And then there was one

Sometime late Monday afternoon, the final pitch will be thrown in Ottawa, bringing an end to full-season affiliated baseball in Canada. The Lynx will conclude their 15-year run in the nation's capital, providing a disappointing finish to what has been a memorable chapter in Minor League Baseball's history.

Philadelphia, whose agreement with Ottawa expires following Monday's game, will move its Triple-A affiliate to Allentown, Pa. And when that happens, Vancouver will be the last team standing. The aptly named Canadians of the Northwest League will become the last affiliated Minor League franchise in a nation that loves baseball yet can't seem to support a Minor League club.

Vancouver, however, seems to be the exception. While Ottawa has long struggled with attendance problems -- the Lynx have finished last in attendance in the International League every year since 1997 -- the Canadians have no such woes. They have been either second or third in attendance in the NWL every year since 2001 and have actually outdrawn Ottawa in each of the last two seasons. Fans flock to Nat Bailey Stadium, allowing the Short-Season franchise to earn a special place in a city where outsiders generally consider hockey and football kings.

Baseball has thrived in Vancouver for more than a century, and it shows no signs of fading. The Canadians have new ownership, a commitment to refurbish the ballpark -- both from the new owners and the city -- and a vow that the club will be staying put and not heading to supposedly greener pastures in the United States. When long-time friends and businessmen Jeff Mooney and Jake Kerr purchased the team from Fred Herman they were determined to keep the Canadians Canadian.

"When we first started talking about buying the club, we didn't know that Ottawa would be moving," said Mooney, who is also the controlling shareholder of A&W in Canada, the country's second-largest restaurant chain behind McDonalds. "We found out shortly thereafter, and knowing we'd be the last affiliated Minor League team hit on a very central thing for us. This is such an important thing in our community. It just means so much. It's just something that had to be kept here.

"Fortunately because Jake moved quickly on the news that the owner might want to sell, we were able to come to an arrangement that everyone was happy with pretty quickly. My view is that having only one team left here isn't because of a lack of interest in Canada. They have this huge appetite for baseball in the U.S., and the baby-boom generation is coming into a lot of money. There are a lot of people that would like to own a baseball team and don't have a billion dollars to buy the Yankees. So teams were bought up, as in Ottawa, and we don't want that to happen here."

It may get pretty lonely, though, carrying that maple leaf around. The Pacific Coast League at one time had teams in Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver but left for Albuquerque, Round Rock and Sacramento, respectively. The Trappers last played in Edmonton in 2004, and currently there are no plans for the PCL to return to Canada. The same can be said for the IL, which at times sported teams in Toronto, Montreal, Winnipeg, Hamilton and Ottawa. In addition, the International League, which may now need to find a new name, has also had teams in San Juan and Havana.

PCL president Branch Rickey and Randy Mobley, his International League counterpart, each have a laundry list of reasons why it wouldn't be prudent to return to Canada in the near future, if at all. Travel expenses, taxes, the exchange rate and customs delays at the border are just some of the reasons why neither league is currently looking toward relocation or expansion.

And while that is disappointing to both men, they remain pragmatic. In Rickey's case, it's particularly disappointing considering his family's history in Canada. His grandfather was the general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, who signed Jackie Robinson and assigned him to the Montreal Royals of the International League.

"I have an historic background where we had a wonderful family relationship with the teams in Canada, especially Montreal," Rickey said. "There is a lot of nostalgia there, and I associate with baseball in Canada. It has a different flavor, but the reality of the situation is that whether or not there is a team in Canada is driven by economics. We've been able to relocate teams into the United States where they have been flourishing."

So that leaves Vancouver. Mooney said he and Kerr have already had several unsolicited offers to either buy or invest in the team from current Minor League owners in America. But he's not interested, saying he and Kerr are working on making the Canadians "the finest franchise in Minor League Baseball."

They've already invested several million dollars into Nat Bailey Stadium, with the city of Vancouver also pouring in cash. The Olympics are headed to Vancouver in 2010 and ownership is confident the publicity surrounding the event will only serve to enhance the franchise. Currently the city has two major newspapers and nearly two dozen other media outlets covering the team.

In addition, the club has found a niche among the city's diverse ethnic population. They began broadcasting games in Japanese and Punjab towards the end of the season in an effort to appeal to a larger fan base. There is a warm, community-driven atmosphere surrounding the club that should keep the patrons in Vancouver coming back for many years.

"We're sort of walking before we're running," Kerr said. "We have a lot of work to do with the market segments in Vancouver. We have huge ethnic communities where the kids play ball that we haven't worked on yet. This is a big-league market. It's a hockey town, but we've had the NBA and Indy Car Racing. There is a strong civic pride in keeping baseball alive in Vancouver.

"There used to be a whole lot of Canadian teams in the PCL. And there were teams in Ottawa and Toronto. It's nice to be the last man standing but too bad for the others."

Both Mooney and Kerr also mentioned the possibility of seeing Vancouver return to the PCL one day. That would take significant upgrades to The Nat as well as finding a Major League franchise willing to put their Triple-A affiliate back in Canada. Don't expect such a move to happen any time soon, if at all.

"Would we prefer baseball in Canada, absolutely," said Pat O'Conner, the vice president and chief operating officer of the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues. "We'd love to be as international as we can be. But with the economics and logistics, it's just gotten extremely difficult to operate in Canada. Sometimes it's just too much for a market to bear. Are we done forever in Canada? Probably not.

"The success of the Canadian national team and the World Baseball Classic are both factors that could easily contribute to a possible return of baseball at a Minor League level in Canada. I don't think there's any question that when a club moves, it's disappointing. It's unfortunate because someone is losing baseball. So I hate to see clubs move, but I understand it."

So begin the funeral procession in Ottawa. And crank up the band in Vancouver. Minor League Baseball is thinning out in Canada, but there's still reason to celebrate.