JEFFERSON TWP — The Montreal Expos are dead, but baseball in Canada is very much alive.

The North York Blues, a team of 15-year-olds from Toronto that is competing in this year's Freeport International Baseball Invitational, are a testament to that.

When the Blues took on the Kentucky Bluegrass squad Thursday at Laura Doerr Park, they were playing their 56th game of the season, sporting a record of 40-15.

They will play 80 to 90 games before hanging up their spikes for the summer.

"We play in three leagues: one in the spring and two in the summer,"team manager Jack Brown said. "The high school season is also in the spring, and pretty much all of these kids play high school ball in addition to our schedule."

It makes for a lot of time at the ballpark.

"That's OK," shortstop Maxx Tissenbaum said. "There's no place I'd rather be."

Tissenbaum grew up in a baseball family. His grandfather was drafted by the Dodgers years ago but never played pro ball. His father played baseball as well.

He may be Canadian and he does play hockey, but baseball comes first we him.

"I play on a Select hockey team, maybe one game a week,"Tissenbaum said. "Baseball, I play every day.

"My arm gets a little tired at this time of year, but it's well worth it."

Amateur baseball teams in Canada don't use the designated hitter. They use the regular nine position players, plus a 10th spot known as the extra hitter.

All nine fielders and the extra hitter have a spot in the batting order. The extra hitter position is interchangeable with the other nine positions in terms of substituting players or moving players around.

The Blues have 16 players on their team. Their play is geared toward succeeding in the provincial tournament, which leads to the Canadian national tournament.

Canada has national tournaments for 13-year-old, 15-year-old and 18-year-old teams, along with 21-and-over teams.

"You'll get up to 500 fans at nationals,"Brown said. "I was an assistant coach for a team that reached the national finals in 2003."

Brown has been coaching amateur baseball since 1986. He said the Expos leaving Montreal affected only that region in terms of amateur baseball.

The Toronto Blue Jays' arrival in 1977 jump-started the sport throughout the country.

"High school baseball began in Canada the very next year,"Brown said.

Baseball in Canada has been growing ever since.

"The number of Canadian-born players in the minor leagues has never been higher than it is now,"Brown said. "And the number of Canadians playing college baseball in the United States now is in the 300s."

Michael Forbes, 15, the most versatile player on the Blues' roster, said he tries to follow Canadian-born major leaguers like Jason Bay and Larry Walker.

"I'm not very good at that stuff, though," he said. "I'm more into playing. I mean, I like the Jays — I just like playing more than watching."

Forbes said he wants to play college baseball and will probably attend a school in the U.S. to do so.

"That's where the college baseball is serious," he said.

Hockey remains the No. 1 sport in Canada. Forbes said lacrosse is next in popularity, followed by baseball.

"I play squash, too," he said. "Some colleges back home offer scholarships for that."

Tissenbaum, hitting .385 as a switch-hitter and the Blues' lead-off batter, said that most of the college baseball programs in Canada are in British Columbia, on the western side of the country.

"I've been dreaming abut being a pro ballplayer since I was old enough to dream,"Tissenbaum said. "If I'm good enough, I'll get there no matter where I go to school."