By Greg Douglas – Dr. Sport
SCENE & HEARD: Hastings Racecourse is proud to be a long-time corporate partner of the Vancouver Canadians, winners of their fourth Northwest League Baseball Championship this year. And with the 2017 World Series about to begin in 10 days, it seemed an appropriate time to acknowledge three members of the esteemed Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame living in Vancouver: Ray Carter, Wayne Norton and John Haar.
All three are with us today to celebrate a special Hastings ‘Salute to Baseball Canada’.
Ray Carter is the most recent Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame inductee, having joined the Class of 2017 as the longest-serving president in the history of Baseball Canada from 2000 to 2016.
During that reign, the Nanaimo native oversaw Canada’s men’s and women’s national teams winning 13 international medals.
Ray was president of Baseball B.C. for eight years and his achievement awards are far too plentiful to list here.
Wayne Norton, dubbed ‘The Pride of Port Moody’ by play-by-play broadcaster Jim Robson, performed in 1,206 minor league games including stops with the Triple A Vancouver Mounties at Capilano Stadium (now Nat Bailey Stadium).
Wayne was executive director of Baseball Canada and founded the Junior National Team, which he coached and managed. In 1986, Norton established the National Baseball Institute (NBI) in Vancouver. He left the NBI in 1994 and was hired by Hall of Famer Pat Gillick to scout for the Baltimore Orioles.
When Gillick moved to the Seattle Mariners as GM in 2000, he brought Wayne with him. Named to the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 2016, today Wayne carries the title of Canada/Europe Supervisor for the Mariners.
John Haar was inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 2007 as a Builder/Coach. Born in Vancouver, he was a three-sport athlete at UBC and was an aspiring outfielder in the San Francisco Giants and New York Yankees organizations before embarking on a successful international coaching career with Team Canada. He managed the NBI for 14 years and is still coaching today with the North Shore Twins.