Alberta Dugout Stories: The Podcast

Episode 44: WCBL All-Star Game Wrap-Up

Mother Nature tried to rain on their parade, but the Western Canadian Baseball League's All-Star Game went off without much of a hitch in Edmonton over the weekend. Our own Ian Wilson was in the capital for the festivities and chatted with Home Run Derby Champion Kaleb Warden of the Lethbridge Bulls as well as special guest Matt Stairs. The former MLB slugger played with the Edmonton Trappers in 1996, a time that he believed changed his career.

Episode 43: Baseball Canada Women's Invitationals & WCBL All-Star Game

Assuming Mother Nature doesn't rain on our parades, a couple of major events are slated for this weekend in our province. Okotoks will be home to the Baseball Canada Women's Invitational Championships from Thursday to Sunday, while the Western Canadian Baseball League will host its first All-Star Game on Sunday in Edmonton. We chatted with Team Alberta coach Drew Boyer about what he expects out of his squad, while WCBL Commissioner Kevin Kvame stops by to talk about the first half of the season and the All-Star festivities.

Episode 42: The Pioneers - Medicine Hat A's/Blue Jays

Before the 1975 Pioneer League season had even started, officials were sniffing around at possible locations for expansion. Medicine Hat quickly became a front-runner, although a "fiasco" surrounding renovations at Athletic Park threatened to put affiliated baseball's start in the city on ice. But on June 25, 1977, the Medicine Hat A's made their debut. They would only last one year before the new Toronto Blue Jays would set their rookie-level roots in town, a relationship that lasted another 24 years. Medicine Hat Tigers play-by-play man Bob Ridley was there for the first few years as the initial voice of Pioneer League baseball and joined us to reminisce about his time calling baseball.

Episode 41: Joe Sergent & Ellie Jespersen

After a three-year stop with the Calgary Vipers, Joe Sergent decided to make a life in the area. Over the last three years, he has been a coach with the Dawgs Academy and Okotoks Dawgs. He shares some of his favourite stories with Ian Wilson in our latest episode. And speaking of Okotoks, the community will host the Baseball Canada Women's National Championships in early July and one of the young athletes looking to turn some heads is Ellie Jespersen, who will be joined by her two sisters on Team Alberta.

Episode 40: The Pioneers - Lethbridge Expos

Southern Alberta's love affair with baseball hit a fever pitch in the 1970's. After years of our own circuits and big league players barnstorming through, relationships were built to bring affiliated baseball to the masses. In the first of our three-part look at the Pioneer League's days in Alberta, we profile the lead-up to the first game for the Lethbridge Expos.

Episode 39: 7th Inning Stretch

Over the last week, we launched a brand new feature on our website called "7th Inning Stretch". It's a chance for Western Canadian Baseball League fans to get to know some of their favourite players, through chats with our Ian Wilson. Here are the first three he did, in audio form. Fort McMurray's Richard Ortiz, Okotoks' Will Hollis and Edmonton's Taran Oulton join us. And to mark Father's Day this past weekend, we give you a small sample of the chat Ian had with Mike Soroka's father, Gary.

Episode 38: The Champions

The dream for all athletes is to win a championship. In the case of two young baseball players from our province, that dream has been recognized recently, albeit in different ways. Baseball Canada Women's National Team rising star Madison Willan helped guide her St. Albert Slash hockey team to a third-straight Esso Cup title, while Dawgs Academy product Clayton Keyes was a big part of Central Arizona College winning the JUCO World Series. We caught up with both of them to talk about their accomplishments and what's to come this summer.

Episode 37: MLB Draft Review Part 2

Four Albertans were selected in last week's MLB Draft while several others with ties to this province were also picked. We continue our discussions with some of those players in the second of our two-part review. This time around, we chat with Stony Plain's Adam Macko (Seattle) and Lethbridge's Thomas Little (Philadelphia), both of whom honed their skills with Vauxhall Academy. We also chatted with Lethbridge's Tanner Jesson-Dalton, who was taken by the Chicago Cubs and Ben Thompson, a New Zealand product who came to Alberta for Dawgs Academy and was taken by the Atlanta Braves. You can read more about all of Alberta's connections to the 2019 Draft here.

Episode 36: MLB Draft Review Part 1

A total of four Albertans were taken in the 2019 MLB Draft as were several players with Alberta connections. In part one of our two-part look at some of those names, we catch up with Vauxhall Baseball Academy alum Josh Burgmann and Dawgs Academy product Matt Lloyd, who were taken by the Chicago Cubs and Cincinnati Reds, respectively.

Episode 35: M-M-M-M-Mike Soroka

He has been all the rage around Major League Baseball this season. Calgary's Mike Soroka has been achieving great things with the Atlanta Braves, setting records and turning a lot of heads. Ian Wilson and Joe McFarland chat about the phenom's season thus far and are also joined by former coach Brent Cooper. The guys end the show talking about the Western Canadian Baseball League season and what's exciting them most heading into the summer.

Episode 34: Okotoks Dawgs & Edmonton Prospects

It probably comes as no surprise that there is no shortage of words from two teams involved in one of the Western Canadian Baseball League's biggest rivalries. The head coaches of the Okotoks Dawgs and Edmonton Prospects were pretty thorough in their answers as we previewed the upcoming summer, leading to a longer-than-usual episode to wrap up our look ahead to the season.

Episode 33: Looking Ahead to the 2019 MLB Draft

2019 could be another good year for Alberta baseball talent being selected in the Major League Baseball draft. Dawgs Academy product Cesar Valero has been projected as one of the top draft-eligible Canadians for quite a while now, but there is also some excitement surrounding teammate Ayden Makarus and Vauxhall Academy pitcher Adam Macko. We sit down with Jeff Duda from Dawgs Academy and Les McTavish from Vauxhall Academy to talk about the draft and what it means to them and their schools to have some of their students getting so much attention.