October 7, 2023

By Melissa Verge

Canadian Baseball Network

Passion. Stamina.

If they were tangible, you would see coach Dave Sheridan loading them up with the bats in the back of his van to bring to Farewell Park in Oshawa.

He takes both to his practice, along with a healthy wad of chewing tobacco stuffed in his cheek. You can’t hold them, like the handle of a bat, gripped tightly between two sweaty hands anticipating the next pitch. But they're there with the group of young kids on the field. If there is any doubt, Sheridan throws hundreds of balls for BP, while each of his players wait for their turn at the plate. Ball after ball after ball. It’s a workhorse fervor, spurred on by his love for the game.

For the nine, 10, 11 and 12-year-olds, he’s laying a foundation for their future with the sport.

“The kids have got talent and you try to lead them and show them the game the way it’s supposed to be played,” Sheridan said.

For 20 years, that’s what he did, coaching kids in Oshawa who were just getting started with baseball. When he began coaching he was just a youngster himself, a 21-year-old fresh off a 13-year playing career. It started when he was asked by one of his former coaches if he’d like a job as an assistant coach.

“Given that opportunity I said ‘yep, I’ll definitely jump at the opportunity to help coach a rep baseball team,’” he said.

Over the years, his life completely changed - he got married, and had two sons, Christopher and Brandon. But he still lived in Oshawa, and coaching baseball remained a constant and important part of his life.

One of his fondest memories as a coach was bringing his players to the CNE tournament in Toronto. It was the summer of 1995, and the Oshawa Legionaires took the field, blue and gold jerseys on, pinstripe pants. Most sported the high sock look, Sheridan sported a mustache. As a player back in 1968, Sheridan went to that same tournament, (sans mustache) dropping the final game 1-0. Almost 30 years later, he went back as a coach with the team in 1995 and they won the whole thing.

On that team was Chris Black, and after 28 years, he still remembers Sheridan, and gives his former coach a lot of credit for his love for the game. Although Black has retired from his playing career, baseball is a central part of his life. He now works for Sportsnet helping produce Blue Jays games.

“That’s why now I can sit down and put in hours and hours of prep work and then work a game and then start the whole process again the next day,” Black said. “Because I love this sport, and Dave’s one of those people that kind of led me to it.”

Although it’s been almost three decades, the vision of Sheridan, cage setup, wad of tobacco in his cheek, throwing ball after ball for hours is very vivid to him. He’s one of the people who helped instill a love for the game in him, Black said, that is there to this day.

He’s not the only one of Sheridan’s former players who have gone on to have a successful career in the sport.

A few years later, Sheridan was still coaching, and Chris Kemlo, now a scout with the San Diego Padres, was one of the players on his team. Kemlo also gives Sheridan a lot of credit for the passion he has for baseball.

“[He] just made it enjoyable for us to go to the field, we had fun and we got better,” Kemlo said. “He was just a good coach to be around, kind of helped bring my love for the game too. [He] was a big part of it.”

His coaching style was simple, Kemlo said. He’d tell the players to do their jobs, play hard and have fun. And have lots of fun they did - they’d even practiced some trick plays out on the field, Black said, which is not a typical element to normal practices. Adding that unique learning component helped make their time on the field more fun, and perhaps, left them all with a lasting love for the game that exists to this day.

Although he’s since retired from coaching - a decision that at the time, “left a pit in his stomach,” he said, as “the fire still burned in his belly,” there’s a long lasting connection between him and his former players.

He’ll sit at home and turn on the FAN 590 to hear Black talk baseball, a game he helped teach to him and now he’s explaining to others. And sometimes he’ll run into Kemlo at the ball field, where Kemlo’s son plays in the Clarington Ball League, and his grandson.

It’s maintaining those relationships and seeing his former players' success today that brings him joy, he said. The hours he spent throwing BP to those then nine, 10, 11 and 12-year-olds paid off.

And to think it all started with a van full of baseball equipment, a cheek full of tobacco, and the intangible aids he brought with him to every practice at Farewell Park.

Stamina, and a whole lot of passion.

“It certainly makes you proud and thinking that, you know, it was worth it,” Sheridan said.