DeCki Ljeta / Los Chicos De Verano {The Boys of Summer}
For local baseball old boys Roger Tierney and Paul Mrazek, the diamond is forever.
Double Play — Paul Mrazek, right, and Roger Tierney, left, won't hang up their jerseys just yet. The pair respectively cross cultural divides to coach baseball to enthusiastic youth. Nicole Leclair Photo
Paul Mrazek was always going to be an international kind of guy. Born in Regina 55 years ago to a globe-trotting father, before the age of one he also lived in Calgary, Coquitlam, and Iran. And while his first language was Farsi, his second was undoubtedly baseball, thanks to an older brother who had taken up with some serious American hardballers inside the foreign-worker community.
“We eventually settled in the Lower Mainland where I played Little League,” he recalls. He became a good pitcher and had some great coaches in a time when they weren’t common. “But back then when you reached 17 or 18, there was nowhere left to play. Now there’s a road to college ball, even the majors.”
These days, Mrazek does as much as anyone to pave that road. He’s on the diamond seven days a week as the head coach of the Cranbrook Bandits, a two-squad array of youngsters aged 13-19 who mostly play against Montana teams like Libby and Kalispell in American Legion Baseball, a venerable tradition that turns 100 next year.
“I’ve been lucky to meet the right people and get good opportunities,” Mrazek says of a coaching journey that began in Richmond, B.C. in 1991 when a neighbour spotted his skills. He told young Paul, “I’m taking you to a coaching clinic. We need you.” That led to a lifetime series of learning stints that traversed baseball hotbeds like Colorado and Phoenix.
Along the way, he spread his knowledge across the Kootenays and beyond — way beyond. Three seasons ago, Mrazek was recruited for his most unusual mission to date: conducting summer camps in Germany, Austria, and Croatia. It’s little known here, but Europe held its first championship in 1954 and the sport has grown steadily ever since, to the point where there are currently 26 countries vying for the continental title. Europeans who have had successful Major League Baseball careers include Didi Gregorius of the Netherlands and Max Kepler, a Berlin-born and developed outfielder with plenty of home-run pop, now in his ninth season with the Minnesota Twins and earning a cool $10 million.
Mrazek notes that there are others knocking at the door, and no wonder. All three countries where he works have professional leagues, and the developmental stages are similar to ours. “It’s very well-managed. They start with T-ball, go on to Little League, and so on,” Mrazek explains. “They have good equipment and some excellent coaches. Some are volunteer dads, but there are also some paid ones. So we work alongside them, sometimes with translators, but it’s amazing—by the time they’re ten, many of these kids speak pretty good English.”
This August, Mrazek will head back to Europe to illuminate players aged five to twenty-five in the ways of the stick and the leather. But in a world dominated by soccer, what kind of European parent signs up a kid for baseball? “Well, they’re like parents here. They want to expose their kids to a wide variety of activities,” Mrazek says. “And Europeans are highly organized about it.”
Mrazek opines that they also just love sport, and give it more attention than we do. "Croatians, for example, are super athletic,” he says. “You drive through Zagreb and you’ll see these incredible sports facilities. They really have it all. Baseball is just one more sport.”
And don’t forget that modern youth everywhere can watch the world’s best on the phone in their pockets. That’s a huge advantage, even if it occasionally steals focus from the fundamentals that Mrazek and his colleagues obsess over, like outfielding, catching, speed, agility, quickness, and conditioning. “Kids don’t watch games as much anymore. They’ll usually just see clips on TikTok, or Blue Jays in 30 on Sportsnet, so all they ever see is bombs and big catches,” says Mrazek.
Ace of Base — Creston baseball veteran Roger Tierney is ready to steal bases whether playing in Sayulita, Mexico or Canyon, B.C. Nicole Leclair Photo
Back on this side of the Atlantic, Roger Tierney is part Johnny Bench and part Johnny Appleseed when it comes to baseball. Actually, make that Juan Appleseed, since the resident of the Canyon District of Creston has spent much of the past two decades sowing the game in the Mexican state of Nayarit, just north of Puerto Vallarta.
To say Tierney is fond of baseball is an understatement. “I just love having a glove in my hand,” he confesses, and explains that’s been the case ever since his Little League days on the west coast as a talented catcher. And though he’s north of 70 years old now, he plays the game at any opportunity. “I have a good arm and I can still hit.”
In 2014, he hooked up with the Cranbrook Bandits senior squad, alongside Paul Mrazek, in the B.C. championships. The oldest player there, he nevertheless made an impact at both first base and the batter’s box.
Otherwise, it had been coaching and league development that commanded much of Tierney’s baseball energy — first in Kimberley, then other B.C. communities as he moved about during his 35-year career with B.C. Parks.
Things changed, however, back in 2002 when his sister introduced him to a burgeoning tropical paradise called Sayulita. Now famous as a hipster hotspot for young surfers and yoginis, Tierney explored a different side of what was then a rather sleepy resort town: the local baseball diamond, which happens to sit right in the middle of the community. Glove in hand, Tierney showed up and started building friendships that are now decades-long, spending six months in the town virtually every winter. “For me, Sayulita was never about the sun and the beach,” he says. “It was always about the people.”
And the baseball. Back then there was little development infrastructure, and most of the players were older guys. Tierney soon joined the squad of age 40+ players known as Los Veteranos. “I had so much fun playing with them,” he says. “We faced different teams every weekend, always a double header followed by beer and barbecue.” Many of his teammates were homebuilders; in 2006, Tierney had them craft his own casa, with an attached rental property.
Meanwhile, as Sayulita grew, opportunities for kids getting into trouble were everywhere. Tierney had an idea. He put out a call for youngsters to come play baseball, something they hadn’t been doing. He learned why on day one when 15 would-be Little Leaguers showed up — over half of whom had no glove and no likelihood of getting one.
The only thing to do, Tierney figured, was to reach out to fellow B.C. ballers and gather donations of used gear. It turned out to be more successful than anyone dreamed. “In 2016, we filled hockey bags with over 1,500 pounds of equipment,” he recalls, “which WestJet generously shipped for free.” The bats, balls, and gloves were soon distributed throughout the state, while Tierney and his buddies built an age-grouped organization now known as La Liga Invernal de Nayarit, with teams in 12 cities. Unsurprisingly, the Jaibos of Sayulita — Go Crabs! — are a perennial powerhouse in the league.
Their mentor, whom they call “Royer,” will be checking in with them again this October, glove in hand. “At first I didn’t realize how important it was for the parents,” Tierney explains. “But now when I go back they’re so happy that their kids aren’t hanging out at the beach, getting wrapped up with drugs and all that stuff. It feels pretty good.”
~ Kevin Brooker
Find this full-length story and more in The Trench’s Summer + Fall 2024 edition: