But What Do I Know? . . . Tim Raines, Scott Thorman, Drew Storen

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My weekly observations and notes about some Canadian baseball stories:

• There was good news and bad news for Montreal Expos great Tim Raines when the National Baseball Hall of Fame voting results were announced on Wednesday. The bad news is that the speedy former outfielder did not receive the 75 per cent support from baseball writers that’s required to be inducted. The good news is that his support jumped from 55 per cent in 2015 to 69.8 per cent this year. It’s also encouraging to note that 2016 inductee Mike Piazza was named on 69.9 per cent of ballots in 2015, before rising to 83 per cent this year. Given past voting trends and that 2017 represents Raines’s final year on the ballot, the Expos legend will almost assuredly be elected next January.

• The Kansas City Royals announced on Monday that Cambridge, Ont., native Scott Thorman will return as manager of the club’s Rookie-level affiliate in Burlington, N.C., in 2016. The 34-year-old Canadian, who played parts of two big league seasons with the Atlanta Braves in 2006 and 2007, led the Rookie-level squad to a 31-37 record in 2015.

• The Blue Jays’ acquisition of reliever Drew Storen for outfielder Ben Revere on Friday could mean that the club plans to move Aaron Sanchez back into the starting rotation. Over the past six seasons, Storen has been one of the National League’s most reliable right-handed relievers. He saved 29 games for the Washington Nationals last season and posted a miniscule 1.12 ERA in 2014. He’ll be used in the eighth or ninth inning for the Jays. The 23-year-old Sanchez, who many consider to have the best arm on the Jays staff, went 5-4 with a 3.55 ERA as a starter to begin 2015 before he was sidelined with a shoulder injury. When he returned in late July, he was used solely as a reliever for the rest of the season. As a side note, by dealing Revere, the Jays have opened up the everyday left field job for one of two Canadians Michael Saunders (Victoria, B.C.) or Dalton Pompey (Mississauga, Ont.).

• Happy 70th Birthday to Ottawa, Ont., native George Korince who made 11 relief appearances for the Detroit Tigers in 1966 and 1967. Signed by the Tigers as a free agent in 1965, the 6-foot-3, 210-pound right-hander also posted a 3.76 ERA in parts of six minor league seasons. He finished his professional career with a triple-A stint in the Expos organization in 1970. Korince now resides in Fort Myers, Fla.

• Here’s a fun Canadian baseball fact: Of the more than 230 Canadians that have played in the major leagues, three of them have last names that are bodies of water: Fred Lake (Cornwallis, N.S.), Jason Bay (Trail, B.C.) and Simon Pond (North Vancouver, B.C.). Unfortunately, Terry Puhl (Melville, Sask.) narrowly missed making this list.

• Just when you think that every Mickey Mantle rookie card has already been discovered, you hear a story like this. A Vancouver resident recently dug out his old baseball cards from the early 1950s that he purchased with money from his paper route as a kid. When he leafed through the cards, he found that he still had a Mantle rookie (which sells for thousands of dollars in almost any grade). His collection also included an Eddie Mathews rookie, Ernie Banks rookie, three 1953 Topps Jackie Robinson cards and some Willie Mays cards. He recently sold the cards to online dealer Just Collect. The financial details of the transaction were not disclosed, but you can bet it net the Canadian collector thousands of dollars. For more details on the Vancouver collector’s story and a video about the transaction with Just Collect, follow this link.

• It was 19 years ago today that Canadian Baseball Hall of Famer and World War II hero Phil Marchildon passed away in Toronto. The Penetanguishene, Ont., native was discovered while he was pitching for the Creighton Mine company ball team in Sudbury and three years later, he was toeing the rubber in the big leagues for Connie Mack’s Philadelphia A’s. In 1941, the 5-foot-10 right-hander’s first full major league season, he recorded 10 wins and for an encore, he’d notch 17 wins and establish himself as the team’s ace in 1942. Poised to join the pitching elite, Marchildon was called for military duty and would serve in the Royal Canadian Air Force from 1943 to 1945. In August 1944, his plane was shot down and he was taken as a prisoner of war. He would spend nine months in a German prison camp. Upon his release and return to North America, Marchildon was almost immediately penciled into the A’s rotation. Though still traumatized by the war, Marchildon registered 19 wins for the A’s in 1947. In all, Marchildon won 68 big league games and completed 82 of his 162 major league starts. He was one of the inaugural inductees of the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 1983.

