It’s National Play Catch Week — a time for baseball fans to reconnect with what made them love the game in the first place — but for Winnipeg’s baseball faithful, it’s also the start of one of the weirdest summers in Goldeyes history.
The pandemic-shortened 2020-21 season will see the team not playing out of Shaw Park in downtown Winnipeg, but rather at the home of the arch-rival Fargo-Moorhead Redhawks in Fargo, N.D.
“It’ll be a very strange year, but I’m glad we’re playing, even if it’s not at Shaw Park,” the team’s general manager Andrew Collier told 680 CJOB.
“They’re definitely huge rivals. Between ’96 and early 2010s, we had some great battles with Fargo.
“When we’re the home team in Fargo playing against Fargo, that’s certainly going to be a strange experience.”
The Goldeyes are the lone Canadian team in the independent minor pro American Association. The league announced earlier in June that it will be running a six-team, 60-game season based around hubs in Fargo, Milwaukee and Sioux Falls, S.D.
“We are very happy to be able to return professional baseball to our fans, albeit in a different fashion than usual,” said American Association commissioner Joshua Schaub.
“We look forward to opening up our season on July 3 for a summer of high-level professional baseball and bringing America’s pastime back to the fans.”
The relocated Goldeyes training camp, which kicks off Thursday in Fargo, means the players, who will arrive in the hub city on Wednesday, won’t have much of a chance to throw the ball around with their own kids during Play Catch Week.
“As far as I know, I don’t think any families are travelling with the players. It’s just the players travelling to Fargo and they all need to be there by Wednesday for camp starting on Thursday,” said Collier.
Baseball Canada says it wants to see photos and videos of Canadians playing catch throughout the week.
“It’s a great sport and even if you don’t play at an organized level… playing catch is just a great thing to do with your kids,” said Collier.
“I think everybody has memories of doing that with their siblings or with their mom or dad or friends.
“I’ll always remember playing catch in the backyard with my dad, and that’s kind of what got the love of baseball in me — not only playing catch with my dad, but we used to take yearly summer trips… to watch major league baseball and that’s what inspired me to the love of the game.”
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