It isn't quite the minor league version of the movie Major League.

Still, the Sioux Falls Canaries — who open their 50-game home slate with a six-game homestand starting Tuesday — have flipped the script from cellar dwellers to contenders in the last few years, and it has all happened under the guidance of a manager could be the star of a movie called "The Survivor."

Mike Meyer is in his ninth season at the helm. While most of the first six seasons were spent taking lumps, he has experience a dramatic turnaround in both results and repuatation in the professional baseball world.

The players he used to try to recruit to The Birdcage mostly ignored him. Now, they perk up. It took a lot of heavy lifting to make that transformation. Meyer, the former University of Arizona Wildcat and professional pitcher, has seen the transformation twice — the first time as the pitching coach on the Birds' only league championship team in 2008.

The team's "new" ownership group — now in its fifth season overseeing operations — has had a lot to do with the latest uptick. Meyer's perspective tells a remarkable tale.

The Canaries' season-opening six-game homestand starts Tuesday and goes through Sunday.