Visits from WHL’s Pats inspire baseball’s Wolfpack

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With on-field practices and inspirational help from some high-level hockey players, Regina Wolfpack coach Dante De Caria has been getting his under-13 AA baseball team prepared for this weekend’s provincial championship in Martensville.

De Caria is the play-by-play voice and manager of broadcast/hockey communications for the WHL’s Regina Pats, plus he serves as a volunteer coach with Baseball Regina. De Caria has this season introduced his young ball players to numerous members of the major-junior hockey team, all in the name of motivation.

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“I kind of met (Connor) Bedard; he did a FaceTime with us,” said Samuel Schell, a 12-year-old outfielder/pitcher with the Wolfpack, listing current and former Pats who have spoken to his team. “I met Tanner Howe, Kolten Bridgeman and his brother (Kai), Brayden Barnett, Logan (Nijhoff).

“They met us and talked to us about hard work, that if you put your mind to something you can achieve it.”

Because some of the Pats are decent baseball players, De Caria occasionally invites them to practice to assist the Wolfpack’s coaching staff, which also includes Jeff Miller, Mike Hill and Mike Rodger.

Playing in a league that extends past Regina to include teams as far away as Esterhazy, Davidson, Melville and Assiniboia, the Wolfpack has won 20 of 33 games this year. De Caria said his team works hard on fundamentals, including proper cutoff throws, and often deploys sacrifice bunts, hit-and-run plays and stolen bases.

“All but two of our players stole at least 30 bases,” said De Caria. “In Canada we teach our hockey players to become NHLers. So we teach our baseball players how to be major leaguers.”

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De Caria’s baseball roots trace back to his Ontario days, when he stopped playing, became a media intern with the Toronto Blue Jays and subsequently did play-by-play for a farm team, the Lansing (Mich.) Lugnuts.

“I had a coach who played in the Blue Jays and Colorado Rockies organizations,” said De Caria. “He believed in me. My goal wasn’t to be a baseball player. I wanted to work in the sport.”

He was inspired by meeting former Major League Baseball stars Roberto Alomar, Sandy Alomar, George Bell and Tim Raines, who was a roving instructor for Toronto after becoming a Hall of Famer with the Montreal Expos.

De Caria has also met Dan Shulman, Buck Martinez, Pat Tabler and Joe Siddall, but considers long-time Jays broadcaster Jerry Howarth as his mentor. Howarth apparently coached basketball during baseball’s offseason and suggested De Caria get involved in the community as a volunteer coach, even though he doesn’t have children playing the sport.

“I was scouting for a couple teams the last couple years,” said De Caria, who joined the Pats in 2021. “I did player recruiting for the London Majors of the Intercounty Baseball League for two seasons. We won two championships.

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“Being so far from that and not really having a pulse on the team, I decided last year I wanted to be more hands-on and apply my knowledge, teach some of these kids what some of the greatest baseball minds had taught me.”

After the Wolfpack applied for provincial championships, Baseball Saskatchewan — which oversees events in 42 categories, ranging from U11 to Twilite, through July and August — assigned the Wolfpack to the seven-team, Tier II event.

“Baseball is my favourite sport,” said Lincoln Gaebel, a 13-year-old outfielder/pitcher for the Wolfpack. “I quit playing hockey when I was four. And I was going to go fishing at Crooked Lake with my uncle this weekend but I want to play in this tournament.”

The Wolfpack starts its four-team pool Friday with the Weyburn Beavers, Outlook Riverhawks and Yorkton Cardinals. The other pool consists of the Regina Athletics, Watrous Lakers, Assiniboia Southern Aces and Sask Five Flying Squirrels. Semifinals and the final are slated for Sunday.

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