Wednesday, April 15, 1998 | 9:22 a.m.
Aaron Guiel has waited a lifetime for this.
The stocky 25-year-old outfielder, who grew up in the tiny Canadian town of Nanaimo on Vancouver Island, will be making his professional baseball return to the stadium he grew up playing youth baseball in when the Las Vegas Stars open a four-game series with the Vancouver Canadians on Thursday night.
Guiel will have his own personal routing section. More than 100 of his friends and family are expected to attend all four games at Nat Bailey Stadium.
"Yeah, it is a dream come true," said Guiel, who is hitting .364 after garnering two hits in three at-bats in the Stars' 4-3 Pacific Coast League victory over Calgary Tuesday night at Cashman Field. "Up until the last couple of days it really didn't sink in. Now it's finally going to happen."
It won't be hard to spot Guiel's fan club.
"A bunch of my friends will be painting themselves in our colors," he said. "And they won't be wearing their shirts."
What could be more fun on an cold April night in Vancouver?
It's a scene Guiel envisioned a lot sooner. A 21st round draft pick of the Anaheim Angels in 1993, he had by far the best year statistically of any player at the Angels' double-A team at Midland, Texas in 1997. Guiel hit .329 with a team-high 22 home runs and 85 RBIs in just 116 games.
But instead of realizing his dream and getting called up to the Angels' triple-A team in Vancouver, Guiel found himself getting traded to the San Diego Padres' organization for catcher Angelo Encarnacion.
"I would have been the first player from Vancouver to play professionally there," Guiel said. "Going into August, I was hitting .335 and had hit 20 homers. I was just sitting there waiting (to get called up). No other outfielder at Midland was hitting better than .260. But the call never came. It was very frustrating."
But less than a year later Guiel finally will make his homecoming.
"I dreamed of playing triple-A baseball in Vancouver," said Guiel, who is very familiar with Nat Bailey Stadium.
"We used to have our youth league tryouts there," he said. "And I would go and watch some games there. Now there will be young kids watching me play there. That's exciting to me. They can say, 'Hey, this guy's from here.' I want to show them that it isn't unrealistic that one day they can play professional baseball, too."
Most people who grow up in hockey-crazed Vancouver dream of being the next Wayne Gretzky or Mark Messier. Guiel, whose grandfather is famed former NHL referee Lloyd Gilmour, played both sports before deciding to focus on baseball.
"It was tough because we'd play maybe only 10 to 15 games a year depending on the weather," said Guiel. "And there is no high school baseball up there."
So Guiel took a year off from high school and played for the National Baseball Institute, an amatuer team from western Canada that would play exhibition games against American college teams up and down the West Coast.
"A scout from the Angels and Dodgers followed us," Guiel said. "I hit .360 with 15 home runs. And after playing JC ball for a year, the Angels drafted me."
He spent five years in the Angels organization before the trade last Aug. 23 to the Padres.
"This is the first time I've seen him play," Stars manager Jerry Royster said. "I was very impressed with his play in spring training. He showed me in a couple of weeks that I should put him in the third spot in the batting order on a pretty good offensive team. And I like what he's done so far."
Guiel has rotated with Charles Poe in left field this season. But because he'll be making his homecoming this weekend, Royster has decided to start Guiel in all four games against the Canadians.
"It sounds like it's going to be fun for him," Royster said. "I know talking to him this spring he was hoping he could make the team so that he could go home and play. He'll have the opportunity to show what he can do. I've changed the rotation so his family and friends can see him play. I know playing in front of my family was always special for me."
Besides seeing friends and family, Guiel will also be able to spend some time at his three-bedroom house in Langley, B.C., about a 30-minute drive from Vancouver.
"George Arias, Creighton (Gubanich) and Chris Prieto are all going to stay with me," Guiel said. "And I'll probably have some kind of team function there on Saturday night. It's going to be neat. It'll give all my friends a chance to meet some future major league stars. And a lot of these guys haven't been to Canada before."
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