June 7, 2024

By Bob Elliott

Canadian Baseball Network

LETHBRIDGE, Alta. _ The uniform colour black is in at the Okotoks Dawgs Academy.

There are different teams of different colors but the one all teenagers want to wear is the Vanderbilt Commodores-style black uniforms.

There is a Dawgs Red team, a Dawgs White team, but THE most desired team is Dawgs Black.

So, how to explain the Okotoks Dawgs starting catcher on Friday night against the Lethbridge Bulls at Spitz Stadium?

Jacob Wrubleski played eight years at the Dawgs Academy. Only in his final year did he wear black. He wore red normally or white the other seven years.

After one season with the Dawgs Black, he headed to the Chandler-Gilbert College Coyotes. And when the Western Canadian Baseball League season ends, he is off to Gonzaga University to play for the Zags in Spokane, Wash. Every JUCO player hopes to transfer to a four-year school and many do. Few make the move after only one season.

“I knew I needed to get reps and at the time I would not have played (for Team Black) I would have been a bench player,” said Wrubleski on a bus out of Okotoks.

(“Don’t get any speeding tickets,” Dawgs managing director John Ircandia said as the last slow poke climbed the stairs of the one-story iron lung. “Don’t worry,” the busie said jokingly, “they won’t be able to catch us.”)

“He’s put in the work day in and day out, especially the last three years and has taken advantage of every opportunity he has been given,” said Dawgs coach Lou Pote, the former Anaheim Angel. “It’s been really cool to see his development through the Academy until now ...

“He is a way better person than he is a ballplayer.”

* * *

IN GAME: The unbeaten, untied Dawgs fell 12-4 to the Lethbridge Bulls for their first loss of the season in front of 975 fans at Spitz Stadium.

Indiana’s Scott Hansen and New Mexico Military Institute’s Adonis Bernal each homered. Hansen homered, singled and knocked in four runs, while Bernal singled and hit a solo homer.

Vauxhall Jet LHP Jack Baxter (Quispamsis, N.B.) gained the win, allowing two runs in three innings. Our Lady of the Lake’s Donovan Gamez started and worked three scoreless innings. Jimmy Belanger allowed two runs in the final three innings.

Besides making Kevin Pillar-like catches El Paso CF Roberto Chaparro tripled and drove in a pair of runs. Matching Chaparro’s two-RBI output were 2B Kalem Haney (Lethbridge, Alta.) and Bellevue SS Tyler Monroe.

3B Connor Crowson (Okotoks, Alta.) hit a solo homer in the ninth for the Dawgs, while Montevallo 1B Barry Eiseman had two hits.

Wrubleski singled and scored to cut the Lethbridge lead to 5-3 in the sixth and hit a solo homer in the eighth.

The Dawgs remain in first place, half a game ahead of the Sylvan Lake Gulls, who they visit Saturday night.

* * *

How does one go from spending seven of eight seasons on the ‘A’ team to one year at a JUCO to a solid program like Gonzaga. Who helped most?

“My coach with the Dawgs, Tyler Hollick,” he said, “he always told me to keep it real, to be working. I was never big.

“Aaron Either with the Dawgs and Dave Pankenier, my coach at Chandler helped me with the blocking and catching the most.”

Now he says he is 6-foot-1 and 195 pounds and is coming off an excellent season at Chandler. He hit .409 with 14 doubles nine home runs with 50 RBIs. In 48 games, he had a 1.201 OPS. No wonder the Zags recruiters came a calling.

Wrubleski (Bragg Creek, Alta.) said he was approached by Gonzaga recruiters during the season and after Chandler-Gilbert was eliminated he visited the campus. He’s asked if he knows any famous alumni of the school. He’s told former Pittsburgh Pirates rookie of the year Jason Bay (Trail, BC) and crooner Bing Crosby attended the school.

“They showed his former house on campus, but I had no idea when they said his name,” he said. “They have a brand new locker room and facility and the stadium is two years old.”

Gonzaga was also where 32 other major leaguers played including Lenn Sakata, Tom Gorman, Bo Hart, Marco Gonzales, Ryan Carpenter and Alek Jacob.

“They say I have a chance to start,” he said about this fall at Gonzaga, adding a junior catcher is returning, along with two freshmen.

His best day on the ball field came this spring with a game-tying, seventh-inning grand slam against the Glendale Gauchos. Chandler won in walk-off style in the bottom of the ninth.

Another good day was winning the silver medal at the Perfect Game BCS National 2022 championship in Fort Myers, Fla., as Dawgs Red won the silver bracket championship beating Arsenal Baseball 7-0 in the final. Playing for coach John Milton, he was a middle or the order bat.

Dawgs Black went 8-0 advancing to the tournament final where they were edged out 6-4 by Georgia’s Nelson School. On that day, it was good to wear red.

Born in the Mindapore section of Calgary, his parents Mike Wrubleski and Ann Brockett moved to the hamlet of Bragg Creek, 40 minutes outside of Calgary. Mike is now retired, while Ann is a partner at Ernst & Young.

“They come to every home game and will watch the road games on the streaming service,” Wrubleski said as the bus rolled on into the prairies. “They came to Arizona to see me too.”

(Last bus interview I ever did was with manager Luis Rivera’s 2010 New Hampshire Fisher Cats with 5-foot-9 Danny Farquhar and 5-foot-7 Tim Collins, on a trip from Concord, N.H. to Binghamton, N.Y. Both made the majors.)

* * *

Wrubleski played in the Bo Ridge Little League and spent a year at the ABA Academy before moving to the Dawgs Academy as a peewee.

Now he is among the top Dawgs.

“Everyone who plays for the Dawgs loves it, John Ircandia keeps expanding Seaman Stadium, no wonder it was voted the best summer ball stadium in North America,” Wrubleski said. “In college, we drew maybe 100, 120 on a good night.

“At Seaman Stadium we play in front of 6,000 almost every night. The kids come on the field after a game ... it’s like they think we are big leaguers.”

His best friend with the Dawgs is C Lou Anderson (St. Sauver, Que.) now at Howard College. They have been teammates since their high school days.

* * *

Says Hollick: “Jacob is the epitome of a Dawg and one of the best young men I have ever had the privilege to coach. He has worked as hard as anyone to maximize his opportunity within his career and I am so excited for him as the best baseball is ahead of him. He started in the Dawgs program as a peewee-aged player, transitioned to catcher his junior year, competed for a starting spot at a junior college, is playing a major role on our college summer team and now gets to go a phenomenal opportunity to play for a powerhouse Division 1 program with Gonzaga . The staff here has watched Jacob grow up and we could not be more proud of him.”

* * *

In the playoffs, No. 2 seed Chandler met the Paradise Valley Pumas in a best-of-three semi-final, winning 11-8 in extras, losing 7-1 and taking the final game 12-10. He homered and drove in two runs in Game 1, singled in Game 2 and in the winner-take-all game had three hits, including a pair of doubles while knocking in one.

Facing the Gateway Geckos in the final, Chandler won 13-3, lost 7-3 and 15-14. He was hitless in Game 1, then doubled and singled in Game 2 and had two hits, including a double in the finale.

“We had a man on and I was on deck when they got the third out,” Wrubleski said. “It was rough and it kind of sucked.

“But we’re all going on to better places.”

Well, not everyone, especially not many who for seven years out of eight didn’t make the Dawgs’ best team.

It tis a game of perseverance as William Shakespeare said.