• Hall of Fame pitcher Catfish Hunter was good friends with his New York Yankees teammate, Reggie Jackson, but he was also acutely aware of the size of Jackson’s ego. “The difference between Reggie Jackson and God,” Hunter once quipped, “is that God doesn’t think he’s Reggie Jackson.”

• This week’s trivia question: If Tim Raines is elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2017, he’ll become the eighth former Expos player or manager to be inducted. Can you name five of the other former Expos (players or managers) that have been inducted? Please provide your answer in the “Comments” section below. The first person to provide the correct answer will win a Raines 1981 Topps rookie card.

12 thoughts on “But What Do I Know? . . . Tim Raines, Scott Thorman, Drew Storen

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    1. cooperstownersincanada – Kevin Glew is a professional writer based in London, Ontario. His work has been featured on CBC Sports, Sportsnet.ca, MLB.com and Sympatico.ca. He has also written articles for Baseball Digest, Baseball America, The Hockey News, Sports Market Report and the Canadian Baseball Network. He has been involved with the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame for more than 16 years, including a two-year stint as the museum's acting curator.
      cooperstownersincanada says:

      Very impressive, Kirk. You are correct — and you named all eight of them. Please drop me an email at kevin.glew@sympatico.ca with your mailing address and I’ll ship out the Raines card. Thanks for participating!

    1. cooperstownersincanada – Kevin Glew is a professional writer based in London, Ontario. His work has been featured on CBC Sports, Sportsnet.ca, MLB.com and Sympatico.ca. He has also written articles for Baseball Digest, Baseball America, The Hockey News, Sports Market Report and the Canadian Baseball Network. He has been involved with the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame for more than 16 years, including a two-year stint as the museum's acting curator.
      cooperstownersincanada says:

      Thanks for the kind words and for your support, Brent.

  1. Too bad Dad’s Mickey Mantle got tossed into their old woodshed and then burnt and too bad you and your brother and friends used to play some kind of flip card game with your baseball cards in the basement! On well guess that is why the cards that survived the day are so valuable! You guys seemed to have lots of fun at the time and at least least you were being somewhat active!

    1. cooperstownersincanada – Kevin Glew is a professional writer based in London, Ontario. His work has been featured on CBC Sports, Sportsnet.ca, MLB.com and Sympatico.ca. He has also written articles for Baseball Digest, Baseball America, The Hockey News, Sports Market Report and the Canadian Baseball Network. He has been involved with the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame for more than 16 years, including a two-year stint as the museum's acting curator.
      cooperstownersincanada says:

      Thanks for the comment. Yes, we played ping pong hockey with Gretzky rookie cards.

