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Championship ball team holds reunion

Western Canadian midget champs in 1998
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Twenty years ago, the 1998 midget AAA Royals won the provincial and western Canadian championships under coach Vaughan Nelson.

This Saturday, Hammond Stadium, starting at noon, there will be a reunion on the 20th anniversary of that great season, with a presentation, a barbecue, and two college prep games by today’s Royals.

Luke Rogers, who patrolled the outfield for that winning team, said the sign commemorating their win has been moved from the field in Albion to Hammond Stadium. It lists all the players from the championship team. Those players wanted to get together to mark the occasion, with their parents and their children joining for another day at the ball park.

That team that had gone a little better than .500 on the season, but caught fire during the provincials in Gibsons Landing. In the semi-finals, they played an all-star team out of the Okanagan that had been heavily favoured to win it all, and upset them.

“And then we went on an absolute tear,” said Rogers, and it carried them right to a Western Canadian Championship in Swift Current, Sask.

They plan to get out their old trophy on Saturday, and recall every shutout pitched and grand slam.

Rogers said the guys would get to the field early and stay late, hanging out and enjoying camaraderie.

“It was the way a team should be,” he said.

Chad Nelson, a pitcher amd outfielder, and the coach’s kid, remembers playing with the same guys back when they won provincials at the mosquito level, and every summer through their midget championship season.

“It’s 20 years later, and we have memories that have lasted a lifetime,” he said. “And they all loved the coach – my dad.”

That was the first western Canadian midget championship, and the local association won again in 2001, 2002, 2005 and 2009.

The Royals will play the Chilliwack Cougars in a double header at noon at 3 p.m.

The local hardball association urges fans to “Come on out to see some RMMBA baseball history, and watch some great ball!”



Neil Corbett

About the Author: Neil Corbett

I have been a journalist for more than 30 years, the past decade with the Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows News.
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