Outlaws to visit Canada

Although it’s the off-season, the Chico Outlaws professional baseball team, last year’s Golden Baseball League champion, has been much in the news lately.

For one thing, the team announced that it would be regularly traveling to Canada next year because two teams from there, the Calgary Vipers and the Edmonton Cracker Cats, will be joining the GBL, bringing the league’s roster to a full eight teams. Both cities are substantially larger than Chico and have long pro-baseball experience.

In other news, the Outlaws announced that the Boston Red Sox, recent winners of the World Series, had purchased the contract of 24-year-old outfielder Daniel Nava, the GBL’s Most Valuable Player last year. Nava, in his first year as a pro, led the league in batting with a .371 average and hit a blistering .494 in the playoffs.

Nava will report to the Sox’s spring training camp in Florida to try out for a slot on the franchise’s Portland Sea Dogs double-A league team.