Ernie Whitt
Ernie Whitt
Leo Ernest "Ernie" Whittis a former Major League Baseball catcher and coach. He is noted for the twelve years he spent as a player with the Toronto Blue Jays. When he left the team following the 1989 season he was the last original Blue Jay left from when Toronto joined the major leagues in 1977. Ernie Whitt was inducted into the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame in 1997...
ProfessionBaseball Player
Date of Birth13 June 1952
might south
Don't short-change South Africa. They're gutsy. They're young enough that they might not know who they're facing.
canada manager opportunity proud time
I'm very proud to be the manager of Canada. Every time they give me the opportunity to manage, I will.
caught feels goal himself martin point pulled surprise took ultimate understand
It took us by surprise when Martin pulled himself out of it. I can see his point of view. As a young player, your ultimate goal is to play in the big leagues. He feels he has that chance. It caught us off guard, but I can understand that.
might nice scare
They might not even know who they're facing. It would be nice to give them a scare anyway.
bit call tonight
I think tonight was a little bit of a wake-up call for us.
buck canadian certainly close consider fact fans friend friendly might rivalry
People, especially in Canada, have been making a big thing out of the fact that we are opposing each other as managers. Buck is a close friend of mine. Canadian fans might consider the U.S. to be friendly rivals, but there's certainly no rivalry between Buck and myself.
ball bats overall played swung team threw thrown time
As a team we probably threw too many pitches. This is the first time they have thrown to hitters. Overall we were OK. We played errorless ball and swung the bats well.
beat expected fun hopefully oppose pressure quietly states united win
It will be fun to oppose Buck. I feel there's probably more pressure on him than there is me, because the United States are expected to win and win the whole thing. We're just the sleepers and hopefully we'll go in and quietly beat them.
basically capable expect game managers
Not really. Managers have tendencies, but you basically have to look at your personnel, what they're capable of doing or not doing and play the game by the book, what you would expect out of each individual, not so much out of their manager.
baseball beat celebrate enjoy excited feather focus game guarantee happy hour next task whenever
Everyone's excited and everything like that, no question. Whenever you can beat a powerhouse like the USA, it's a feather in baseball Canada's history. We're going to enjoy this, celebrate a little bit, but we do have one other game to play and there's no guarantee that we're going to the next round. We can be happy right now, but we still have a task at hand, and that after an hour or two we will focus on Mexico.
ball nasty threw
He threw the ball well, he threw some nasty pitches.
active ball determined extra pitches role sat shocked strike threw throw wants work
Q threw the ball outstanding. He's just a strike machine. We were shocked when he threw that one ball. I thought, 'Well, he probably just wants to throw some extra pitches and get some work in.' I haven't sat down and determined a role yet, but he will be very active in our bullpen.
again good guys hitting job left player seem tournament turn
Our situational hitting wasn't as good as it could have been, we left a lot of guys on base, but again it's the first game. These guys are pretty good tournament player guys. They seem like they can turn it on and do a pretty good job for us.
africa game goes last south type
Everyone speculated that South Africa was going to be a pushover. It just goes to show, as I've said all along, you have to play every game as if it's your last in these type of tournaments.