February 19, 2021

By J.P. Antonacci

Canadian Baseball Network

There could be an unusually high number of households in London, Ont., tuned to the livestream of this weekend’s Division II season opener between the Tusculum University Pioneers and the University of Indianapolis Greyhounds.

That’s because the three-game series features a pair of London Majors alumni squaring off as head coaches for the first time.

Al Ready brings his Greyhounds to Greeneville, Tenn., to take on Brandon Steele’s Pioneers in a series the London-born baseball lifers have been looking forward to.

“We’re very excited about it,” Ready said. “In any normal year, you’re trying to do your best to win. But I think Brandon would agree, given the events of the last year, we’re happy just to play.”

Any good-natured joshing between the former teammates in the weeks leading up to Saturday’s game – followed by a Sunday doubleheader – has given way to checking in about COVID protocols and players’ health.

“Our focus is trying to get to play,” Ready said. “A lot of the conversation, text messages back and forth, has been (about) protocol and things like that.”

Steele and Ready – each entering their third seasons as a head coach after lengthy stints as assistants with their respective programs – divide their time at practices between getting players up to speed on fundamentals after a lengthy layoff and making sure everyone is following proper health procedures.

“I kind of feel like a kindergarten teacher. Every time I turn around, I’m telling them to spread out and put their masks on,” Steele said. “Obviously, you play to win, but we want to make sure our kids are healthy enough to play.”

The stakes are high, as players identified as close contacts of a known COVID-19 case could miss up to a quarter of the planned 40-game Division II season.

“I think that hit home,” Steele said. “There are some guys we need to keep our thumbs on and remind, but those are the same guys you have to remind about everything else too.”

“I think everybody knows what’s on the line here,” Ready added. “Obviously we have to take some ownership and watch what’s going on, but they’re doing a good job of policing themselves too.”

Besides the Canadians filling out the lineup cards, this weekend’s series will feature Great Lake Canadians alum Mike MacDougall (Toronto, Ont.) pitching for the Greyhounds.

Since Ready took over as head coach, he’s arranged for Indianapolis to play an annual exhibition game against Canadians, save for last season due to the pandemic.

“It was a great experience. They really enjoyed it,” Ready said. “We actually had a couple of the Great Lake Canadians on our squad at that point, so it was fun for those guys. It was a great opportunity to recruit as well, since you don’t always get to see those guys. I love taking care of the Canadian kids whenever I can.”

***

Ready and Steele can trace their journeys back to the same London elementary school, the now-shuttered Lorne Avenue P.S. While they didn’t cross paths there, Steele being a few years older, they both spent many a recess perfecting their swing on a painted asphalt diamond in the playground.

Their high schools – Ready went to Sir Frederick Banting, Steele to H.B. Beal – didn’t have ball teams, so they looked forward to suiting up for the London Tecumsehs each summer.

“That’s the great thing about baseball – when the summer rolled around, everybody went to the same school,” Ready said.

In the late 1990s they became teammates with the Majors, learning the ropes at Labatt Park.

“Playing for the Majors, a lot of the stuff I learned was how to act,” said Ready, who was a teenage call-up with the Intercounty Baseball League club.

“Being a younger guy, I just didn’t really understand the professionalism that you needed to carry around with you on the field.”

There were no shortage of veterans to emulate.

“You’d have guys who were coming up at 17, 18, and you’d have guys who were 40,” said Steele, who looked up to players like Dan Mendham, Jon Owen, Kevin Virtue and Billy Weir.

“So there’s a lot of overlapping just based on the nature of that team, with guys who played for a really long time.”

Steele’s introduction to the Majors came courtesy of Brett Thomas, a good friend who pitched for the club and invited the young infielder to batting practice for an informal tryout.

Majors owner Norm Aldridge hovered by the cage, watching Steele launch drive after drive.

“This old crotchety guy chewing on a cigar says, ‘If anybody ever asks you to bunt, tell ‘em piss off and you’re a goddamn hitter.’ You know, as a 17-year-old kid, I didn’t know how to take that,” Steele chuckled.

“But the more you’re around these guys, you see what kind of characters they are and what baseball really meant to them, and really the commitment it takes to continue to play at a pretty productive level in that league.”

He watched and learned from players who had played professionally and who balanced families and careers with their dedication to the sport.

“It was through Brett and getting to the Majors that really ignited my passion for baseball,” Steele said. “Being around these other guys and seeing what it was all about, and the relationships, and how you want to be competitive at the same time.”

Ready was all ears when veterans like Dan “Buck” Mendham, Jamie Cooke and Steve Charles – a fellow Londoner who spent three years in the Blue Jays system – told stories on bus rides to Christie Pits in Toronto and other Intercounty parks.

“That really resonated with me,” Ready said, crediting infielder Ken Frohwerk as another role model. “Fro was a big influence on me, in how to act, what to do, things like that.”

