Nationwide workforce icons headline Canadian baseball corridor’s 2026 class – Imperial Wire

TORONTO – Stubby Clapp, the longtime coronary heart and soul of the boys’s nationwide workforce, and the late Jim Baba, the beloved govt who touched the game in any respect ranges each at house and overseas, headline the Canadian Baseball Corridor of Fame’s class of 2026 unveiled Thursday.

Becoming a member of them on induction day June 20 in St. Marys, Ont., might be ladies’s nationwide workforce stalwart Kate Psota; Devon White, the Toronto Blue Jays’ five-time Gold Glove centre-fielder; Invoice Stoneman, who threw two no-hitters for the Montreal Expos and later grew to become the membership’s common supervisor; and Paul Runge, who umpired 3,196 video games within the majors. 

Recognition for your entire class, however Clapp and Baba particularly, was lengthy overdue given the breadth and depth of their contributions to Canadian baseball.

Clapp, a scrappy infielder from Windsor, Ont., first rose to prominence on the 1999 Pan American Video games in Winnipeg, delivering a walk-off single within the 11^th inning of a 7-6 win over the USA that helped the Canadian workforce win bronze on the occasion. 

That got here early in an 11-year professional profession that included 23 video games within the majors with the St. Louis Cardinals in 2001, together with quite a few different appearances with the nationwide squad, together with the 2004 and 2008 Olympics and the World Baseball Traditional in 2006 and 2009, usually with a penchant for large hits.

Now first-base coach for the Cardinals, Clapp grew to become so ingrained throughout the nationwide workforce program that Baseball Canada named one in every of its annual awards after him, given to a participant “whose perseverance, resilience and willpower” carries them to the majors.

As large as Clapp’s front-facing influence was, Baba’s work behind the scenes might have been much more important. The native of Moose Jaw, Sask., who died of most cancers final September, served as Baseball Canada’s govt director from 2000-2021, serving to to construct up each grassroots and high-performance programming throughout the nation whereas additionally serving as a technical official inside worldwide federations. 

Psota, a primary baseman from Burlington, Ont., was a member of the ladies’s nationwide workforce from 2004 to 2018, profitable seven medals, together with silver on the 2015 Pan Am Video games in Toronto and on the Girls’s World Cup in 2008 and 2016. 

Together with 2024 inductee Ashley Stephenson, she was among the many trailblazers who helped construct up the ladies’s nationwide workforce program she now helps coach. 

White, among the many most gifted defenders in Blue Jays historical past, was an integral a part of the 1992 and 1993 World Sequence championship golf equipment, serving to to each set the desk atop the batting order and make life simpler for his pitchers by stealing hits all around the outfield.

The native of Kingston, Jamaica, spent 5 of his 17 big-league seasons in Toronto and stays concerned with the group in participant growth.

Stoneman, a right-hander from Oak Park, Sick., spent 5 of his eight big-league seasons with the Expos and as soon as his enjoying days have been carried out, returned for a second chapter in Montreal, working in banking earlier than rejoining the membership and dealing his means as much as GM. He served in that position in 1987 and ’88 and later spent 9 seasons as GM of the Angels, profitable the World Sequence in 2002.

Runge, born in St. Catharines, Ont., carved out a 25-year profession umpiring within the Nationwide League, following within the footsteps of his father, Ed, who umpired within the American League from 1954-1970. Paul known as 4 World Sequence – together with the 1993 version received on Joe Carter’s ninth-inning homer – and three all-star video games.