Rogers Field at Nat Bailey Stadium

Rogers Field at Nat Bailey Stadium in Vancouver, BC, is the home of the Vancouver Canadians, the Toronto Blue Jays' High-A Northwest League farm team. It is both the northernmost and westernmost ballpark in a U.S.-based affiliated league.

A week into the 2023 season, the C's and Rogers Communications announced a naming rights contract through the end of the 2027 campaign.[1] While the Rogers name applies to the field and leaves the Bailey name on the structure, "Rogers Field" was incorporated into primary signage at the ballpark. Rogers also has naming rights for the home stadium of the Blue Jays, whom they own.

The playpen was built using the blueprints of Sick's Stadium in Seattle, WA, as Seattle brewer Emil Sick owned both the Vancouver Capilanos of the NwL's predecessor circuit, the Western International League, and the Pacific Coast League's Seattle Rainiers. In 1979, with the slightly renamed Sicks' Stadium slated for demolition, Vancouver Canadians owner Harry Ornest bought the grandstand seats and manual scoreboard and had them installed in the Vancouver ballpark.

Opened as Capilano Stadium in 1951, "The Nat" was renamed in 1978 for the Vancouver restaurateur who'd just helped bring Minor League Baseball back to town. As a word, "Capilano" derives from the Squamish Nation's Kia'palano - which means "beautiful river" and is also the name of a great Squamish chief. However, Sick used the word as one of his beer brands, later naming both team and ballpark for it. The Seattle brewer had earlier done precisely the same thing with the PCL's Seattle Indians, buying them and renaming them Rainiers not for the local mountains but for the brand of his beer he had named for those mountains.

Bailey, who headed the group that bought the Oakland Oaks and turned them into the Vancouver Mounties in 1956, died only 18 days before the Canadians were to begin play in 1978; just five days after his death, the park was renamed. The brand of the team that plays in The Nat has gone uninterrupted since, although the franchise changed when its original Canadians were sold in 1999. That operation moved to Sacramento, CA, but the Northwest League club in Medford, OR, promptly moved into The Nat.

That was the third time "Raincouver" had lost Triple-A ball, but the Short-Season Class A NwL club sold 95% of its seats from 2015 through 2019. The half-season format had minimized rainouts by avoiding spring games, but MLB's 2021 Minor League Reorganization put the C's and back into full-season ball - and with them those NwL teams that survived the revamp.

The first demise of a Vancouver franchise in a U.S. league didn't smell at all like rain. In 1951, the Vancouver Capilanos - charter members of the Western International League - moved into brand-new Capilano Stadium. The original six-team WIL had exactly one Canadian team, but by 1954 there were four among the league complement of 10. That September, WIL members voted the financially troubled circuit out of existence. The next day, the six U.S. franchisees banded together as the Northwest League - leaving the four Canadian clubs adrift.

Triple-A PCL franchises played as the Vancouver Mounties from 1956 through 1962 and again from 1965 through 1969.

In 2021, because of pandemic-based Canadian border-crossing restrictions, the C's shared the Hillsboro Hops' Ron Tonkin Field. Their parents called Buffalo's Sahlen Field home the middle two months of the same season for the same reason. The Jays went home in late July, but the C's announced in August they would finish 2021 in Hillsboro - in fact, completing the season as the host team in a series with their housemates.

MLB's reorganization also enacted standards on ballparks hosting its farm teams, and work on The Nat is underway. Costs and funding sources have not been disclosed.

Since 2008, the Nat has been the only Canadian stadium hosting a team in a U.S.-based affiliated league. Gone south since 1999, in order: Lethbridge Black Diamonds to Missoula, MT; the aforementioned Triple-A Vancouver Canadians, to Sacramento, CA; St. Catharines Stompers to Brooklyn, NY; Calgary Cannons to Albuquerque, NM; Medicine Hat Blue Jays to Helena, MT; Edmonton Trappers to Round Rock, TX; Ottawa Lynx to Allentown, PA.

The stadium has appeared on TV and movie screens in the original MacGyver (1985-1992), The Comrades of Summer (1992), Highlander: The Series (1992-1998), The 4400 (2004-2007), Psych (2006-2014), Anna & Kristina's Grocery Bag (2008-), Watchmen (2009) and The Romeo Section (2015-2016).