Nine weeks left until Opening Day, here's what's happening with our local nine.
- The latest acquisition, Napoleon Calzado (pictured), who played for the Lynx in 2003 and again in '05-06, is the first position player the Lynx have signed whose numbers jump out as impressive. Calzado, a third baseman-outfielder, had an .885 on-base-plus-slugging (OPS) last season, his first year in indie baseball. He once hit .306 over his only full season with the Lynx, so he can rake. Is it premature to slot him into the 2-hole in the lineup?
(The Lynx got Calzado, who's either 28 or 31 depending on the source, by flipping catcher Billy Cox and outfielder John Molyneux to Pensacola in the American Association. Nerd alert: Is Calzado's given name spelled l-e-a-n or l-e-o-n, and was he born in 1977 or 1980? Sources vary.) - The Rapids will have French-language radio coverage on 104.7 FM out of Gatineau for their inaugural Can-Am League saison. About 80 games will be aired.
Hockey will have priority, but what are the chances the Sens will still be playing by the Rapids' Opening Day, May 22? Hey, don't walk away. In the words of Myra Fleener in Hoosiers, "It's a good question!" - A question that has come up over at the Unofficial Ottawa Rapids Blog is whether the Rapids might tweak the outfield markings. It's worth exploring once the Rapids get traction in the city.
Rapids Stadium was a pitcher's park in the International League -- 400 feet to dead centre, 325 down each line. The 12-foot-high fence also means there's no chance for an outfielder to rob a batter of a home run. The fences should have been made lower back in 1993, but remember, it was the City of Ottawa who made that call and it is slow going with them when it comes to anything sporting.
(Tangent: We might get the CFL back, but not as soon as 2010 -- Clive Doucet needs more time to polish his special poem for the debate. Let's all ooh and aah at his use of le mot juste.)
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3 comments:
You know poor maligned Clive is actually a football fan. At the age of 31, he actually wrote a novel about an Ottawa lad who gets a football scholarship to UCLA and comes back to play with the Riders at Lansdowne. It is titled "Disneyland Please. I own a copy. I believe he is in favour of bringing the CFL back
However, he seems loathe to let developers such as the Hunt group have anything to do with financing the rebuilding of the stadium. Seeing as we seem kind of short of taxpayers who want to donate tens of millions to redo Lansdowne. I do not know where he figures we will get the money, if we won't do some kind of deal with private money interests.
Hey, he can write a poem that's pro football too, if he wants.
(The joke was more about the great sport people make of bashing Clive Doucet; wasn't he actually a football player of some note when Carleton still fielded a team?)
Doucet is the puppet of the Glebe Community Association. They are far too snobbish to support anything as distasteful and blue collar as the CFL. I've lived in the Glebe and they can fuck off.
As for the aforementioned Rapids signings, they have subsequently been dealt for former Lynx Napolean Calzado!
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