***

Ready, a switch-hitting catcher, got regular at-bats with the Majors during summers in London in between stints at the National Baseball Institute in Vancouver and Sauk Valley Community College in Illinois.

“It was always fun to play with wood bats too. That was a great opportunity and great experience at the time, young as I was,” he said. “The whole thing was a blessing to be able to play with those guys, and I’m glad that group (of alumni) has taken over that association and kept it running and strong.”

He tore up Division II at Indianapolis, hitting for a high average with solid power numbers across two seasons. After graduation, Ready played two seasons in the Independent Frontier League, latching on with the London Werewolves before being traded to Evansville in 2001.

With an undergraduate degree in computer information systems in his pocket, becoming a baseball coach was not on his mind.

“I had no real intentions of becoming a coach when I graduated from college,” Ready said.

But as both his parents, his sister, brother-in-law and several cousins are all teachers, “the teaching part is kind of in my blood,” while getting his MBA in finance prepared Ready to coordinate the many off-field logistics of a college baseball program.

“My path, as unconventional as it may seem, really helped me,” he said. “College baseball really is a business.”

Still, he had second thoughts when in his first year as a head coach, back at Sauk Valley, his team started 1-12.

“I had some very serious doubts after the first 13 games, I’ll tell you,” Ready said.

But the Skyhawks turned things around, ending up in second place before winning the conference the next two years.

“And I thought to myself, maybe I have a future here.”

He returned to Indianapolis in 2008 and was an assistant coach for 11 years under Gary Vaught before taking over the top job in 2019. Now with over 15 years of coaching experience under his belt, there’s nowhere Ready would rather be than in the dugout.

“I just absolutely love it,” he said. “And I’ve had some really good mentors over the years that really helped me out.”

***

Steele played with the Majors from 1997 to 2003. The slugging first baseman earned first team all-star honours in 2001, and kept on hitting at Macomb Community College in Warren, Mich.

His coaching career began as an assistant on a 16U London Badgers team that featured Jamie Romak and Brock Kjeldgaard.

“As I young coach, I thought, ‘This is pretty easy. Get really good players and you’re going to win a lot of games,’” Steele laughed.

He later coached the Medicine Hat Mavericks of the Western Baseball League for two summers, and as assistant field manager in 2004, he helped the Majors reach the IBL finals.

By then Steele was already an assistant coach at Tusculum, where he joined the staff in 2003 and served under head coach Doug Jones for 15 years.

“I’m a much different coach than I was a long time ago,” said Steele, who admits to being tough to play for in those early years due to a tendency to “micromanage” his players.

“When I played, everybody could get yelled it, and they would respond with a ‘well, I’m going to show you’ attitude. Where today’s players don’t really respond that way,” he said.

“That’s where I’ve made the conscious effort to change a little bit. Still trying to hold them accountable and make sure they understand the consequences for not playing baseball the right away and not executing, but to let them go play, and not become a distraction to them (as a coach). The game’s hard enough. They don’t have to worry about having me in their ear after every single pitch.”

Among his junior college coaches was former Blue Jays catcher Ernie Whitt, who “really introduced me to how to handle players a little bit differently,” Steele said.

“He’s a laid-back, relaxed kind of guy, but also extremely competitive, and that kind of changed my thinking.”

Looking back, Steele marvels at how different those early days with the Majors were from his college clubhouse today.

“Definitely that generation’s players were a little bit different. A lot more old school, blue collar, crusty-type guys,” he said.

“There were still a lot of hijinks going on in the locker room, whereas today’s player is much more driven by body movement, body patterns, statistical analysis. They’ve never had anybody on the bus try to set their socks on fire.”

Steele said his satisfaction as a coach comes from building relationships with players and watching them develop into successful adults.

“Seeing that 17-year-old kid come in and think he has the world by the short and curlies, and the mistakes they make, the failures they’re going to have on the field. And then watching them come back five years after they graduate and they’ve got a great job, a family, and to think that some of the things we’re doing in terms of holding them accountable and the lessons they learn playing baseball have helped them prepare for that.”

***

From London to Division II and everywhere in between, Steele and Ready say their love of the game has only grown.

“I just absolutely love what I do,” Ready said. “If I didn’t, I’d have my own business or something like that.”

There’s the game itself, Steele added, but also the moments shared taking grounders, hanging around the batting cage, and passing the time on long bus trips.

“Just the camaraderie of playing baseball,” he said. “The relationships, spending time in the clubhouse. It’s that time we’ve spent around each other that I’ve really enjoyed.”

As much as they eagerly await getting back on the field this weekend, Ready is also crossing his fingers he can soon make a long-awaited trip back home.

“I’m hoping that at some point this pandemic will end and I can get back to see my folks. My whole family lives in Canada and I haven’t seen anybody in almost a year and a half now,” he said.

“I would love to get back and go to a Majors game.”