On Friday Jan. 22, Ottawa’s baseball enthusiasts will crowd together Friday night for the first Ottawa-hosted PITCH Talks – a baseball-inspired discussion led by experts within the game.
PITCH Talks was created by Kevin Kennedy in 2014, and aims to connect die-hard baseball fans with sports insiders who reveal baseball’s often untold stories. The event has been held in various North American cities and include notable speakers such as Jonah Keri, Dan Shulman, Gregg Zaun and Jamie Campbell.
“The core element of PITCH Talks is that you can get an uncensored and interactive experience – not just with the speakers, but also with the person beside you too. It’s that community that draws us together,” Kennedy writes on the PITCH Talks website.
Friday night’s sold-out cast features seven insiders including Brendan Kennedy (Kevin’s brother), Scott MacArthur, Richard Griffin, Mike Wilner, Miles Wolf and Sebastien Boucher. A notable Ottawa blogger, who writes under the pseudonym “Tao of Stieb,” will also attend, and plans on unmasking himself to the baseball community for the first time.
Brendan Kennedy is a beat writer covering the Toronto Blue Jays for the Toronto Star. This will be his fourth time as a speaker, but he says he has enjoyed the intelligent atmosphere displayed at the Talks he’s attended as a spectator.
“There’s something about baseball that I think inspires a type of nerd-dom, but also a level of conversation or debate with obsessiveness that other sports don’t,” Brendan says. “I think the reason PITCH Talks has become so popular is the interactive element, but also how candid, funny and off-the-cuff the conversations are.”
Friday’s event marks the second talk in as many nights, as Kingston hosted its own event on Thursday. The Talk will be broken into two sections, the first led by Wolf and Boucher, who both represent the Can-Am League, before delving into Blue Jays talk in the second half of the event.
Although the talks are unscripted, Brendan says he’s confident the issues of departing general manager Alex Anthopoulos and newly anointed President Mark Shapiro will figure heavily into the discussion this evening.
It’s controversial topics like this, he says, that ignite baseball fever in the dead of winter.
“I find that with PITCH Talks, it allows you to get into a deeper discussion of the game with perspectives that haven’t been told before,” Brendan says. “It’s not necessarily about winning an argument, winning a debate or getting in someone’s face. It’s just talking about what’s interesting about the game, what’s hilarious about the game and what’s frustrating about the game that makes it so interesting.”
The sold-out event will take place at Zaphod Beeblebrox’s on York St. at 8 p.m. If you’ve missed out on tickets for the Ottawa event, you can catch the next stop in Toronto on Jan. 26. For more information go to www.pitchtalksbaseball.com.