NEWS

By Don Leypoldt

It’s always a long road to the Major Leagues, even for a first round draft pick.

The road from the independent Frontier League to the Majors is even longer, although 27 Frontier alumni (including NECBL graduate Joe Thatcher) have reached baseball’s biggest stage.

But for Vinny Ganz, every game is a long road.

Ganz may have the most difficult job in professional baseball.  Just six summers removed from the Danbury Westerners, and younger than some of his players, Ganz manages the Frontier Greys.  The Greys are the Frontier League’s travel team.

This is Ganz’s first season as manager.  Despite managing a full season, Ganz has still never managed a home game. 

“We’re based in Highland, Illinois, about 45 minutes from St. Louis.  We live in a small town,” Ganz explained.  “We have host families and there are a couple of apartments that guys stay at.  The host families take great care of them.  They come to a lot of our games that are around here and they are our little fan section, so that’s cool.”

Two opponents- the Gateway Grizzlies and River City Rascals- are about 40 minutes from the Greys’ practice field.  A third team, the Southern Illinois Miners, are just shy of two hours away.  The Greys commute to those games and stay overnight everywhere else.

“It’s not an easy thing,” Ganz admitted.  “We talk about it all of the time: how we’re trying to make the playoffs.  Right now (at the time of this interview), we’re in the hunt.  You talk about if you win the road Series, it’s a good series and try and be .500 on the road.  We’re trying to be above and beyond .500 and make the playoffs. 

“The hardest part of our situation is that we play teams who are built for their home ballparks.  If it is a short right field, we’re going in there with a lineup full of lefties.  If it’s a big ballpark, we’re going to be facing a good pitching staff.  Whatever their team is built for to be successful at home, that is what we have to go in and beat.  That was a tough thing about building the roster that I put together,” Ganz noted.  “I could have gone in about five different directions.”

The roster worked.  2015, by far, was the best season in Greys’ history.  Ganz set the franchise win record with one-quarter of his season still left to play.

The Greys’ unique story came to life in the baseball hot bed of London, Ontario.  For a variety of reasons, the Frontier League’s London franchise failed late in the 2012 season and was replaced with a barnstorming team from the Atlantic League.  In 2013, the Frontier League organized the Greys as a travel team and for the first two years, they did a good job of being fodder for home team wins.

Ganz relayed, “I would call guys and I wouldn’t ask them to play.  It was kind of an interview to see if they could play for me.  I know that sounds dumb but the first question I’d ask would be: Why do you want to play for the Frontier Greys?  And the answer I was looking for is ‘I’m trying to get to affiliate ball or get back to affiliate ball or get to the Major Leagues.’  That is what you need to motivate a road team.  I don’t want guys who are going to go play just to have fun.  I want guys to play who are motivated.”

Five Greys have been picked up by affiliated baseball this year.  The Greys led the Frontier League in players being picked up- a stat Ganz values even more than a championship “because that’s just better for the players.  It’s better for the Frontier League,” he said.  “What I’ve told all the guys is that we might not lead the League in wins but we’re going to lead the League in guys picked up, which we are.”    

Ganz’s title is “manager” but he is also the de facto GM, hitting coach…and travel agent, psychologist, chief, cook and bottle washer if the Greys need it.  Ganz’s dull days are rarer than a no-hitter.

“When I was a hitting coach,” noted Ganz, who held that position for three years with different Frontier League teams before getting hired into his current role, “that is all I had to worry about- being a hitting coach and coaching third base.  Now, all I have is a pitching coach, and a third college coach but who only comes on commuter trips.

“If I can make it out there for early work because I don’t have to do other stuff regarding the team, I make it out there.  There are times where I’m dealing with trying to replace that player who just got picked up and I’m on the phone for 10 hours,” Ganz described.  “Nobody tells you or preps you exactly for the job, because every job is different, but it definitely is very, very challenging.  And the one thing that no one can prep you for is the road managing job.  Because anything can happen!  But it is fun and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

Ganz has managed with the aplomb of someone twenty years his senior.  A Division III infielder raised just up I-84 from Danbury, in Waterbury, Ganz spent two summers with the Westerners.  Ganz had a .381 on base percentage in 28 games for the ’08 Westerners- where he was teammates with now Chicago Cub Mike Olt.  Ganz also made 21 starts for the ’09 Westerners- where he was teammates with now Oakland Athletic Billy Burns.

