C's you later

By Tom Hawthorn

Four of the Toronto Blue Jays in the World Series played for the minor-league Vancouver Canadians, while one played amateur baseball as a teenager with the Victoria HarbourCats.

 

Trey Yesavage: The 22-year-old rookie right-hander got the nod as the starter for Game 1, making him the second youngest pitcher to open a World Series. (The youngest was 21-year-old Ralph Branca for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947.) Yesavage struck out Shohei Ohtani to start the game. He skirted with disaster, but managed to surrender just two earned runs in four innings of work. Born in Pottsdown, Penn., earlier this century (sigh), Yesavage began the season at the lowest level of the Blue Jays system in Single-A Dunedin, Fla. He graduated to the High-A Canadians, where he went 1-0 pitching 17 innings over four starts with a stellar 1.56 earned-run average. He was then promoted to the Double-A New Hampshire Fisher Cats in Manchester, N.H., before moving up to the Triple-A Buffalo Bisons. He went 1-0 in three regular season starts with the Blue Jays. Before the World Series, the right-hander was 2-1 in the postseason with 22 strikeouts over 15 innings. His has been a meteoric rise.

 

Mason Fluharty: The 24-year-old rookie left-handed pitcher went 5-2 with one save for the Blue Jays this season. He earned the save after striking out Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Dodgers with the bases loaded. Fluharty, who is from Delaware, pitched in 22 games for Vancouver over the 2022 and 2023 seasons. 

 

Addison Barger: When central casting asks for a baseball player, he looks like Addison Barger. The 25-year-old muscle-bound slugger from Bellevue, Wash., plays third base and the outfield. His home run gave Toronto a 4-0 lead over the Seattle Mariners in Toronto’s do-or-die Game 6 of the American League Championship Series. He hits with power, has a cannon of an arm and he is destined for stardom. In 69 games with Vancouver in 2022, Barger hit 14 homers and batted .300.

 

Davis Schneider: The utility player’s Oakley glasses and ’70s porn-star ’stache make him readily identifiable to even the most casual fan. A current Home Hardware television commercial pays homage to his look, which is also mirrored by fans young and old who wear fake mustaches in tribute. Schneider, who stands 5-foot-9 (175 centimetres), is an Everyman looks like your eager Grade 10 PE teacher. An unheralded prospect in 2023, he hit a home run in his first at-bat on his way to collecting nine hits in his first three games, one of the greatest debuts in baseball history. In 50 games with the Canadians in 2022, he hit eight homers with an unpromising .229 batting average. Born in New Jersey, as was Blue Jays manager John Schneider, the two men are unrelated.

 

The versatile outfielder Nathan Lukes (pronounced LOO-kas) spent a decade in the minor leagues before emerging as a regular with the Blue Jays this season. He batted .343 in 42 games with Victoria as a 19-year-old amateur in 2014. He shows a knack for timely hitting.

 

Manager John Schneider, at 45 only four years older than Jays veteran pitcher Mad Max Scherzer, was a catcher who spent six seasons in Toronto’s minor-league system without making the majors. He managed the Canadians over three seasons (2011, 2014-15) with a record of 119-109. He has been Toronto’s manager since 2021.

 

While not in uniform for the World Series, Casey Candaele is assisting with coaching. A former major leaguer who played for the Montreal Expos, Candaele is the son of the late Helen Callaghan of Vancouver, who joined her sister Margaret as players in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Casey’s Vancouver-born brother Kelly Candaele produced the original documentary about the women’s league that inspired Penny Marshall to direct the Hollywood movie A League of Their Own, starring Madonna, Geena Davis and Tom Hanks.

 

Images of Yesavage, Barger and both Schneiders courtesy of the Vancouver Canadians.