ROY HOBBS ,
UH, JAMIE GANN
IS ALIVE AND WELL
AND PLAYING
IN CANADA

The final tally tipping 14-13 in Kelowna's favour, thanks to Heat sensation Jamie Gann (AKA Roy Hobbs) who hit his fifth home run in his sixth CBL game, this one a dramatic bottom-of-the-ninth walk-off clout.

Gann continues to be the hitting story of the young CBL season. Like Roy Hobbs in ” The Natural”, Gann signed a contract, showed up in a Kelowna uniform a relative unknown, and proceeded to get one hit in each of his first four games. And in one of those rare cases of life imitating art, all of the hits were home runs.

The streak was broken last night at Elks Stadium (he was held to a single) however it started all over again tonight with Redford-like dramatics. The mythic Hobbs has nothing on the real life Gann.

After Victoria scored seven in the top of the ninth to take a 13-12 lead, Gann came to the plate in the bottom of the inning and in the stuff of legends, hit another one, this time a two-run, game-winning, walk-off shot. Five home runs in six games. What a start for Jamie Gann.

Is someone getting all this on film? It sure would make for a great Hollywood script. Wait, what is that you say? It has already been done before? Ah yes, it was a hit in 1984 as the cult baseball film, The Natural starring Robert Redford as the all but forgotten Roy Hobbs.

Well baseball fans, it is once again a captivating tale, and this time the player is younger, the balls travel farther – and more often – and this story is 100 per cent reality. Only the names and places have changed ever so slightly in the eerily similar tale of Kelowna Heat centre fielder, Jamie Gann.

Like The Natural’s Roy Hobbs, Gann was property of the Chicago Cubs. Originally drafted in the fourteenth round by the Arizona Diamondbacks in 1996, the former University of Oklahoma slugger ended up in the Cubs’ system in October 2002 but was released in January 2003 due to a shoulder injury the Cubs thought had not healed.

Like Hobbs, Gann literally left the game, falling into baseball obscurity for months. He was without a team for nearly a year while he rehabbed the nagging injury. After his agent placed a call to personal friend and Canadian Baseball League Commissioner, Fergie Jenkins, Gann received a tryout in Oklahoma, was signed, and shipped to Kelowna where he has since exploded back onto the baseball scene.

Rather than taking the fictitious New York Knights to the championship, the 27-year-old Gann is winning over the fans in the Okanagan and CBL with long balls and late inning heroics all while making a run at, well, let’s not get that far ahead of ourselves. In 21 CBL at bats Gann is 7-for-21, six hits being moon shot homeruns. In just over a week’s worth of service to the Heat he has driven in nine runs, struck out just once, is hitting .333 and has a slugging percentage of 1.095 in six games. Simply put, he has been dominant from the get go.

"He is one heck of a player," says more-than-impressed Heat manager, Yogi Cox. "He can flat out hit. He’s got a lot of power." That became painfully evident to the Victoria Capitals two weeks ago when, in his first CBL series, Gann went 4-for-13, all home runs, drove in five and scored four times. "I’ve always had power," says Gann, a fearless competitor and leader on the Heat squad. "I have just become more selective on which pitches to hit. You can’t hit a ball that bounces in," says Gann in reference to his poor judgment early in his career.

"He’s just the perfect mix of being disciplined, aggressive and selective at the plate," says Cox. Gann could not have picked a more appropriate time to start going yard. He was instrumental in stealing one game in Victoria and then scored a run in a 5-1 win on Wednesday night to tie his club with the Caps in the race to catch the Calgary Outlaws and Saskatoon Legends, both of whom are atop the Western Division.

His biggest hit of his young CBL career came Thursday night in the bottom of the ninth at Elks Stadium in Kelowna. After a seven-run Caps’ top half of the ninth gave them a 13-12 lead, Gann, with an 0-1 count, lined a Jason Lakman slider over the right field fence for a two-run, game-winning walk-off homer that pushed the Heat one game ahead of the Caps in the standings.

"It wasn’t the first [walk-off homer] of my career but the feeling is always the same," admits Gann. "Hitting is contagious, and they just started to feel it. (Victoria’s seven-run inning) re-focused me, and got me fired up.

"I knew I could play," he continues. "I didn’t want to come up here and dig myself in a hole." He has done anything but. In fact, he has helped the one-time last place Heat out of a hole.

"He means so much to this club already," says Cox. "As much as I’d love for him to stay around here, it’s just a matter of time before Major League scouts find out about this guy and someone picks him up." Now, wouldn’t that be the perfect Hollywood ending?

The Canadian Baseball League is a new international professional baseball league offering high caliber baseball to cities across Canada beginning in May 2003. For more information please visit the official website of the Canadian Baseball League at www.canadianbaseballleague.com.

Contact: Alex Klenman, CBL Director of Communications, 604-689-1566

AlexK@canadianbaseballleague.com

Special to Canadian Baseball News – 13June 2003