‘If he gets the call, we gotta go’
Having college coach at MLB debut meant the world to Blue Jays’ Mayza
When the word came down on Monday, Jon Shehan flew into action.
“I said to my wife after spring training: If he gets the call, we gotta go,” said Shehan, the head baseball coach at Millersville University in southeastern Pennsylvania. “We just weren’t expecting it this early.”
One of the best players to have passed through Shehan’s awardwinning program at Millersville was left-handed pitcher Tim Mayza, who got the call to join the Blue Jays on Monday.
Mayza made his Major League debut Tuesday night in Toronto’s 6-4 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays when he took the mound to start the ninth inning.
“We made it in time for the second inning and we got to see the important part,” said Shehan during a phone interview as he drove past Williamsport, Pa., home of the Little League World Series, back to Millersville late Wednesday night.
What Shehan, his wife Lindsay, Mayza’s family and Mayza’s girlfriend Darian saw on Tuesday at the Rogers Centre was the 25-yearold rookie strikeout his first batter, pinch hitter Peter Bourjos, and survive his first inning in the bigs without giving up a run. One of the Jays’ infielders — Mayza thinks it was Josh Donaldson — retrieved the game-used ball for him.
“I was in tears,” said Shehan, who doesn’t come across as an overly emotional guy. “We love Tim. He’s like a little brother to me.”
Shehan said the best part of the visit was watching the faces of Mayza’s family during the game. Afterwards, Mayza, his girlfriend, his family and the Shehans went out to a pizza joint, talked and watched highlights of the game on the restaurant TV. “It was surreal,” said Shehan.
It was certainly a whirlwind couple of days for Shehan.
They got a last minute, one-way flight to Toronto on Tuesday but decided not to fly home given the steep cost of another one-way flight. So, they took a bus from Toronto to Buffalo and then rented a car in Buffalo for the rest of the trip home. Took them 11 hours all told.
But, Shehan said, it was easily worth it. Watching only the second player in Millersville University history make it to the Majors was a thrill for a lot of people in that part of the world.
Mayza said he received about 100 texts after Tuesday’s games from former teammates and high school friends. The lead item on the Millersville University website proclaimed: ‘Former Marauder Tim Mayza promoted to Toronto Blue Jays’.
Mayza said the main reason why he chose Millersville, a NCAA Division II program, was because of Shehan.
“He meant a lot to me and had such an impact on my development, really helped me in a lot of ways, not just in baseball,” said the soft-spoken Mayza. “He’s always been big proponent of the mental game, being able to handle certain situations and stuff like that. He’s one of the guys who I credit for developing my mental training prior to this year. He made me believe in what my stuff was and what my capabilities were. He pushed me to believe in myself.”
“We had a lot of late-night conversations,” added Shehan. “He’s battled through a lot and I knew it wasn’t going to be an easy rise (in the pros). But I’m just so proud, knowing where he was the first couple of years to see how far he’s come.”
Shehan said Mayza threw his fastball about 88-89 mph as a freshman but worked extremely hard to ramp it up to where it touched 98 mph last season. He throws his four-seam fastball at about 95 with an 88 slider, a pitch he learned in the minors.
Coming out of high school, scouts were not sure of Mayza’s potential, said Shehan, despite his size and the fact that he’s a lefty because he wasn’t showing a consistent breaking ball, something they worked hard at Millersville.
Another reason why Mayza decided to go to Millersville, apart from Shehan being the coach, is because he got a chance to pitch virtually right away, which might not have happened at a Division I school.
Mayza left Millersville after a 2013 junior season in which he went 11-3 with a 1.55 ERA and 91 strikeouts in 98.2 innings. He was selected in the 12th round by the Jays.
Overall, he went 21-9 with a 2.98 ERA as a Marauder and started Game 3 of Millersville’s 2011 NCAA Championship Tournament appearance as a freshman.
For Mayza, being the second player from Millersville to reach the Majors is an honor and something he’s very proud of. The only other former Marauder to make the bigs was right-handed pitcher Jim Todd, who played in the Majors from 1974 until 1979.
Shehan said Mayza making it is huge for the university and the four other kids from the program playing in the low minors now.
“It’s awesome for our program and I think kids are realizing that there’s an option (to Division I),” said Shehan. “And it’s great for our conference (PSAC) as well.”