Here's what throwing snowballs can do for you!

[Dave Bailey]

Heard an interesting fact while listening to the ballgame today. 236 Canadians have made it to the Major Leagues down through history. Now, given that there are 9 positions on a baseball field you would think that there would be an average of about 25 or 26 Canadians at every position. Nope. 120 have been pitchers, that's more than half! And some great ones too, legendary names like Ferguson Jenkins and Phil Marchildon. Which means that when the snow flies you only need to ask a Canadian kid one question: Is it packin'? IS IT PACKIN'?

[lew]

Which means that when the snow flies you only need to ask a Canadian kid one question: Is it packin'? IS IT PACKIN'?

 

I don't watch alot of TV but 2 years ago there was something coming on that I wanted to see but a heavy wet snowfall had covered my satellite dish & blocked the signal.

 

I went out on the back deck and made a couple snowballs and tossed them at the dish and after a couple tries I made a direct hit, the snow slid off and I got to see my program

 

Maybe there's still a chance for me in the majors

[Skipper D]

Well its easy to see your a good thro Lew and you just might be what the Majors need alright but ............. can you catch .. lol .

[mike rousseau]

Neat fact...

[Dave Bailey]

I realised that my arithmetic is a little off, teams carry many more pitchers than they do at other positions so that cuts the averages a bit, but I think having more than half on the hill is still pretty impressive.

[Raf]

24 man rosters, typically 10 of those are pitchers. so the percentage is only off a little. still a neat fact.

[fishermccann]

In T.O. "packin" , does not mean snow!

[Musky or Specks]

As a baseball guy its a romantic notion but the reality is up until 10 or 15 years ago the scouting in Canada was piss poor. It is a lot easier to discover pitchers than it is a position player. A major league arm is a very recognizable thing but a major league bat and glove has to be playing against that type of talent in order to judge it. Now there are travel teams that spend their summers playing in he US against the best baseball teams. So not only do scouts up here see them but scouts in the US as well so more Canadians are being drafted. As players we are still way behind the kids from the warm weather states for the obvious reasons. But at least now were are on par with the snow states.