Some of the greatest Toronto Blue Jays were in town to teach St. Albert a thing or two about baseball.
Four legendary retired players have come to town with the Blue Jays Honda Super Camp as part of the Blue Jays Baseball Academy. Camps are being held across Canada this summer and St. Albert was selected for the first time for a two-day stop on the tour.
Devon White, Brian McRae, Jesse Barfield and Tanyon Sturtze were in town Monday July 10 and Tuesday July 12 to give young kids the opportunity to pick up a few pointers from the pros.
“It’s young kids getting back to the fundamentals of baseball and it’s about giving back to the community,” Travis Parker, technical director of the St. Albert Minor Baseball Association said. “Especially with the Toronto Blue Jays being the only Canadian team it is nice to see them getting out to all of the provinces across Canada.”
While the Blue Jay alumni were in town they were working with kids on all elements of the game. The camp featured six stations where young players could work on hitting, infield skills, outfield skills, pitching and base running. Each pro oversaw the station of their expertise. Sturtze, a former pitcher helped guide the young pitchers, while White manned the hitting station.
To help run the camp, 12 St. Albert rep and house team coaches supervised and oversaw the events.
“We have two or three coaches at every station assisting alongside,” Parker said. “It also gives us as coaches an opportunity to take some pointers from some pretty good ball players.”
Despite the fact that the Jays retired long before most of the baseball campers were even born, the kids were still excited to be around former professional baseball players.
“Their eyes are gleaming just because they were Major League Baseball players and they played for the Toronto Blue Jays,” Parker said. They could care less who they were.”
The coaches were just as enthusiastic to see the Jays in town as the youngsters were.
“For us coaches it was our era,” Parker said. “We grew up watching these guys so it is just as cool for us.”
Parker, the event organizer, worked hard to bring the camp to St. Albert this year. He applied to the Blue Jays last October and found out St. Albert had won the bid in January. The camp sold out with 170 local baseball players from ages nine to 16 taking part.
All of the planning and preparing was threatened by the wet July weather, which almost put a damper on the festivities.
“Our groundskeepers put in a lot of work,” Parker said. “Our diamond was underwater at 3 o’clock on Sunday. We were actually worried that we wouldn’t be able to have this go, so we spent some time at the diamond prepping and sucking water out with shop vacs. We got it done and nobody would know any different.”
After the water was cleaned up, Parker and the rest of the St. Albert Minor Baseball Association were proud to show off the local baseball community.
“It’s cool that they gave us the host and our big goal was to show them our facilities because they really are beautiful,” Parker said.
The St. Albert Minor Baseball Association is already planning on applying again to have the camp return next summer.
