NEWS PHOTO JAMES TUBB
Medicine Hat Mavericks head coach Tyler Jeske sits in a crouch as he watches play during the Mavericks 2-1 win in Game 1 of their East division Finals series against the Miller Express on Aug. 12 in Moose Jaw.
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
This summer was one of many firsts for Medicine Hat Mavericks head coach Tyler Jeske.
His first opportunity as a manager, first time visiting Canada and being a part of the WCBL and most importantly, experiencing Tim Hortons north of the border.
“Tim Hortons in Canada, you can’t really beat it,” Jeske said. “It tastes different in Canada than it does in the United States.”
At the start of the season his go-to at Tim Hortons was a farmers breakfast wrap with either sausage or bacon depending on how they did the night before. If he had sausage and they won that day, it would be sausage the next or bacon would enter the wrap and the cycle would continue.
His drink order would give the cardiologist the spins as Jeske would ask for a caramel latte with four extra espresso shots for a total of seven in the drink. He said he could only order it when a certain employee was working, who also worked at Athletic Park, because she was the only one to comprehend the amount of caffeine he wanted in his drink.
“The bus gets back at 2:30, 3 in the morning or I would do the laundry after a home game and usually be here for a couple hours after the game,” Jeske said.
He then switched it up, heading into the playoffs as he ordered the Justin Bieber influenced French vanilla cold brew and the new maple bacon breakfast sandwich on an everything bagel, which he enjoyed to the point he wants to know how the bagels are made.
“I still really want to figure out where the bagels were manufactured, because they’re up there with the New York Long Island bagels,” Jeske said.
The Ohio product joined the Mavericks from Lackawanna College in Scranton, Penn. where he is an assistant baseball coach. As he leaves Medicine Hat following their East Division final loss to the Moose Jaw Miller Express, Jekse said he will bring back to Lackawanna the lesson of emotional regulation.
“A lot of these guys, this is the first time they got to play in front of fans like this, first time they looked up and there’s 1,000 people in the stands thinking, ‘This is going to be in the paper, in the news. As a modern athlete with social media there’s no hiding from the SportsCentre Not Top 10, there’s no hiding from the negatives,” Jeske said.
“So the emotional pressure on guys is already there and it’s like, we threw to the wrong base, that was incredibly, incredibly stupid, right? They already know that. They’re already kicking themselves. Or a pitcher walks off the mound and they just blew a three-run lead in the ninth, which we did quite a few times. They know it, they feel it. They don’t need me just piling it on. They need me to be there to say, this is where it went wrong, this is how we’re going to grow from this and this is how we’re going to evolve so that next time we’re in a better position.”
The 2022 Mavericks had an up-and-down season, finishing with a regular season record of 18-38 before sweeping their first-round series with the Regina Red Sox and losing to Moose Jaw in the semi-finals. He said he was proud of how his team navigated the season and enjoyed his time in Medicine Hat getting to know the community.
“I’m very appreciative of the people of Medicine Hat, they were friendly,” Jeske said. “Just walking around and you start seeing some of the same people at Tim Hortons and the gas station. You start to see people around the community and you realize, there might be 60,000 people in this town but it has a very small town feel and a lot of genuinely good people who you enjoy being around. It made me personally feel at home all year.”
Jeske said it’s still early but said he would love to return to the Mavericks red next season.
“Everybody in professional baseball from when it was the Medicine Hat Blue Jays told me Medicine Hat’s a really cool, special place. You’re going to love it. They probably undersold it,” Jeske said. “I genuinely can’t say enough good things about it and if the opportunity presents itself to come back, I would love to. But if it doesn’t present itself, it was a special summer.”
As he has all season, Jeske offered his thanks to each and every Mavericks faithful that attended a game at Athletic Park or supported the team throughout their season, and to those who helped put together the game all summer.
“The host families, people around the ballpark, the concession stand workers, people don’t realize how it really becomes your home away from home. Fred and Murray were our two main bus drivers throughout the year and those guys have a thankless job, too. They’re usually driving late at night, when we’re all asleep, knowing that we have another game coming up. The people that you encounter, I think is what makes it so special, what makes this game what it is,” Jeske said.
“Even the bat boys, it’s good to know the bat boys now and to see a couple of them start to play catch with the guys. That’s how you grow the game. That’s how you continue to grow the game and create that passion. The number of kids that you’d see at the railing after game and it didn’t matter if we won or lost, they still wanted autographs, they still wanted to meet the players and I look at that and think, we can’t lose sight of that. Because without everybody that was coming to support the team night-in and night-out, if you don’t have that you can’t have a team.”
