Indy Baseball Chatter: THE BATTLE OF CANADA

Friday, May 26, 2006

THE BATTLE OF CANADA

I suppose I am somewhat normal when I daydream about being somewhere else, especially if it is another baseball stadium.

My dream for next week takes me to CanWest Global Park in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and it isn't just that the Winnipeg Goldeyes, one of the Northern League's perennial playoff teams, seem to always fill up the ballpark.

No, it is that next week's Thursday-Sunday (June 1-4) series will find two of Independent Baseball's most successful players in headline roles, health permitting, of course, when Winnipeg and the Edmonton Cracker-Cats battle it out.

I would love to see what Team Canada hero Stubby Clapp contributes for Edmonton and what reliable Harry Berrios does for Winnipeg. Clapp, widely admired for his emotional leadership on a baseball diamond, was Edmonton's MVP last season, months before he helped Team Canada surprise the United States in the World Baseball Classic. Berrios continues to pile up Northern League records. He leads or is second best of all time in the 14-year-old league in games, at bats, runs, hits, doubles, home runs and RBI.

It should be a dandy series.

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Bob Wirz

Former chief spokesman for Major League Baseball Commissioners Bowie Kuhn and Peter Ueberroth. Six years as publicity director for the Kansas City Royals, and a background in newspaper, radio and television. Started Wirz & Associates, a sports PR and consulting firm, in 1985. Has written extensively on Independent Baseball since 2003.

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About 'My Nebraska'

It seems almost universally accepted that Nebraskans are friendly, hard-working people.

A native son, who eventually transitioned to the East Coast because it was the best avenue to follow his passion of continuing to work in major league baseball, has published a book to share a lifetime of memories of growing up in the Cornhusker state.

You may have guessed it when you saw the title: My Nebraska. Yes, Bob Wirz, now a youthful 85, is sharing his "rich memories of growing up in rural Nebraska" in the 1940s and 1950s in a delightful 136 pages in the book produced by Dorrance Publishing in Pittsburgh, PA.

Wirz, who got to live his passion of working at the highest levels of baseball and later developing his own sports public relations and marketing company, lovingly empties out his memories of everything from counting millions of tiny trees to playing grass-roots baseball where the age of teammates might run from the early teens to the 50s.

The colorful cover of My Nebraska, which features two paintings from Dunning, NE rancher/artist Laron McGinn that depict the beautiful landscape of rural Nebraska and the ranching lifestyle, sets the tone for the 5 x 8 book also filled with meaningful pictures.

It is "a wistful and endearing love letter to Nebraska filled with memories shared by generations raised in small towns throughout the Midwest", praises Shari Veil, who heads up the journalism and mass communications department at the University of Nebraska.

My Nebraska, a 5x8 paperback, is priced at $19.95 plus $4.00 for handling and shipping. Autographed copies may be ordered at www.WirzandAssociates.com