New Experience For Shapiro Representing Canada

Caden Shapiro, a 2021 left-hander who plays the outfield as well, grew up playing baseball in Cleveland, Ohio. He was raised at a time when Cliff Lee, CC Sabathia and Grady Sizemore were walking through the doors of Progressive Field, the same field his father Mark Shapiro’s office was located.

When Mark joined the Toronto Blue Jays in 2015 that meant Caden’s baseball career would also shift north of the border. At the time, Caden was just 13-years-old and he had never really thought what it would be like to represent a country in baseball, let alone Canada.

Four years later, Shapiro took the field with “Canada” written across his chest at the 2019 Future Games.

“When I got the invitation saying I was on the team, I was really fired up because some of my buddies have played in that program and some have gone on to play for Team Canada and as I’ve kind of lived here and settled into the city, I’ve had that in the back of my mind for the last year or so of how cool would it be to play for Canada because it’s a place where I feel at home now, so it was an awesome opportunity to do that,” said Shapiro.

If the smile and excitement that surrounds him at the diamond isn’t proof that he feels at home in Toronto, he also became a Canadian citizen this year.

It was an exciting few days in Atlanta for Shapiro as he was surrounded by some of his friends including three other Mets players but also because it was one of his first true moments pitching in front of rows and rows of scouts.

“For all of us, of course it’s in the back of our minds. It’s hard not to look back and see 50 different faces, all the different coloured t-shirts and seeing whatever logo on a guys hat and think “wow, that’s Vanderbilt” or whatever your dream school is,” explained Shapiro, adding that it’s important to not let recruiters affect the way he plays his game.

“At the end of the day you just need to treat it like a regular game and you need to compete and I feel if you’re going about the game in a different way, you’re just putting yourself at a disadvantage.”

This first experience pitching and playing on a big stage would come to help him this past week when he found himself competing in a building that he’s come to know very well over the past few years.

Stepping on the mound and into the box at the Rogers Centre for the Tournament 12, the same place he watched his Dad’s Blue Jays battle for a berth in the 2016 World Series when they took on the Cleveland Indians in the American League Championship Series. 

Shapiro has jumped onto the scene this summer and performed in several big showcases. He doesn’t head to college until 2021 so the next two years will be focused on finding a school to attend back in his home country, the USA.

Things are beginning to come full circle for Shapiro as he can see his baseball career beginning to unfold with more and more opportunities starting to present themselves.

The Future Games and T12 allowed Shapiro to get experience competing against the best and seeing how he stacks up against them. Despite the connections to Cleveland and America, the past few months have seen Shapiro immersed in the middle of some of Canada’s best amateur baseball and he’s enjoyed it every minute of it.