Elliott: Luther a chip off the Bond Park block
Former Etobicoke Ranger, Oakville A and Mississauga Southwest Twins SS Brendan Luther (Mississauga, Ont.)
July 22, 2022
By Bob Elliott
Canadian Baseball Network
OKOTOKS, Alta. _ Brendan Luther will be more than a Western Canadian Baseball League All-Star shortstop on Saturday night at Seaman Stadium in Okotoks.
No, like Hank Williams, Jr., the Okotoks Dawgs infielder, is carrying on a family tradition as he suits up for the West All-Stars.
His father, Gary Luther (Mississauga, Ont.), was an outfielder with the Junior National Team, which won the bronze medal at the 1987 Worlds in Windsor, under manager Jim Ridley, later inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in St. Marys, Ont.
“Do you know how good your pops was?” Brendan was asked on the phone the other night as he and his Okotoks Dawgs bused home from Lethbridge after a 9-1 loss to the Bulls.
“Yes, he was a top tier athlete,” Brendan said. “He gave me a pretty good starting base. My father played in the OHL and was a very good ball player. And mom competed at the highest level in track and field (cross country and 1,500) and softball as well as playing field hockey.”
After playing two seasons with the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds under coaches Don Boyd and future NHL coach Ted Nolan, Gary attended the University of Western Ontario, went on to coach his son Brendan with the Mississauga Southwest Twins and worked 25 years with the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan.
Next Brendan played 16u for the Oakville A’s and coach Tyler Moe before playing his final year with the Etobicoke Rangers and coach Denny Berni.
Then it was Go West Young Man to play for the Okanagan College Coyotes in Kelowna, BC.
“I had a pretty good year in college and joined the Kelowna Falcons (of the West Coast League),” Brendan said. “I was playing with the big boys.”
Okanagan coach Geoff White saw the future and a lack of playing time for the freshman in 2019 and made a phone call to Jordan Blundell, White’s former University of Jamestown Jimmies teammate, now running the Edmonton Prospects in the WCBL.
Yes, the Prospects could use another infielder.
And so began a trains, planes and automobile trip which could have been a movie -- without the star power of John Candy and Steve Martin. Brendan called his father at 10 p.m. and travelling secretary/father Gary booked a flight.
Then, it went like this
_ A 6 a.m. flight from Kelowna International Airport to Calgary.
_ A 40-minute, Uber ride from the Calgary International Airport to Okotoks, where Edmonton had played the night before and then spent the off day. Brendan said he made the bus 10 minutes before departure time. “I hopped on the bus, with my entire life packed in a hockey bag,” he said.
_ A three-hour drive to play the Medicine Hat Mavericks.
The “new guy,” got on the bus and looked around. “A lot of the guys were Americans ... I found my old teammate Jesse Poniewozik and gravitated towards him.”
Told that he’d start at second base, he became acquainted with the shortstop, first baseman and catcher Jake Gary, now at Yale University “was super nice.”
And how bad was it?
“I think I was 4-for-4,” Brendan said while calling up the box score on his phone, while maintaining a conversation with an old goat.
(Seriously methinks that this technology thing will catch on, these kids and the amazing things they do with their phones!)
“It was one of those things where everyone is expecting you to do bad, if I went 0-for-5 it would have been no big deal -- it was expected considering the travel day I had,” Brendan said. “So, I had no pressure.”
The box score pops up on his phone.
“Hold on ... I was wrong I was 3-for-4, not 4-for-4,” he said. How about that -- he can hit and he is honest. Name me the last five players you ever heard deduct their hit totals.
His first hit was a high infield chopper, then he laid down a bunt and blooped a flare over short in a 4-3 extra-inning loss to the Mavericks.
The Mavericks play at Athletic Park, the same stadium the Medicine Hat Blue Jays of the Pioneer League called home.
“That was kind of my first time playing in front of that many people, with the fans right on top of you, the grandstand went back a way and it was pretty full,” he said, “it was the first time for me being heckled ... although my younger brother Aidan helped prepare me for that.”
There were 648 fans in Medicine Hat that night, according to the box score, but now Brendan is really playing in front of the big crowds -- each and every night before larger crowds at Seaman Stadium this summer.
“Most of the crowds are 3,500-to-4,000, the atmosphere is unbelievable,” he says. How would he describe Okotoks to someone from BC or Mississauga who asked what it’s like?
“It’s kind of the closest you can get to a pro stadium without being in one ... or a very good top-notch college program,” Brendan said. “It’s a small town but the support we get from the community is amazing. You see the same core of seasons ticket holders and lots of young kids on the field.”
