Medicine Hat Mavericks centre fielder Braden DeSonia holds up the base from Athletic Park on which he registered his WCBL record-setting 41st stolen base during Friday night's 10-4 win over the Weyburn Beavers. - NEWS PHOTO JAMES TUBB
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
On the same night the Medicine Hat Mavericks clinched their spot in the playoffs, history was made at Athletic Park.
Centre fielder Braden DeSonia tied and broke the WCBL’s single season stolen bases record with 41 on the year, during Medicine Hat’s 10-4 win over the Weyburn Beavers to punched their ticket to the playoffs that got underway Monday.
DeSonia entered the contest Friday five stolen bases back of the record of 40. He picked up one in the first inning, his second in the fifth inning and his third of the game in the sixth to add excitement around the Mavericks bench for his at-bat in the eighth inning.
After reaching base on a two-RBI single, DeSonia tied the record by stealing second on the first pitch thrown after his hit. Then, on the very next pitch, DeSonia broke for third and with a head-first slide, stole his 41st base of the season, putting himself in the WCBL record books.
“It was a really awesome experience to be able to do it at home and in front of my parents and family and it was just great, a lot of fun,” DeSonia said ahead of the a 10-2 loss to the Moose Jaw Miller Express on Saturday.
DeSonia’s parents and other relatives were in attendance Friday night when he broke the record. He said he wanted the record-breaking stolen base to be at third so he could shake the hand of Mavericks assistant coach Michael Forgione who is the third base, fielding and base running coach. He was also greeted at the base by fellow outfielder and Columbia College teammate David Dell.
“David’s one of my best friends here and obviously one of my college teammates, it was pretty special for him to be one the first people out there to come give me a big hug,” DeSonia said.
Forgione said DeSonia had the green light to steal ever since the outfielder found out he was close to the record while at the WCBL all-star game.
“Anytime you have a chance to break a league record, not just a franchise record but a league record, you want to give it to the kid because they’ve worked so hard all summer,” Forgione said. “And you knew Braden wants it because he’s just that type of ball player. He’s a dirtbag baseball player who plays the game hard, he doesn’t talk to the other team negatively. He just goes out and plays the game super hard. For him to do it, it was really cool because the type of person he is, really upstanding, and just to be a part of it was cool.”
Forgione said he talked with Mavs pitcher Jack Suhai in the seventh inning about painting up a new base in case DeSonia broke the record and they needed to replace that one. They both agreed to wait until he got a hit to put that in motion.
“Sure enough, Braden comes up and in the eighth and gets on, I kind turned around and see Jack running real fast to get the base and painting it real fast,” Forgione said. “Because everyone, the whole team, probably the whole ballpark, knew at that point, he’s going to go and it worked out.”
When DeSonia reached third base for the record-breaking steal, he picked up the bag and raised it in the air like MLB hall of famer Rickey Henderson did after breaking the MLB’s all-time steal record in 1991.
“When I stole the base I stood up and I said, are we doing it? (Forgione) is like, grab it, grab it. So I picked it up and took it away,” DeSonia said.
DeSonia said the base will go home to Spokane with his parents and will be on display in their man cave. His dad, Rob, said he’s going to put it beside his son’s WCBL all-star bat and other baseball achievements.
The 22-year-old stole another base in their Saturday loss to finish the historic season with 42. He also led the WCBL in hits on the year with 80 and at-bats with 230. DeSonia either started or made an appearance in all 56 regular season Mavericks games.
He credited Forgione with teaching and helping him to relax while on the base paths and said that gave him an advantage.
The Mavericks coach said leaving those lessons on players is what makes summer ball special to him.
“You don’t have a lot of time with the guys like you think you do. You have 56 games but that’s over two-and-a-half months,” Forgione said. “You don’t have 10 months to work with them in the fall, the winter and in the spring, to really develop and refine whatever you want to try and work on. It’s just little tips, I’m not forcing you to do anything. But if you want to work on this, and it’s gonna be interesting. At first, it’s gonna be weird, you just need to practice and you need reps. It’s just really cool if they decide to take that back and they start to implement it and it actually works.”
DeSonia said he hopes to implement all he learned this summer when he returns to Columbia College. He also jokingly said he hopes to steal 42 bases there as well.
“I hope to take a lot of stuff I learned this season, take it back to my college and hopefully tell some of the guys some of the useful stuff and also get some bags,” DeSonia said.
