As tall Fish stories go…

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 21/08/2020 (2123 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

At this point, it wouldn’t be a huge shock to Rick Forney if he looked up from his usual spot in the Winnipeg Goldeyes’ dugout one night to see a swarm of locusts in the sky above right field headed directly towards his team. The universe has already thrown pretty much everything else their way this summer.

It all started with the global pandemic that exiled them from Canada and turned the Fish into a group of nomads now into Day 58 of the longest road trip in club history. And the hits kept coming.

A couple of signed players, including slugger Willy Garcia, couldn’t join the club due to travel restrictions. Others opted not to play at all. Two pitchers tested positive for COVID-19 upon arrival at training camp in the Goldeyes’ temporary home in Fargo.

That was followed by not one, but two highway-tire blowouts on the team bus that could have proved deadly if not for some swift action from the driver and a little luck.

Then the injury bug began to bite, leaving Forney with as few as 20 healthy players on a 23-man roster.

“It’s been tough, to say the least,” said, Forney acknowledging the obvious earlier this week in a phone chat from Milwaukee, where his team was finishing up a three-game series against the Milkmen, then sticking around to play three more against their Wisconsin rivals as the designated “home” team.

You read that correctly. As if this abbreviated 60-game American Association season wasn’t already strange enough, the Goldeyes recently agreed to move nine of their so-called home games away from their current “home” in North Dakota — six to Milwaukee, three to St. Paul.

All of which added another 1,000 kilometres of travel for the Winnipeg Vagabonds. At this point, who’s counting though, right?

“It’s not something we’ve ever done before, so there’s no written script to follow. We’re just trying to win this damn thing, and doing the best we can every day. it’s not ideal,” said Forney.

And that, folks, is where this tale takes another unexpected turn. Faced with obstacle after obstacle, you might think the Fish were struggling to keep their collective heads above, uh… water. Instead, they took the field Friday night with a 24-17 record, which is tops in the six-team loop with less than three weeks to go in the season.

Winnipeg owned a one-and-a-half game lead over Milwaukee, were two-and-a-half up on St. Paul, three ahead of Sioux Falls, six up on Chicago and eight ahead of Fargo. The top two teams following completion of play Sept. 10 will meet in a best-of-five championship final.

Forney has done a lot of great things in his 24 years with the organization, including the past 15 as manager, where he’s led his team to three titles. But it says here what he’s managing to pull off, far away from the friendly confines of Shaw Park, is his finest work yet, even if local fans can only see it via online broadcasts.

“All the credit goes to our players… we have really good people, really good guys. Their attitudes are fantastic. They come to the field every day, there’s no complaining with these guys. They’re just appreciative of the fact they get to play baseball.” – Rick Forney

“The Goldeyes are a big part of the summer for people in Winnipeg. For a lot of people they’re very important. There’s a lot of longtime season-ticket holders that really look forward to the Goldeyes in the summer and live and die with every pitch, and unfortunately they don’t get an opportunity to meet these guys and enjoy them in person. It’s a little bit upsetting,” said Forney.

It won’t surprise you to hear the modest skipper was reluctant to pat himself on the back, let alone even consider any kind of victory lap.

“All the credit goes to our players… we have really good people, really good guys. Their attitudes are fantastic. They come to the field every day, there’s no complaining with these guys. They’re just appreciative of the fact they get to play baseball,” he said.

“They’re good baseball players, but the best part about these guys is they’re fantastic people.”

Exhibit A in that regard should be the fact there hasn’t been a single positive COVID-19 test outside of those initial two — Victor Capellan and Jose Jose — who travelled from hotspots to attend camp in late June. Both quickly recovered and have been pivotal part of the team’s success.

That’s impressive, especially when you consider there’s no hub city environment, no “bubble” such as the ones NHL and NBA players are living in. The Goldeyes are living out of hotels, playing for relative peanuts (the salary cap is $125,000 for the entire team) and yet making solid decisions about how they’re spending the ample downtime they find themselves with.

“That (tire blowout) was pretty bad. Whoever the engineer was that decided it was a really good place to put a guard rail where they put it saved a lot of lives that day. That bus would have been tumbling down the side of a hill into a retention pond.” – Rick Forney

“In the hotel in Fargo, we’re all on the fourth floor. And the hotel doors slam, they’re pretty heavy doors when people go in and out. I would hear the doors if people were going in and out at night. These guys don’t go anywhere,” said Forney.

“They wake up, they eat breakfast, they go back to their room, they go to the field, they grab something to eat and they go back to the hotel. No doubt, Fargo’s pretty wide open, the bars are open. But our guys are there to play baseball, they’re not there to run around town and do whatever it is. They’ve been pretty good about not letting COVID take the uniform off that back.”

I’ve previously written in this space how Forney is guiding his team with a heavy heart this season, following the tragic sudden death of his oldest son, David, last February. He told me he’s definitely missing his family, who haven’t been able to meet up for a visit in the two months since he packed his vehicle and made the long drive from Maryland.

The entire team had to count its collective blessings after the two near-misses on the highway, including the first blowout between Fargo and Sioux Falls.

“That was pretty bad. Whoever the engineer was that decided it was a really good place to put a guard rail where they put it saved a lot of lives that day. That bus would have been tumbling down the side of a hill into a retention pond,” said Forney.

A second, less serious incident happened a couple weeks later.

“In 30 years of minor-league baseball riding buses I’ve never had a tire blown out,” said Forney.

Now in the stretch run, Forney will continue to lean heavily on offensive stars such as Kyle Martin and Canadian Wes Darvill, a veteran staff of starters and perhaps the best bullpen in the league, anchored by the likes of Capellan and Jose.

“It’s really hard to have expectations of guys this year. You didn’t even know what kind of shape anybody was going to be in when they showed up, what their mind frame would be. I told my guys at the beginning of the year just play as hard as you can every day for me. If you play hard, things will work out,” said Forney.

“Everybody’s kind of aware we’re not a whole lot better than the opposition regardless of our position in the standings. We may be the first place team but we’re vulnerable in some areas. If we make mistakes, if we don’t play well, we’re going to get beat. There’s some areas we need to improve on in the next few weeks if we’re going to have a chance to win,” said Forney.

I wouldn’t bet against them. Then again, I’d also keep an eye on the sky just in case those locusts decide to come calling.

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @mikemcintyrewpg