One down. The B.C. Senior Games’ economic impacts on the area hasn’t analyzed yet, but there is no doubt the event itself was very successfully hosted.
One to go. The Western Canadian Senior Men’s Baseball Championships began yesterday, and the economics of that are still within your power to decide.
This will be the best baseball seen here in many years and, with five teams and some entourages in town for four or five days, will have a positive effect on the local business situation in a smaller but similar way to that the other seniors event did.
The economic part you can impact is for the local host team, the Trail Orioles.
Just show up to be entertained, buy 50-50 tickets, patronize the concession and the beverage area, and you can make all the work the Oriole’s have put into the tournament worth their while - an offshoot of which could be them doing it again soon.
Pretty easy stuff. Not a lot of travelling between venues - it all takes place at Butler Park. Not a lot of cost - prices are more than reasonable. Not a lot of effort - pretty much get there, sit down, enjoy.
But, potentially a big economic and psychological boost for the Orioles and their small, dedicated cadre of supporters.
For the most part in baseball as in other games, talent will out. Given that the talent level differential among the teams involved is expected to be quite small, a team buoyed by local support might just rise to the occasion.
That, and the fact a certain amount of attendance is needed so that the Orioles can cover the costs associated with hosting the best in Western Canada, for our pleasure, they hope, are reasons local sports fans should make the effort to get to the park.
Trail has already played a game as you read this, but you have time to get out for dinner and a show - Trail’s second game, against Alberta, starts at 5 p.m. - tonight.
Then tomorrow can be a brunch kind of outing, with the B.C. squad from Vernon on at 8 a.m., followed by the Orioles at 11. Trail against Manitoba closes the round robin at 8 p.m. The playoff starts at noon Sunday.
It should be entertaining and can be another feather in our Home of Champions cap.
Why wouldn’t you show up for that.
•••
He seems healthy enough, may be as fast as ever and on the way to his second-best stolen base year, but local boy Jason Bay is still struggling in the Big Apple.
Always streaky, Bay hasn’t had enough of the hot kind to get his production back to what it was just a season and a half ago, and despite some highlight reel catches has, for the first time, more errors (2) than assists (1).
He’s had big final months before and should have rounded into post-injury shape by now, but Bay needs to do something to justify the big payday the Mets sent his way, and his own expectations, over the next five or so weeks to build some positives for next season, when the club could again be a contender.
Here’s hoping.