The Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame welcomed six new members on June 15, as Russell Martin, Ashley Stephenson, Rod Heisler, Paul Godfrey, Howard Birnie and Jimmy Key were all enshrined alongside other greats of the game. Toronto Blue Jays broadcaster Buck Martinez was also honoured with the 2023 Jack Graney Award.
It was a special day for all of the honourees, and for Heisler it was particularly special since the amateur standout now takes his place shoulder to shoulder with some well-known names.
“It’s overwhelming for me to be here, and an honour that I’ll always remember,” he said. “My wife and all four children are here and to be here with them is incredible. I’ve had three months to think about this and I’m still shaking my head. I think it’s awesome that an amateur player can be inducted along with the greats of Major League Baseball.”
The Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan native earned his spot after a long career spent with the Canadian national team, sporting his country’s colours for the first time in 1978 at the Amateur World Series. Heisler was also a two-time Olympian, playing for Canada in the 1984 and 1988 Summer Games. As he looks back at those days, he doesn’t think he or his teammates gave themselves enough credit for how good they actually were.
“I think it was all attitude, just to say that we’re not good enough - you know, the Americans are good baseball players,” he said. “I think it’s an attitude and once that attitude changed around the national team program, that was the important thing. We were competing with a lot of countries, including the United States, where we were seeing their top-end players. We were getting the best of the Koreans, the Japanese, the Cubans and the Americans. So we’d battle them and we beat them, so as amateurs I think we were pretty solid.”
One of the architects of bringing Major League Baseball to Toronto, Godfrey talked about the groundwork that went into those efforts and how it feels now to see the team in it’s current state.
“When you watch it from the birth of an event and watch the growth of the public and their love of baseball, it’s a special thing,” he said. “I walk the streets of Toronto with my dog almost every day and no matter where I walk in the city, people come up to me and it’s always, ‘Go Jays Go’.”
Godfrey wasn’t expecting the honour of joining the Hall, but he appreciates it in many ways. The surprise was a welcome one, and it brought gratitude with it.
“I never realized I would get this honour and it was a big surprise for me,” he said. “When I got the call in January inviting me to become part of the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame, you’ve got to begin with thank you. Growing up, my mother was a superstar in politics but it was my dad who was the sports fan. I’d say the apple fell very close to both sides of that tree.”
Martin’s mother, Suzanne Johnson was there to watch her son join other Canadian icons of the game and called the honour a beautiful thing and a combination of all of his efforts.
“Going to his ball games, always encouraging him and believing in his dream and making him know that we believed in him and supported him all the way makes this almost overwhelming,” she said. “Getting to see him accomplish his dreams and seeing him out there playing was so special. And it was exciting for the whole family as we would get together and cheer him on.”
Asked what this meant to Martin’s career, Johnson said this will cement him in the game’s history.
“Future generations are going to look up to him and say, ‘what can we do to make a difference and to be special and really develop ourselves to the highest point’,” she said. “I think he’s making waves and ripples and those are going to last a very long time. I think he’s going to influence (young) people for a very long time.”
Martinez said he was honoured to share the day with the inductees, and he takes great pride in winning the Graney award. Never picturing a career this long in the game, Martinez talked about how blessed he’s been to have been surrounded by great people both as a player and broadcaster.
“I never thought I would be a broadcaster, first of all, and then I never thought I’d be doing that for longer than I was a player,” he joked. “I’ve had some great partners, great technical people behind the scenes. And I think, my love of baseball has always been that it’s a game that touches so many people - whether you’re a five-year-old or a 95-year-old. If you’ve played the game in some fashion, I like to relate to that. It’s my job to tell the fans something that they didn’t know about the game, a player or the team. There’s so much information out there and these days people can just go open up Google and find anything on anybody. But I’m looking for the story they can’t find, and the only way to do that is to talk with the players, the coaches and managers, and even the umpires.”
Asked what it feels like to be one of the most recognizable voices in a country that is hockey mad, Martinez simply smiled and called it very humbling.
“I came here in 1981 thinking I’d be here for one year and I thought that would be the end of my baseball career,” he said. “And here we are in 2024 and the fans make me feel like I’m part of their family, and that’s a great feeling to know I can make anybody smile. I can make a youngster become a fan of baseball and I can make a grandma think about her days as a youngster playing ball herself. It means a lot to me that they’ve embraced me and been so supportive over the years. I certainly thank them for that.”
