Vancouver Canadians' Nat Bailey experience featured in New York Times

It’s not every day that a minor league baseball team gets featured in The New York Times, but that’s exactly what happened to the Vancouver Canadians this week.

An article titled “Is This Heaven? No, It’s Vancouver,” was published by the famous newspaper on Monday, romanticizing something Vancouverites know and love dearly: experiencing a baseball game at Nat Bailey Stadium.

Author Kurt Streeter visited Vancouver recently to check out a ballgame at the 74-year-old stadium. He didn’t exactly pick the best time of year though. Vancouver has had an unusually cold and rainy April — even by our standards.

“As the nighttime temperature plummeted — 50 degrees Fahrenheit to 45 to near 40 — my wool coat stood up to the cold about as well as a wet paper towel. I tried to take notes, but my fingers were too frosty to move,” Streeter wrote.

The Canadians, who now play High-A level minor league baseball, began their season in April for the second year in a row — two months earlier than they used to pre-pandemic.

The New York Times journalist wasn’t treated to beautiful sunny weather and a sellout crowd, as is the norm throughout most of the season. And if he arrived for Opening Day, he would have been treated to three straight rained-out games.

Despite the Canadians losing 9-1 in front of just 1,500 fans, the writer appeared to be blown away by the experience.

“The charm of watching Canadians baseball at the venerable stadium got to me, with its swooping grandstand, its manual scoreboard, its views of a nearby park that will look like a verdant oil painting come summer,” he wrote.

He even got a kick out of our trash-talking fans, noting one spectator’s chirp for the umpire was done in a “courteous, Canadian way.”

“There is the beauty of the game to behold. Its beating heart lives on in Canada. Give me nine innings at the Nat on any night, even the frigid, frosty ones. Only next time, I’m bringing a portable heater.”

Checking the weather forecast helps, too.

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