  2. Tom Valcke – Stratford, Ontario – Tom Valcke put his iCASE Baseball Academy as well as his position of Head Coach at George Brown College into hiatus, when Hong Kong brought him there in 2018 to serve as head coach of their Men's Olympic baseball team, where he finished with unprecedented success in the 2018 Asian Games held in Jakarta, Indonesia, spiking their WBSC World Ranking from #41 to #28 in just one year under his tutelage. China then scooped up Valcke, as he became the GM and Head Coach of Panda Sport and Culture, a division of the China Olympic Federation, overseeing baseball and softball, and training the national team coaches of baseball and softball, men's and women's teams. Panda Sport and Culture is based in Zhongshan, China's nationally recognized "#1 Baseball City," located on the southeast tip of China, and has a climate much like Florida. On his own initiative, he spent his evenings working with the local coaches of Zhongshan's local amateur youth baseball teams. For the first time in history, the same city won all four 2019 China National Championship gold medals, in 18U, 15U, 12U and 10U, that city being Zhongshan! Valcke worked with the China Baseball Association and Major League Baseball in helping the world's largest country accelerate their evolution into baseball, and helped them design and build a professional baseball stadium, a 600-room dormitory, and a new HQ for Panda Sport and Culture, where he held the role of CEO, in charge of a staff of 60. Valcke, former Technical Director, and Executive Director of Baseball Canada, and former coach of Team Canada, remains a baseball analyst with CBC Canada Radio and TV. The former president/CEO of the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame, who spent a decade as the Canadian Supervisor with the Major League Baseball Central Scouting Bureau, served as a television broadcaster for the Montreal Expos, the GM of the Calgary Cannons Triple-A club, and the CEO/Head Coach of the World Children's Baseball Fair. He is the proud father of Alanna, Jaxon and Mia, and lucky husband of Paula since 1987. Jaxon and Mia are current star players and captains, respectively, of the University of British Columbia Thunderbirds baseball and softball teams. Mia also became the second female in history to play in World Cups for Team Canada Women's baseball team as well as Team Canada Women's softball team. https://www.canadianbaseballnetwork.com/canadian-baseball-network-articles/baseball-nomad-valcke-a-top-amateur-executive http://www.wbsc.org/csta-prestige-awards-honors-tom-valcke/ https://cooperstownersincanada.com/2012/01/23/valcke-recognized-for-global-baseball-efforts/
    tomvalcke says:

    Love that Catfish quote!!! Tom

    Tom Valcke Field Manager/GM iCASE Baseball Academy International Canadian Academy of Sports Excellence http://icasebaseball.com Personal Email: valcke@quadro.net Cell: 519.703.4088

    1. cooperstownersincanada – Kevin Glew is a professional writer based in London, Ontario. His work has been featured on CBC Sports, Sportsnet.ca, MLB.com and Sympatico.ca. He has also written articles for Baseball Digest, Baseball America, The Hockey News, Sports Market Report and the Canadian Baseball Network. He has been involved with the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame for more than 16 years, including a two-year stint as the museum's acting curator.
      cooperstownersincanada says:

      Thanks, Tom. So do I!

  3. thanks but I have his rookie card. I was just really jazzed to answer a question I throw at true Expos fans all the time. The 2 coaches usually get overlooked. Great job with this site BTW. Keep it coming.

    1. cooperstownersincanada – Kevin Glew is a professional writer based in London, Ontario. His work has been featured on CBC Sports, Sportsnet.ca, MLB.com and Sympatico.ca. He has also written articles for Baseball Digest, Baseball America, The Hockey News, Sports Market Report and the Canadian Baseball Network. He has been involved with the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame for more than 16 years, including a two-year stint as the museum's acting curator.
      cooperstownersincanada says:

      Thanks for the kind words, Kirk, and for your support!

  4. Thorman will receive his 2015 WS ring in April!!!
    Raines should be a lock for 2017 for these reasons. Last year on the ballot and more people tend to vote for person last year on ballot. No big names on the ballot for the first time (other than ones with PED connections) and most importantly, he was at 69.8% so jumping 5.2% should be easy.

    The trading of Revere almost guarentees 3 Canadians on the Jays. Martin, LF and the backup OF’er. Now if Scott Diamond can find a spot on the pitching chart that would give us 4.

    1. cooperstownersincanada – Kevin Glew is a professional writer based in London, Ontario. His work has been featured on CBC Sports, Sportsnet.ca, MLB.com and Sympatico.ca. He has also written articles for Baseball Digest, Baseball America, The Hockey News, Sports Market Report and the Canadian Baseball Network. He has been involved with the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame for more than 16 years, including a two-year stint as the museum's acting curator.
      cooperstownersincanada says:

      Thanks for the comment, Scott. I didn’t know Thorman would get a ring. That’s great news!

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