Humboldt team statistician also a baseball lover

By Danny Gallagher
Canadian Baseball Network

You’ve heard the Elvis Presley song, “All Shook Up.’’

Many of us in Canada are all shook up about the Humboldt Broncos’ bus tragedy. I resonated with one young man from that crash: Broncos’ statistician Brody Hinz, a lover of the Montreal Expos, Toronto  Blue Jays and baseball in general.

When I saw that he had died, chills ran up my spine and I shed a few tears because we were mutual followers on Twitter. He followed me about 18 months ago and I followed him back. We also shared the same given names: Daniel Joseph.

We mutually liked and retweeted a lot of posts. His last post was on April 6, the day he died -- he retweeted the Blue Jays’ starting lineup for their game against the Texas Rangers.

One of his other last posts was his message directed at my Twitter handle about Montreal mayor Valerie Plante meeting with Stephen Bronfman and Mitch Garber at City Hall to discuss baseball’s return to Montreal.

When Japanese hotshot Shohei Ohtani signed with the Angels last December, Hinz sent me this DM: “Damn, I wanted Ohtani with the Jays badly.’’

On his Twitter profile page @hinzbrody, Hinz proudly noted that Blue Jays legends Jose Bautista and Jesse Barfield followed him along with NBA player Lance Allred and former NHL player Zach Boychuck, who has been playing in Russia’s KHL.

And it was of great significance to him that he was the Broncos’ statistician “at just 18 years old.’’ He had been planning to enroll in the sports management course at the University of Regina.

Hinz’s funeral was held Saturday in Humboldt and he will be buried in Muenster, Sask.. He leaves his mother Darlene, sister Kendall, maternal grand-mother Marcella Hinz and numerous aunts, uncles and cousins.

God bless, Brody.