It is uncanny how often the business of sport can mimic show business.
Dress rehearsal for the Victoria HarbourCats, an exhibition baseball game against the Canadian senior champion Langley Blaze, is on May 31.
Finishing touches, such as new paint on the seats, are being made to Royal Athletic Park for that, and the real West Coast League curtain-raiser June 5 against the Kelowna Falcons.
Meanwhile, the show’s new backers were in town to meet the patrons.
Jim Swanson, second-year general manager of the HarbourCats, introduced the new ownership group at an event Tuesday for sponsors and season-ticket holders. The foursome includes Swanson and John Wilson from Victoria and Ken Swanson and Rich Harder from the Lower Mainland.
Although this will be the third season of WCL ball at RAP, featuring top U.S. collegiate NCAA players in summer baseball, it wasn’t easy getting to this eve of show.
Matthew Stoudt of Santa Monica, California, obtained ownership of the HarbourCats over the winter as the result of a civil case in B.C. Supreme Court against club founder and former owner John McLean of Vancouver.
After a period of uncertainty, Stoudt agreed to terms that will transfer ownership of the Victoria club to the Swanson brothers, Wilson and Harder. Terms were not disclosed.
“It’s been an interesting winter. That first pitch thrown is going to be cathartic for a lot of us,” said Jim Swanson.
“I’m excited to move forward.”
So is Wilson, who also is involved in ownership groups with the Victoria Grizzlies of the B.C. Hockey League and Peninsula Panthers of the Island Junior Hockey League. Especially with the ownership situation settled.
“It actually feels calmer and more relaxing because summer is a season with far less competition here than hockey season in regards to team spectator sports,” said Wilson, CEO of Wilson’s Transportation Ltd.
The HarbourCats led the WCL in attendance last year at Royal Athletic Park with an average of 1,576 fans per game and were second in league attendance in their inaugural season in 2013 with an average of 1,437 fans. The league average last season was 1,201.
“We did our due diligence, and found the support here has been fantastic,” said Ken Swanson, owner of an insurance company in Vancouver, explaining why he got involved.
Harder works in a family company that owns apartment buildings and rental properties in the New Westminster area, where he has long been involved in youth baseball.
“I just love all aspects of baseball . . . from the strategy to the summer days,” he said.
Jim Swanson said it costs about $500,000 a season to operate a WCL team in Victoria.
“It’s 10 days to our first exhibition game and I would describe it as controlled chaos around here.
“We are either running a marathon into a sprint; or running a sprint into a marathon.”
Swanson has set a goal of 35 wins for the 54-game season in 2015. That would get the HarbourCats into the post-season for the first time in their three-season history. Victoria was 25-29 last year and 22-32 in 2013.
Despite the off-season ownership upheaval, Jim Swanson and HarbourCats new head coach Graig Merritt, a pro scout for the Tampa Bay Rays, have assembled what they believe will be a highly-competitive team of players from NCAA Div. 1 and other levels of U.S collegiate ball.
There has also been a push to include more Island-produced players and Swanson said he will announce five today. One of them will be Victoria Mariners B.C. Premier graduate Evan Willow from the McPherson College Bulldogs, recently named Kansas Collegiate Athletics Association freshman of the year.
“[Willow] will be our fifth catcher, but he has a shot of getting playing time,” said Swanson.
Swanson will be at the coaching helm when the HarbourCats play their exhibition against Langley because Merritt has a call-back to the finale of Big Brother Canada, a TV reality show in which he was voted off earlier.
