A man who has greeted thousands of fans over the past 10 years at Seaman Stadium was welcomed into the Okotoks Dawgs Hall of Fame on the weekend.
William Gardner joined Clint Fystro, Don Johnston and Don McLeod who were inducted into the hall of fame at the Dawgs 10th annual banquet Saturday at the Foothills Centennial Centre.
It was family that helped bring Gardner into the Dawgs Clan.
“My son got invited to play with the (then Calgary) Dawgs in the late 1990s,” Gardner said in an interview. “He had played with John’s boys with Team Alberta and played two more seasons with the Dawgs and went on to college baseball.”
When that John — Dawgs executive director John Ircandia —phoned William to join the budding College program in 2003, he jumped on board.
When the Dawgs moved to Okotoks in 2007, Gardner, along with the legendary Bill Tanguay, were there to greet them. With approximately 700,000 fans going through the Seaman Stadium turnstiles the past decade, Gardner is more than qualified to be a Walmart greeter.
It’s all part of promoting the great game — something he learned from one of his idols, former major league owner, the famously peg-legged Bill Veeck.
“I remember the line from his book (Veeck As In Wreck) that if you are going to promote baseball to all the baseball fans, the six of them will have a great time,” Gardner said. “We really want to make sure there is music, great between inning promotions so everybody would enjoy it and when we got to Okotoks we were able to bring a little bit more.”
While Gardner hasn’t tried Veek’s disastrous Disco Demolition Night promo, he has tried such light-hearted fare as John Barlow Saskatchewan Night and a wedding during the ballgame.
Many of the promotions aren’t about promoting the Dawgs, but are about community. The Dawgs have annually celebrated the local heroes — police, firefighters, EMS — in Okotoks. As well, their Canadian Breast Cancer Pink Day has raised more than $350,000 for cancer research.
Through it all he hasn’t forgot going to a baseball game can be a family bonding experience.
He chocked up when telling the approximately 400 fans at the banquet about going to the stadium with his father, William, and son, William to ball games.
He also thanked his wife Connie, a regular fan along the first base line, for being such a supporter of him and baseball.
Don Johnston has been with the Dawgs since they formed as an academy for young players in the mid-1990s.
He was a coach with the young players and an IT guru — helping design the state-of-the-art Bill McAlpine press box.
“I was one of the founders — we just wanted to help little league kids who just wanted to keep playing baseball,” Johnston said. “We took the philosophy it is about the kids.”
Fystro has been a director of the Dawgs since 2003 when the program expanded from a high performance youth development program based in Calgary to include a summer collegiate club.
He served as both president of Baseball Alberta and as general manager of Team Alberta for the Canada Cup.
“As a president of Baseball Alberta and as a man in charge of the top youth team in Alberta he bought into the same vision we did,” Ircandia said. “That is, it is about the development of the player, not about the politics.”
Fystro’s genes also played an important part in Dawgs history.
His son, A.J., was the head coach of the Okotoks Dawgs when they won the Western Major Baseball League title in 2008 and ’09.
Don McLeod was a member of the Dawgs committee, which travelled throughout the United States looking for designs for Seaman Stadium.
He was the Dawgs’ first technical director of baseball. He was also a pitching coach. He helped former Dawgs pitcher Jim Henderson make it to the major leagues (Henderson recently signed with the World champion Chicago Cubs organization).
Henderson presented McLeod with an autographed jersey at a previous Dawgs banquet.
The organization also presented the 2016 Dawgs players awards at the banquet. They were, MVP, Kellen Marruffo, first base; Rookie of the Year, Michael Gretler, infielder, catcher; Pitchers of the Year, CJ Lewington and Anthony Balderas; True Grit Award, Brendan Rose.
For more information go to dawgsbaseball.ca
