For the midget AAA St. Albert Cardinals field manager, it had been a little longer than most since Kurtis Lay last saw snow fall.
But that’s exactly what he had to deal with on the weekend and that’s the reason why the tournament the team was supposed to play in at Okotoks was cancelled.
“I hadn’t seen snowflakes quite that big in a while, at least not in Texas, you know,” said the native of Abilene. “I seen it occasionally in my younger years, whenever I used to go skiing with the family, but nothing to that extent in that long.”
Lay spent the last two seasons as an assistant coach at Western Texas College. Prior to that, while completing a master’s of education degree at Lubbock Christian University, he served as the head coach of the junior varsity team and assistant coach with the varsity team. He was recently hired to coach at Cochise College in Douglas, Ariz., where he’ll start in August. The city features a border crossing with Mexico.
For this summer, though, he’ll be lending a hand to Sean Erikson’s Cardinals squad. The two will split coaching duties. Erikson will bear the title of head coach, while Lay will be the field manager.
“He’s jumped right in,” Erikson said. “He’s a really good guy. He fits in. All the boys seem to like him and like I said, somebody with the knowledge and experience that he has from down south of the border, is definitely a boon to our team.”
This isn’t the first time Lay has travelled a fair distance from the Lone Star state to expand his baseball horizons. Last year, he travelled to Australia to get a look at some players there. So while he’s coaching in St. Albert, he’ll also be looking at some prospects for his college team for a season or two down the road.
He said his roster for this fall is very unlikely to contain any current Cardinals. Teams in his club have to abide by a limit on the number of international players on the roster and they’ve already reached that limit.
“There won’t be much hands-on recruiting for this year, but looking a couple years down the road, if there’s a couple guys with some potential, hopefully I’ll be one of the first guys to know about them,” he said.
Lay said he’s liked what he’s seen from the ball players around the St. Albert area, but the players aren’t helped at all by the brief period of time that baseball can possibly be played.
“There’s a lot of talented kids,” he said. “I think there’s a big learning curve that can happen when you’re indoors for eight or nine months. When you’ve only got three months to play, you try to get in as many games as you possibly can.”
Unfortunately for the Cardinals, so far that hasn’t been very many. Boasting a 2-8 league record, Erikson said the trip to Okotoks was supposed to be the team’s third road trip. It turns out, a tournament in Medicine Hat this weekend will be the team’s first.
“We started playing some better baseball lately,” Erikson said. “To get shut out of these games [in Okotoks], it would’ve been a good chance to get some momentum and keep on with the progress we made on the practice field.”
St. Albert will play the Saskatoon Cubs, Medicine Hat Monarchs and Calgary Blues in the round robin portion of the tournament, beginning on Friday. The playoffs will be played on Sunday.
One benefit of playing in the tournament, according to Erikson, is it will give the team’s “secondary” pitchers a chance to get some playing time. The Cardinals will also be spurred by the return of third-year midgets Taylor Simmonds and Shane Zimmer. Simmonds, who will join the team as a pitcher, and Zimmer, who will play in the field, are both returning to their hometown after spending time at the Vauxhall Academy in southern Alberta.
The trip will also likely help with the team’s chemistry as they look to turn things around.
“It’ll be nice to get out and play some different teams we haven’t seen — just get the opportunity to get out on the road and bond as a team a bit,” Erikson said.
Prior to going south, the Cardinals visit SEEBA 2 at Goldstick Park tonight at 7 p.m.
