MINNEAPOLIS — Denzel Clarke is the most recent Canadian baseball player to graduate to the big-leagues and like so many others, he’s been helped along the way by Greg Hamilton and the junior national team program.

“He made a huge impact on me,” the Athletics outfielder from Pickering, Ont., says during a recent interview in Toronto. “Through the early part of a baseball career, I was a good athlete, but my baseball skills weren’t close to being where they needed to be. And for Greg to see me, see the athleticism and be able to make a decision that the junior national team could help develop that and accelerate that process is something I’ll always be grateful for. He believed in me when I didn’t even know what I had.”

Hamilton’s mentorship of countless players, building of the junior national team into a powerhouse talent feeder and leadership of a senior national team that often punches above its weight is why he’s part of the 2025 Class inducted to the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame on Saturday.

The honour is well-earned and overdue for the 59-year-old from Peterborough, Ont., who first joined Baseball Canada in 1992 as pitching coach for the senior national team. Four years later he took over as head coach of the junior squad and by 1998, he was also in charge of the senior squad as director of national teams, a title he holds to this day. 

“The amount of opportunity he’s given the Canadian baseball player to succeed in a country where it’s hard to become great because of logistics and things like that, it’s absolutely insane,” says Tim Leiper, the San Diego Padres’ third base coach who began coaching with the senior national team in 2003. “He’s been able to open the door and get them experience and not just for the guys that have had great success in the big-leagues.

“The other thing is to be from Canada and compete internationally the way we have, with all those same issues, it’s off the charts,” adds Leiper. “And it’s his complete selflessness that fuels so much of it.”

Stubby Clapp, the longtime national team icon now in his seventh season as first-base coach for the St. Louis Cardinals, thanks Hamilton “for everything he’s done to help my career and so many others,” describing him as “a true leader in our industry.”

“Greg has been instrumental in so many Canadian athletes’ careers,” adds the native of Windsor, Ont. “With his influence on the Baseball Canada program, he provided us tremendous opportunities to compete at the highest levels.”

Philadelphia Phillies manager Rob Thomson concurs, saying Hamilton’s influence “has improved baseball in Canada immensely.”

“You can see the quality of the players coming out of Canada and not only the quality, but of the volume of players,” adds the native of Corunna, Ont. “You have to attribute that to the work that he’s done on the junior level and also the senior team.”

Driving the success, Leiper believes, is how Hamilton, along with now retired longtime officials Ray Carter and Jim Baba, treats people in the program.

“It comes down to him just being a great human being and legitimately caring as much as he can about everybody who gets in there,” says Leiper, a native of Whittier, Calif., who now calls Canada home. “To me, that’s it.

“He changed the course of my life because of the friendships and what he created through running a baseball program. Setting a super high bar (for results) but also with the human element of it changed my coaching career completely. Any personal success I’ve had is due to the fact that I joined Baseball Canada and got around some of the greatest people I’ve ever been around who are friends to this day. He’s the biggest reason for that. I can’t even tell you how much he’s impacted me.”

Chris Leroux, the former Marlins, Pirates and Yankees right-hander born in Montreal and raised in Mississauga, Ont., echoes those sentiments, saying “outside of my dad, Greg was probably the No. 1 influence” on his baseball career.

“I made the junior national team for the first time when I was 16 and I remember we were in this crappy, Red Roof Inn type hotel, he sat me down and in the back of my head, I’m like, I’m getting sent home, there’s no way I’m going to make this team,” says Leroux, now part of the Blue Jays’ radio broadcast. “I had no idea how much he liked me, he said, ‘Congratulations, you made the team but don’t be complacent.’ I was like, I don’t even know what complacent means. Sure enough, I became complacent. That wasn’t a great summer for me, but that was the starting point of my relationship with Greg and with Baseball Canada. 

“It’s been a 25-year relationship now, and I can pick up the phone at any moment with him, talk to him,” adds Leroux. “He always asks me how my son is doing, if he’s left-handed or not — all the important questions. I’m as close with him as anybody else in the game. And I’m grateful for him being in my life.”

Clarke, the 17^th Canadian to appear in the majors this season, is the 36^th member of the junior national team to reach the big-leagues since 1999. Then there are the hundreds of players who have been drafted and played in the minor leagues, or to have received college scholarships.

Key to the program is the trips the team makes to Florida and the Dominican Republic to face rookie-level pro competition, which “really helps mould you into an awesome baseball player, but more importantly, an awesome person,” says Clarke.

Mindful of opportunities to develop players even in high-stakes events, Hamilton has always carried a young prospect or two on his rosters for the World Baseball Classic or Olympics, carrying the likes of Adam Loewen, Brett Lawrie, Tyler O’Neill, Owen Caissie and Clarke at various events to build them up for bigger roles in the future. 

“Really, really awesome,” says Clarke, a member of the 2023 Classic team who projects as a starter for the 2026 edition. “Getting to play on big stages, getting to play against big-leaguers, especially the Team USA, Team Mexico, they had established big-leaguers on both those squads, was a really cool experience. Playing in the big-leagues for the first time, it makes you feel like you’ve done it before. So I’m super grateful for that experience.” 

All of which helps build a unique bond within the larger Canadian baseball community.

Leroux says he often wonders to himself why the national teams seem to have a tighter culture than that of other countries. 

Part of it, he feels, is how small it is relative to the American behemoth to the south. 

At the same time, “it also has a lot to do with Greg. He allows us to be comfortable in that setting and a lot of national teams, they don’t have that. Greg is just that steady guy there and we want him to be successful, we want him to be happy, so we do as much as we can to make that happen.”

Adds Leiper: “It’s funny in baseball, you look to analytics and everyone being ultra-smart, Greg’s absolutely smarter than anybody that I’ve ever been around, but where it changes for him is how he can build relationships with people and how consistent he is and how gigantic his care factor is and how sincere it really is. He wants nothing for himself. It’s unbelievable. There’s nobody that can pull all the things off and do it in the way that he does. He’s one-of-a-kind.”