Rod MacKay Signs With Hometown Caps

ANOTHER SANDY?
Dewey Signs MacKay to Capilano Contract
By CLANCY LORANGER
[Vancouver Province, Thursday, Jan. 29, 1953]
A local boy will be trying to make good with the home town team when Vancouver Caps open spring training in March.
Rod MacKay, a King Edward product with four years of pro ball experience—elsewhere—signed a contract with the local WIL entry Wednesday.
MacKay, a 6 ft. 2ins., 170-pound left-hander, is just 22 and general manager Dewey Soriano hopes he’ll turn out to be another Sandy Robertson. Sandy was one of the Caps’ most valuable chattels before last year’s veteran rule got him put out of business—temporarily.
DEWEY HOPES
After graduating from King Ed, MacKay played a year of senior baseball here before being signed by New York Giants scout Mickey Schader in a try-out camp in Olympia in 1949.
Rod, whose wife Rene is daughter of well-known Vancouver ex-ball player Johnny Nestman, has moved around quite a bit on the baseball map.
In 1949, he was with Reno, Class C, where he won six and lost seven. His record thereafter: 1950, Erie, Middle Atlantic League, 7-4; 1951, Idaho Falls, Pioneer League, 10-6; 1951, Sunbury, Inter-State, 1-3, and Knoxville, Tri-State, 5-7. He got his release from Knoxville to join the Caps, he said.
DIAMOND DUST—Another member of the 1952 team was peddled Wednesday, infielder Jesse Williams joined ex-Caps Ed Locke and Bob McGuire at Yakima. . .It was a straight cash deal, Soriano said. . .Ball fans who’ve complained that they couldn’t get tickets downtown in previous years won’t have that trouble this summer. . .Soriano has made a deal for Percy Hicks to handle the ducats. . .You can scratch Dario Lodigiani from the Caps’ managerial stakes. . .“Lodi” was ready to come here, but was “bound” to commitments at Yakima. . .Edo Vanni was in line to succeed Lodigiani at Yakima, but when Vanni signed as Tri-City manager, Lodigiani had to stay where he was. . .Soriano has written to Roy Nicely, veteran Coast Leaguer and one of baseball’s smoothest-fielding shortstops, asking him if he’s interested in a job here. . .Nicely was released Wednesday by Oakland.