Who is Roy Madison?
by Heath Fenton
I never lost my zest for baseball. I may have retired into softball land for the last 18 years, but I’ve always been a massive baseball fan. It is hard to find baseball people in this city. Sure, they pop up here and there. Mostly when the Blue Jays and/or Mariners are on a rare playoff run. But for the most part they’ve always been elusive. The search is over. I have found my baseball people.
I did not know what to expect when I signed up for the East Van Baseball League. I had initially contacted the league to search for players for my softball team. The next thing you know they were talking me into playing hardball again. It was an easy sell. I knew of the league. I knew it was sort of a loosy goosy upstart with only two teams; the Isotopes Punk Rock Baseball Club and the East Van Black Sox. They have brought it up a notch this year with a mass expansion draft and an actual five team league. It is a league full of East Van eccentrics. I cannot express enough how stoked I am to see the organizers bring true sandlot baseball back to Vancouver. These are passionate baseball people. My kind of people. This season is going to go off like a sack of bananas in an ape cage. There will be storylines galore in the making. So it must be only natural that this league should have its own beat writer. Apparently it does.
Mysterious sports writer Roy Madison’s blog (wwww.roymadison.tumblr.com) about the EVBL has been popping up around the interwebs with keen interest from the league. People are excited that someone of Madison’s stature and talent has chosen to write about the new league. Wannabe rockstars getting the rockstar treatment. But what is Madison’s true stature exactly? Just who is this Roy Madison?
Frankly, the name seems made up. But I digress. He appears to be some sort of vagabond, infamous, hard living sports writer. He has a unique style and an engaging outlook on the game. And he is doing a great job. If you believe Madison’s routine, he has taken up residence in a Vancouver hotel, via Los Angeles and before that, New York, where he wore out his welcome. He is starting fresh in Vancouver, after a haphazard suicide attempt in an LA swimming pool. I will digress again. If you dive into this peculiar scribe’s story, the mystery sinks even further into the deep end.
One thing you will find is that he is almost non-existent on the internet, which would seem like an impossible accomplishment for an accomplished sports writer. His Twitter account @RoyMadison has been active since the inception of the 2011 Major League Baseball regular season. It is his Twitter account that appears to be his only tool for “covering” any sort of baseball. If you’ve followed his Twitter feed over the years, some of his stories do ring true. It appears he did spend time in LA covering the Dodgers. He also did a stint in jail. He was fired from the The Bleacher Report. A true baseball man indeed. But his recent claims to be in Vancouver for the first time falls on false ears. Many of his Tweets from years ago claim to be coming from Nat Bailey stadium while watching the Vancouver Canadians. His favorite teams to Tweet about are the Yankees, Blue Jays and the Dodgers. So that would make sense. But the Blue Jays? Reeks of a Canadian. I found a great article online that Madison wrote about legendary Dodgers’ announcer Vin Scully. That also makes sense from the LA connection. How old is the guy? Is he young enough to just start a Twitter account only five years ago? Or is he one of those old timers who stubbornly refused to give into social media pressures but finally caved? He sounds more like the cranky old man type to me. Many times, as I read his posts, it is hard to draw the line between schtick and reality. That is what kind of makes his musings so damn entertaining.
I am going to give Roy Madison the benefit of the doubt. Because, as we all know, it is a writer’s job to entertain and tell a story. To be interesting and take character. So liberties are allowed to be taken in the name of a telling tale. There is no doubting Madison’s passion and knowledge of the game. He is everything that the EVBL needs. EVBL needs its story to be told. This is the start of something grand, and Roy Madison is going to be Johnny, (or Sally), on the spot. Down the road, he will be the envy of his colleagues.
What disturbs me the most, though, is the thought of Saturday the 16th, when I will take the field for our first official game. I am going to be scouring the park for a suspiciously parked Cadillac. I am going to be concerning myself with the bleachers looking for a crusty old man with a pen and pad and an old Yankees hat pulled down over his face. On the other hand, it could be the fifteen year old kid on his bike next to the tree pretending to have his face buried in his phone. Or could it be the twenty something nerdo pretending to study on the grassy knoll adjacent to the ballpark. After all, you never know. This is the internet. You can pretty much pretend to be anyone you want as long as you don’t show your face. One thing for sure is that I will be eagerly awaiting Roy Madison’s latest scoop on this great baseball league. If you want to get on board with it, then Madison’s soon to be legendary narratives are the perfect introduction.
More Roy Madison can be found here:
Madison: Saturday Among the Living
*Heath Fenton is a member of the Mount Pleasant Murder, Cardinals fan, metalhead, writer for Beatroute and Exclaim, and has the best chops in the EVBL. This is his raw missive that we at the EVBL are proud to post.
