Canadians will have to find another hero to hang their Olympic baseball hopes on.
The Stubby Clapp era is over.
The Houston Astros, for whom Clapp works as a hitting coach at Class A Lexington, Ky., this week told Baseball Canada that the tough infielder from Windsor, Ont., won't be available to Canada for baseball's Olympic swan song in Beijing.
Greg Hamilton, coach and director for the national team, told CBCSports.ca. "It's a blow. Stubby Clapp brings leadership to the team and in many ways is the face of the program."
The face and the fiesty side.
Clapp -- whose real name is Richard Keith Clapp -- has won hearts as a national team player since the 1999 Pan American Games in Winnipeg. It took only a split-second to become a cult hero. The 1996 St. Louis Cardinal draft pick (36th round) slapped a bases-loaded single in the 11th inning to beat a more experienced and swaggering U.S. team and put Canada in the semifinals. This was a 5-foot-8 Canadian runt with a funny name, helping the underdog Canucks overachieve and beat the Americans at their national game. Canada eventually won bronze medal.
Clapp also participated in the 2004 Athens Olympics, where Canada finished a respectable fourth. This time around, in the qualifying games, he got hurt trying to manufacture a run. Clapp took out the German catcher at home plate and their knees collided. The Canadian's knee still isn't in playing condition.
It's a little sad he won't be around, even on the bench, because Clapp's been a central character in the ethos that developed around Canada's national baseball team.
In 1999, when the Pan-Am players came together, there was a maple-flavoured chemistry. Some, who'd played against each other in the minors, hadn't even realized they had the same nationality.
"It's like 'Why didn't you tell me before.' It was an instant bond," Andy Stewart said in Winnipeg upon discovering Jeremy Ware was a fellow hoser.
Clapp, partly because of his memorable handle, was a media star. He revealed he was actually "Stubby the Third," having a nickname passed on from his grandfather and father. "And if I ever have a kid, he'll be Stubby the Fourth. He can have all the ridicule I ever had."
He couldn't fathom being a media darling. "Darling? I'm not that good lookin'."
Well, he always looked good in red and white.
