Former Toronto Blue Jays catcher Gregg Zaun has caught on with a new team in Canada, eight years after being fired from his analyst job at Rogers Sportsnet over “inappropriate behaviour.”
Zaun has been named the new head coach of the Kelowna Falcons of the West Coast League for the 2026 season.
“This is an exciting opportunity for me, in a city I’ve come to really love,” Zaun told Capital News in Kelowna.
“I can promise the people of Kelowna that it won’t be boring at our games,” Zaun added. “We will play an exciting brand of hard-work baseball, we will play with energy, and we will make Kelowna proud of their Falcons.”
Zaun, who played five of his 16 seasons in the majors with Toronto, joined Sportsnet as an in-studio analyst after he retired from playing in 2010.
However, Zaun’s time at the national sports broadcasting network came to a controversial end in 2017, when he was accused by several female coworkers of “inappropriate behaviour.”
Earlier this year, Zaun opened up during a podcast appearance this week about his unceremonious departure, including about the allegations made against him and how greatly they have affected him personally and professionally.
“I definitely made mistakes. I let celebrity get in my head,” Zaun said during an episode of the Toronto Legends podcast. “I was never as famous in Canada as a player as I was as a broadcaster. I mean, I couldn’t walk down the street.
“My life was turned upside down, ruined. My professional career, ruined,” he added. “I can’t get a job in television. There’s not a lot of forgiveness for people that look like me in this world. And it’s my fault. It’s absolutely my fault.”
While Zaun said that he was “shocked” by the allegations, he also held himself accountable for letting things get too far.
“There are certain topics of conversation that don’t belong in the workplace. And it’s funny, the biggest mistake that I’ve made is thinking that because a lot of the conversations and exchanges were initiated by females in the workplace that they were somehow OK. That I was somehow justified in participating in those conversations. The tomfoolery, the hijinks. These allegations, they were shocking to me,” Zaun said.
“I was just having fun with willing participants. Yeah, the environment was inappropriate. It was my fault for letting it get as far as it did. I should have been classier and I definitely should be held to a higher level of accountability,” he added.
Zaun returned to coaching in 2025, joining the Mexican League’s Quintana Roo Tigers earlier this year and serving as coach before becoming interim manager.
The West Coast League is a collegiate summer baseball wooden bat league founded in 2005, comprising teams from Washington, Oregon, British Columbia and Alberta.
“We are happy to have Gregg join us, and to have him in the community full-time so people here can get to know him and get fired up for next summer,” Falcons owner Dan Nonis told Capital News. “This will bring something exciting to Elks Stadium, another reason for people to come see exciting Falcons baseball, to get season tickets or punch-cards.”