Jamie Campbell got a taste of the Western Canadian Baseball League last summer and now he cannot wait to come back for more.

“I am officially hooked on the WCBL and that league has a fan for life,” the Blue Jays Central host said in a recent interview on Alberta Dugout Stories: The Podcast.

“I have been watching from afar for so long that I thought at some point I’ve got to find the time to see this for myself.”

The Ontario broadcaster said he first got the idea to head west and check out WCBL action when he was attending a Welland Jackfish game in the Intercounty Baseball League.

“I started thinking, there are probably ballparks and leagues and teams like this across this country and I need to see as many of them as I can. So, I knew of the WCBL for years and at the time that I really planted the idea, the Okotoks Dawgs were a bit of a national story because of, not only the success on the field, but the number of people that were showing up at Seaman Stadium,” recalled Campbell.

“And I just thought, okay, well, let’s start there. Let’s go to southern Alberta first. I’d seen photographs of the stadium in Medicine Hat and thought, my goodness that’s beautiful, let’s make that a destination. And then I heard these great stories about the Sylvan Lake Gulls and then, okay, well we’ve got to make the drive up there, too, and it turned into something wonderful.”

Campbell and his youngest son hopped on a plane for Alberta in July of 2024 and then drove to three WCBL stadiums across the province, taking in games and meeting coaches, players and fans along the way.

“The stadium experience in each venue that I went to – Medicine Hat, Sylvan Lake and Okotoks – was exquisite. Let’s explore that idea. I’ve been to a lot of rundown places to see baseball. None of these places are rundown, they’re majestic and beautiful. And the one in Sylvan Lake is kind of out in a field. It literally feels like you’re driving to the field that they cut in the cornfields for the movie Field of Dreams, it really does. You’re in line behind a bunch of pickup trucks and there’s dirt and dust flying all over the place and then you pull up to the stadium and it’s just heavenly,” Campbell told podcast host Joe McFarland.

“The fun thing about being in Sylvan Lake for us is that it was days before the major league draft and one of the Gulls star players was Nathan Flewelling. I ran into his parents the moment we walked into the hotel in Red Deer and it was just so neat to watch him days before he was ultimately drafted in the third round by the Tampa Bay Rays because that journey for him is just beginning. That’s probably one of the reasons why the level of baseball was so good.”

The former sportscaster with CBC in Edmonton noted that it’s important that players who come to the WCBL can see a path from the summer collegiate league to a roster spot with a Major League Baseball (MLB) team.

“It’s critically important, especially when you consider it’s not just Canadian kids that get this opportunity. I’m thinking of Andrew Kittredge, whose had a reasonably successful major-league career and who pitched in Okotoks at one point. He needed a place to showcase his game in the summer and not everybody gets invited to the Cape Cod League, so that place for him was Alberta,” he said.

“It’s incredible how the opportunity that a league like this can provide is a really important aspect of the journey that they can take to professional baseball and, if they’re lucky, to the major leagues. But beyond that, the life experience. You think about these kids that come from Florida or California or anywhere in the southern States and they’re playing summer league ball in Weyburn or Saskatoon or Fort McMurray. What an incredible life experience that must be, one that they can take back and explain to their friends and family that it was a joyous time in my life.”

Campbell is set to return west for a fundraising dinner for the Weyburn Beavers on March 15th with former MLB pitcher John Axford.

“I know some of these fundraisers that we’re doing, some of the money generated goes into improving the existing facilities. I’ll do that if I have the time, I’ll do it. I just feel so strongly about the growth of baseball in Canada,” he said.

If he has his way, it won’t be the only time that Campbell visits Saskatchewan this year for baseball.

“I’m scheming about how the summer of 2025 is going to unfold, because I do have a little bit of time in between Blue Jay games. I haven’t made a definitive plan but I’ve got some ideas,” said Campbell, adding the Saskatoon Berries are one team he’d like to see.

“I’ve been by that stadium (Cairns Field) many, many times. I do a fundraiser for the Kinsmen Club almost every winter in Saskatoon and the venue looks terrific, and I hear from people every time I go there about how much satisfaction they get out of attending a Berries game. I can’t deny that it’s on my radar for the summer of 2025.”

To read more of the interview with Campbell, go to the Alberta Dugout Stories website.