(I just call it heaven -- and this was before I almost went there in 2019 -- as I did the first time I walked into the place ... snow drifts outside ... coaches hitting infield inside ... pitchers throwing pens ... and George Strait on the radio in January of 2011.).
* * *
That first year with Edmonton he hit .281 with a double, four RBIs and .731 OPS in 17 games.
In 2020, with Edmonton, he batted .347 with 12 doubles, four triples, 25 RBIs and a .922 OPS over 41 games.
And this summer with Okotoks he is hitting a lusty .343 with 11 doubles, two triples, 27 RBIs and an .879 OPS in 38 games. In his three seasons in the WCBL he’s 26-for-37 stealing bases.
* * *
Also celebrating that night in Windsor after Canada beat Chinese Taipei 8-4 were 19-year big-league veteran Matt Stairs (Fredericton, NB), who hit more home runs (265) than any Canadian in the majors except for Larry Walker (Maple Ridge, BC) and Joey Votto (Etobicoke, Ont.).
Future Toronto Blue Jays LHP Paul Spoljaric (Kelowna, BC) was also there, along with Nigel Wilson (Ajax, Ont.) who played parts of three seasons with the Cleveland Indians, Cincinnati Reds and the Florida Marlins, Jason Woolley (Toronto, Ont.) who attended Michigan State and played 13 years in the NHL with the Buffalo Sabres, Washington Capitals, Florida Panthers, Pittsburgh Penguins and Detroit Red Wings.
Other notable Canucks included Mike Dorrington (Sant John, NB), Derek Rothwell (Toronto, Ont.), Colin Dixon (West Vancouver, BC), Warren Sawkiw (Etobicoke, Ont.), John Douris (Scarborough, Ont.), current New York Yankees scout Denis Boucher (Lachine, Que.) and Luther, a product of the North York Blues and Bond Park ... to name a few.
Coaching with Ridley were John Upham (Windsor, Ont.) and Lionel Ruhr (Regina, Sask.).
In round-robin play Canada beat Australia 11-3, the Dominican Republic 5-1 and Taipei 8-6. They lost 5-0 to Team USA, 5-4 to Panama and 5-2 to Cuba.
Bernie Soulliere, Mr. Amateur Ball in Windsor, explained how Windsor wound up hosting back-to-back years in 1986 and 1987.
“The 1987 Worlds had been awarded to Venezuela, but they didn’t show for the 1986 tournament so it was offered to us a second time ... we checked around and our sponsors were willing to host again,” said Soulliere.
He recalled the Cuba team showing up for the Worlds in 1986 a week or so early.
“I met the team at the university and paid for the cabs, then I told then that they were welcome to stay, but they would have to pay for their rooms,” Soulliere said. “One man ‘but Canada and Cuba are friends.’ We figured it out and they owed us $6,700 for housing.
“Next day he showed up with a briefcase and peeled off 670 $100 bills.”
Cuba won gold, after going 5-1 in the round-robin play and then rallying from a two-run deficit to beat Team USA in the bottom of the ninth. USA was led by future big-leaguers Alex Fernandez and Royce Clayton.
The rest of the field’s final standings showed Australia (3-3), the Dominican Republic (2-4) and Panama (1-5) rounding out the field.
* * *
Gary Luther was one of the best on the field, on the ice and as a coach, but best not forget Brendan’s mother, Siobhan McCaig, one of the many heroes at Credit Valley Hospital in Mississauga. Like Dr. Thomas Short, Dr. Rajpal Chandi and Dr. Gaspar Israelian.
* * *
Brendan did not play Wednesday night in a loss to Lethbridge after injuring his right hamstring. We have zero doubt that all-star, all-Canadian, trainer Savannah Blakley will have him ready to go for Saturday’s game.
Savannah is one of the three Okotoks angels along with team photographer Angela Burger and coach Lou Pote. If Savannah can save a life, she can fix a tweaked hammer. Brendan played Friday night in a win over Edmonton.
Just as they watched him play, Brendan’s grandparents June and Cal Luther, Mary and Alan McCaig watch his younger brother Aidan pitch for the Mississauga Majors 16u. Aidan is one of the staff aces (10-1, one save, 67 strikeouts in 57 innings) and doubles some nights as a part-time, hitting instructor for his teammates.
“I think,” says Brendan as the iron lung chugs along the highway, “Aidan is really attracted to pitching after seeing guys throw hard. He got all the pitching genes in the family and I got all the hitting genes. My brother is a bulldog, but I guess that runs in the family.”