“We always had draft picks off of our team when I was there,” Ganz recalled.  “It’s always nice to see guys you played with getting picked up. 

“I just thought it was a great league.  You could go in there on any given day and see a great arm.  You see a lot of good hitters.  I thought that I would go in and see some pitching that I hadn’t seen before,” Ganz predicted.  “And I was right.  I saw a very different velocity than what I was used to.  It was a good fit for me. 

“(Danbury) had a bunch of great coaches and there is stuff I learned there that I use now,” Ganz pointed out.  “It was a good time because it was the closest thing to Minor League baseball that college kids can get to.  You travel there.  You have stadiums like Newport and Keene.  The first time I walked into Keene’s field there were all of these lawn chairs set up everywhere and I thought ‘What were these people doing?’  I come to find out that they just drop off the chair and come back and watch the game.  That is something I thought was cool. 

“It was some of the biggest crowds I’ve ever played in front of.  The 4th of July in North Adams, it felt like there were a million people there and in that tiny stadium, there was no room to breathe.”

Now, as a man with personnel authority, Ganz is an NECBL advocate.  “I had aspirations of playing in the Majors and getting drafted.  The NECBL helped me a lot in getting on a lot of radars,” he said.  “I actually got invited to a lot of pre-draft workouts because of the NECBL and what I did there.” 

Former Sanford Mainer Mark Micowski is one of the Frontier League’s top hitters while ex SteepleCat Timothy Flight ranked third among Frontier pitchers in games started.  “There are a lot of managers who like the NECBL,” he reminded.  “The college (summer) leagues sometimes lead us to sign players because the wood bat and the pitching that we know is there are more understandable than from the schools that they attend.”

Ganz had pro aspirations of his own but injuries and a family situation caused him to hang up his spikes just after college.  He returned home to run his family’s batting cage; he also earned an assistant coaching job at nearby Post University.  Ganz got a job as a hitting coach with the Frontier League in 2012 and has been there ever since.

It’s a great human interest story to read about a 23 year old professional hitting coach.  But what if you are a 27 year old veteran now subordinate to a 23 year old hitting coach?

“I’m still eligible to play in this League.  That’s the funny thing,” Ganz chuckled.  “It was a grind my first year because I was 23-24 years old coaching 26-27 year olds.  But if you go out there and you put in as much or more work than they do, then they respect you.  That is always what I’ve done in this League is try and work as hard as I possibly can.  It’s why I got this job. 

“I try to do what I can to help my guys with what they need whether its more swings or whether its struggling on a certain pitch or struggling chasing a pitch- trying to come up with a game plan to help them and help them with the mechanics of their swing.  If I’m lazy, at my age,” Ganz emphasized, “I don’t have this job.”

What a long strange trip it’s been for both Ganz and his ballclub.  But to add another Grateful Dead reference, Ganz continues to add a Touch of Grey to both affiliated baseball and the Frontier League’s playoff race.

Vinny Ganz’s Advice to Future Coaches: “My big thing was never taking ‘No’ for an answer and settling with ‘No.’ I’ve been turned down a lot more times than I’ve been successful.  But if you love the game, the game always rewards people who work as hard as they can.  You might not be the best hitting or pitching coach but guys will play hard for you and respect you if they know that you are going to go out and work for them every day.  I’ve learned a lot since coming into this League.  I never played an inning of professional baseball and I was the hitting coach at A or High A ball level club without ever having a professional at-bat! 

“If you go in and work as hard as you possibly can, nobody can take that away from you and people will see it.  It’s why I got this job at 26-27 years old because my work has not gone unnoticed.  Guys will always talk well about you if you are out there being a good guy and working hard.  I’ve sacrificed for years.  I lived a couple of seasons on peanut butter and jelly.  It’s not an easy road, but it’s one of those roads where once you get to be there, you very much appreciate all of the days you put in.  That is what was cool when I got the phone call that I got the Greys’ job, I looked back to my first year in the League and I thought ‘Wow, it’s been three years to the day’ and it’s been a very, very hard three years but I’m thrilled to death that I did those three years because I very easily could have quit.”