TWO JAYS PROSPECTS ALREADY HAVE RINGS
Two Blue Jays prospects learned far more than how to play ball with the Vancouver Canadians — they learned how to be a team
The team was called the Canadians, or C’s for short. The starting pitcher and the catcher were Canadian. The C’s had wriggled into the playoffs at the 11th hour, and now, on the night of Sept. 9, the players were swarming the infield, whooping and wide-eyed, as an overcapacity crowd stood and broke into a collective grin and made such a noise that old Nat Bailey Stadium started to groan.
“I was screaming so loud, I felt like passing out,” recalls the catcher, Mike Reeves.
“That was something I always dreamed about growing up,” recalls the pitcher, Tom Robson, who grew up in Ladner, B.C., about a half-hour drive from the stadium that has been a Vancouver baseball fortress since 1951.
Robson first came to The Nat as a kid, when his minor baseball teams sat in the stands in their uniforms and dreamed. Last summer, Robson — at 20, just a kid himself in the pro ranks — watched from the mound as the next generation of B.C. Minor Baseball teams filed into the stadium to watch him pitch.
Lots of other fans came too. The team averaged 4,843 per game in a venue built to hold 5,132. On Sept. 9, there were 5,157 on hand to watch the Vancouver Canadians win their third straight Northwest League championship.
Robson pitched 6⅓ innings in the 5-0 win over Boise. Reeves singled home a key run in the eighth. Justin Atkinson, from nearby Surrey, B.C., also singled in the eighth inning and scored the final run.
If you play in the minor leagues, and you’re Canadian to boot, it doesn’t get any better than that.
“It was the best moment of my life,” says Reeves, a 23-year-old from Peterborough, Ont.
Later this month, at the Toronto Blue Jays camp in Dunedin, Fla., Reeves and his teammates will enjoy another big moment. During a minor-league awards ceremony, they will receive championship rings.
Rings, for a short-season team in the low minors?
“Oh yeah,” says Clayton McCullough, the manager. “The ownership group and the front office staff in Vancouver are great. They make it comfortable for the kids coming in. They go all out. And the rings are great. I was lucky enough to get one last year.” Robson, a 6-foot-4 right-hander drafted in the fourth round in 2011, is one of a flock of Blue Jays’ pitching prospects pushing up from the low minors. A lifelong Jays’ fan, he used to rush home from school to watch the TV games that started at 4 p.m. on the west coast. He loved to see Roy Halladay pitch. Halladay was his hero, and still is.
A few weeks ago, the freshly retired Halladay came to Dunedin to address a collection of prospects that the Jays had invited to a strength and conditioning camp. Robson was in the audience.
“We got to listen to him talk for about an hour,” Robson said. “It was really interesting. He explained his work ethic, and that’s what he said really drove him to be the pitcher he was. Just listening to him talk for that hour, all of us — even position players, not just pitchers — we were all thrilled.”
Robson perhaps more than the others. He had long admired Halladay’s impeccable delivery and stunning consistency. Halladay was the man he tried to emulate on the mound. And that day, Halladay offered a tip that Robson put to immediate use.
“He would never long-toss past 120 feet because beyond that distance he said it kind of plays with the tilt to your shoulders,” Robson recalled. “He said when he throws past 120 feet, that’s not how he throws on the mound. It would change his mechanics. That’s what I’ve been doing now ever since I heard him say that.” Reeves grew up in hockey-mad Peterborough but got hooked on baseball at age four when his brother Jeff threw a baseball and knocked his teeth out.
“I was four and he was 14,” Reeves said. “I still had all my baby jibs. He needed somebody to catch so I hopped in there and he’s throwing pebbles at me. I miss the ball. It knocks out my first four front teeth. I got my teeth in my hand and go up to my mom, and I say, ‘Look what Jeff did.’ She goes, ‘Well, you should’ve caught the ball.’ “
He has been catching it ever since. He describes his brother as “almost a father figure” and best friend. “He needed a catcher and I was there,” Mike said. Jeff went on to pitch at Winthrop University in South Carolina and for the Canadian national team. Mike caught for four years at Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers, where he earned accolades for his defensive skills before the Jays drafted him in the 21st round last June.
After batting .276 with a .374 on-base percentage for Vancouver, Reeves was among 32 players invited to the Jays minor-league mini-camp. Almost immediately, he received another invitation — to big-league camp, where extra catchers are always needed to catch bullpen sessions. Before minor-league drills in the afternoon, Reeves stretched with the big club in the morning and got to take batting practice too.
“I called my brother one day and told him, ‘Jose Bautista’s beside me and R.A. Dickey’s in front of me. What am I doing here? It was like a dream come true,” he said with a grin.
LAWRENCE, Kansas • Andrew Wiggins remembers sitting in the bleachers of Allen Fieldhouse long after the final whistle, watching as the crowd showered the departing Kansas players with love.
It may not have been that exact moment that the nation’s No. 1 recruit decided he would play his only season of college basketball with the Jayhawks. But the outpouring of support on senior night certainly played a role in his decision, one that he doesn’t regret for a moment.
“It went too quick,” Wiggins said late Wednesday after his own version of senior night.
“I wish I had more time to stay here and do my thing, just be here with the team and the coaches and al l these wonderful fans,” Wiggins said. “That’s one of the reasons I committed here. I came here on senior night and the fans were so loyal.”
Kansas coach Bill Self stayed true to his promise after an 87- 52 victory over Texas Tech, reserving most of the senior day traditions for his seniors. Tarik Black, Niko Roberts and Justin Wesley were honoured with framed jerseys prior to the game, and each of them was given a microphone afterward to address a sellout crowd that once again stuck around long after the game.
But the coach who has guided the Jayhawks to 10 straight Big 12 titles also made sure to note what everybody already knew: The latest of them probably wouldn’t have happened without Wiggins.
So before turning the microphone over to the seniors, he asked the crowd to give the rest of the team a round of applause, and then told Wiggins and fellow freshmen Wayne Selden and Joel Embiid — both of whom will have their own NBA decisions to make after the season — to stand up and be acknowledged. The crowd stood with them, giving them a thunderous ovation.
“I don’t think it’s hit me yet. That’s how quick everything went by,” Wiggins said. “It feels like just yesterday we had our late night, so I don’t think it’s hit me yet.”
Wiggins arrived at Kansas with nearly unattainable expectations, yet he’s lived up to just about all of them. He’s averaging 16 points and nearly six rebounds, numbers that may seem modest at first glance but are even more impressive considering the way he shares the ball.
And there are still plenty of more memories to be made. The Jayhawks wrap up their regular season Saturday at West Virginia, and will have the No. 1 seed in next week’s Big 12 tournament.
Along the way, Wiggins is sure to pick up a handful for awards. Self thinks he’s the favourite for Big 12 player of the year, which The Associated Press will announce next week.
“It’s almost a logic nobrainer,” Self said. “I don’t believe his numbers will blow anybody away, but to be the best player on the best team that’s had a fair amount of success in the league — I don’t think you could go any other direction.”
To be perfectly clear, Wiggins has never led anybody on. He made it clear from the outset that he would head to the NBA next season, and after having one of the best freshman campaigns in Kansas history, he’s certain to be a lottery pick if not the No. 1 overall choice.
“I think it’s all puddled up,” Wiggins said. “I’m happy, sad, my last game. But I just enjoy my time here. I’m thankful for everything.”