
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