'It's special': N.B. man puts years of N.B. baseball experience into new books

A man in Fredericton, N.B., is putting his passion for the game of baseball into two new books.

Bill "Buzzard" Saunders has lived and breathed New Brunswick baseball for years. 

 "I coached for tons of years, a lot of years," he says. "I coached senior baseball from 1979 until 1985, but then I dropped back down and coached with my son, and came up through the system again from pee-wee, bantam, junior, nationals."

Saunders has dedicated eight years of research to 'The Buzz on New Brunswick Senior Baseball' – an upcoming collection of two books featuring local stories, statistics, facts and photos.

"I spent hours at the UNB library and the Fredericton Regional Library as well, going through the old newspapers and picking a lot out of that," says Saunders. "But a lot of it was photos I saved over the years. I was a bit of a photo nut."

Once printed, Saunders plans to put the funds from the books back into Fredericton's minor league baseball.

Local baseball legend Matt Stairs has over 20 years of experience as an MLB player and coach. He says Saunders has had a major impact on the sport – adding he even drove Stairs to Montreal for his major league tryouts.

"It's special. I've been the technical director, this is my second year and he wants to get all the funds that he raises from the book donated to the FMBA," says Stairs. "He kind of wants to put it back into Saunders Field. He has some things he'd like to do, putting turf down or a big wall like the Boston Red Sox, but whatever he raises and whatever we end up doing with it, he'll be extremely happy."

Saunders says he's still raising money to have the book printed. He says anyone interested in donating towards the books can send an e-transfer to [e-mail].

He hopes to bring his first printed copy home by July.