Charlie Brooks won't realize it until he's a few years older, but he was on the baseball field when his dad Stephen made his biggest hometown pitch.
Just 16 months old, Charlie was there in his dad's arms to witness Stephen toss the ceremonial ball to home plate Tuesday, just before Cuba went on to beat Canada 9-4 at the World Baseball Challenge.
From the sandlots of Prince George, where he used to play Little League ball, the 40-year-old Brooks has made a rapid climb to a high-profile position in the front office of Canada's only major league team, the Toronto Blue Jays. The son of Bob Brooks and Bev Ramage is now the Jays' senior vice-president of business operations and it was a proud moment indeed as he was introduced Tuesday to a sellout crowd of nearly 4,000 at Citizen Field.
"It was a great experience, it's a great game between two undefeated teams, with 4,000 people and it's nice for me to come back to my hometown and give a little in ways that I can to support a tournament like this, which is absolutely tremendous for the city," said Brooks.
"It was good to get my boy back here. Last September I had him at Fenway Park for a game and I got his picture taken standing at centrefield, so this first pitch will be a nice picture to add to the collection. He's got to hang out with his grandparents, he's got to see great baseball and he got to throw out the first pitch with dad, so it's a pretty good day."
The Jays are a major sponsor of the WBC and on Tuesday provided ball caps to the first 300 people into the park. Brooks runs the business side of the Jays' operation, overseeing finance and marketing, corporate partnerships, amateur baseball initiatives, and stadium operations.
He was behind the Jays' initiative to increase the team's presence across Canada. As a direct result of his ties to city, the Prince George was one of the 10 stops of the Jays Honda Super Camp. That brought former Jays players Lloyd Moseby, Rance Mulliniks, Duane Ward and Mark Eichhorn to P.G. for three days of instruction, a camp that involved 130 players for Prince George Youth Baseball.
"Part of our marketing plan this year was to get the team back out across the country and we had the winter tour [a series of skills clinics and guest appearances in January that sent current Jays players to Calgary, Vancouver, Scarborough, Ont., and Kitchener-Waterloo, Ont.] and we had great support from our alumni players for the Honda Super Camps," said Brooks, who has been with the Jays since 2009.
"To bring that to Prince George, in conjunction with the WBC tournament, made sense. Maybe if that had been around when I was a kid, I wouldn't have the job in the front office. Instead I might have had a bit more successful career on the field."
Brooks is elated with the support Prince George fans are showing for the week-long WBC tournament and predicts the event, held every two years, will continue to grow in stature.
"This year's tournament is a tremendous step up from what it was two years ago and when you get quality teams like this, with 4,000 people watching, we'll break that [attendance] record next time," said Brooks.
