Baseball players hoisted Dennis Denning above their heads in 2009, and he was delighted but then horrified that they would drop him. Steve Fritz bear-hugged basketball players in 2011 and hours later still wore the remnants of a net they cut down. Thanh Pham crouched on the sidelines last November with a hand to his eyes to wipe away tears as his volleyball players celebrated.

Steve Fritz, championship net around his neck, hugs Teddy Archer March 19, 2011 after the men’s basketball team took first place in the nation. (Photo by Mike Ekern ’02)

The images remain indelible, and they should. The moments defined excellence. They rewarded hard and selfless work. They generated recognition. They opened doors.

And perhaps most importantly, they engendered pride. They gave people, even casual observers, a chance to simply say, “We’re No. 1.”

Everybody likes to be No. 1. Few get the opportunity, and sometimes things don’t work out. As much success as St. Thomas has had in winning 15 national championships in eight different NCAA Division III sports, second only to Williams College’s nine champion sports, the Tommies also have experienced their share of painful defeats. Football was the most recent national runner-up, one of 12 second place finishes (also by teams in baseball, softball, men’s hockey, women’s cross country and women’s outdoor track).

Pham and Fritz believe national championships are important for a team, a program and an institution.

A team? “It’s validation,” said Pham, whose Tommies lost first-round matches in the 2010 and 2011 national tournaments but won the 2012 crown in five sets after trailing No. 1 Calvin 0-2. “Work hard and good things will happen. You can be down, but don’t lose faith. There’s always a solution; you just have to find it. That this team won speaks volumes to its character, its resilience and its desire.”

A program? “It gives you a certain amount of status,” said Fritz, athletic director since 1992, who retired after 31 years as men’s basketball coach when the Tommies won the 2011 title. “When you recruit, people know you have a good program. It opens doors.”

Tommie baseball players hoist their trophy and their head coach, Dennis Denning, onto their shoulders following a victory over Wooster College May 26, 2009 to take the national title. (Photo by Mike Ekern ’02)

An institution? “It draws attention to St. Thomas in a positive manner – in how prospective students will look at us, in how students here will share in our joy, and in how our alumni can be very proud of their school,” Pham said.

Fritz agrees and likes to call sports “a front porch.” The success of any given team “becomes part of the success of the entire institution,” he said. “It’s very visible” and – at a time when higher education faces growing criticism for costs and relevance – “it’s good news.”

Glenn Caruso knows all of that as he, too, pursues a national title. Two days before his football team played Mount Union, he spoke with his players as they sat on a Virginia field after practice.

“Look around,” he said. “This is where we will play for the national championship. There are 238 teams (in Division III), and only two are left. You are one of them.”

The Tommies didn’t quite get to the top in that game. But I have no doubt they will in the future, and I can hardly wait to see the look on Caruso’s face. It will be indelible.

Read more from St. Thomas Magazine.

Fewer than 30 percent of respondents knew that its system of government is a unique combination of federal parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy. More than 80 percent knew that the country has two official languages – French and English – but fewer than 1 percent could name any of the six languages officially recognized in various regions of the country (Chipewyan, Cree, Gwich’in, Inuinnaqtun, Inuktitut, Inuvialuktun, Slavey and Tlicho). All participants could name at least one province, but few could cite the 10 Canadian provinces and three territories stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans and northward into the Arctic.

Canada is the second largest country in the world based on area, is home to 34.5 million people, ranks sixth globally on the human development scale, has the ninth largest per capita income, ranking ahead of the United States, and is the next, perhaps most important, frontier for Tony Fisher ’97, president of Target Canada.

O Canada

Fisher, a native of St. Paul, Minn., has worked for Target Corp. in one capacity or another since interning at the Dayton Hudson Corp. (forerunner to Target Corp.) during his junior year at the University of St. Thomas. In 1999, he joined Target as an entry-level business analyst in merchandising, then moved on to senior business analyst, manager and senior buyer in apparel and grocery. As a divisional merchandising manager, he was responsible for toys and sporting goods. Before being named president of Target Canada in January 2011, Fisher was vice president of merchandising operations for Target Corp.

Yet Fisher’s path to the presidency was not a direct one, nor was it traditional. Following his junior year at St. Thomas, Fisher was drafted by the Texas Rangers as a center fielder. He played for teams in Port Charlotte, Fla.; Savannah, Ga.; Charleston, S.C.; and Pulaski, Va. Teammates included his roommate Travis Hafner, as well as R.A. Dickey, Carlos Peña, Joaquin Benoit, Doug Davis and Mike Venafro.

“Minor league baseball is remembered for a lot of things … playing in different cities, the fans that treat you like you’re in the big leagues, the terrible locker rooms … but one thing everyone remembers from playing in the minors are the bus rides. I’ll always remember my first one. I had just joined the team and we immediately went on a 10-day road trip. When you travel, they give you your entire trip’s meal money in one envelope as you get on the bus – $15 per day. I got on the bus with my $150 and not more than five minutes later, the guys invited me to play poker. I thought, ‘Wow, that’s nice. I’m new and they’re being so inviting. This will be a great way to get to know the guys!’ I think I lasted about seven minutes and my money was completely gone. Needless to say, I didn’t get to know many guys playing poker that trip; however, I was very nice to the next new guy to join the team and of course invited him to play poker with us!”

Minor league baseball, perhaps, is the place that distilled Fisher’s belief in the importance of teamwork. “Baseball, like business, is a sport where teamwork and collaboration are abso-lutely critical in order to achieve your long-term objectives. You learn to work with people from very different backgrounds, cultures and countries, and you figure out a way to come together, to compete and to win.”

Fisher played baseball for three years, returning to Minnesota in the off season to complete his degree at St. Thomas. “I had some great experiences in my time at St. Thomas, and I think the basic foundation of a disciplined focus to learning was at the core of what I took away. There are many things that allow leaders to be successful: Setting the right vision, being a strong critical thinker, developing and leveraging a broad network of resources, being self-aware, and having a committed focus to developing people.”

When he chose not to rejoin the Rangers, he “wasn’t sure at the time if the decision to stop playing professional baseball was the right decision or not, namely because I stopped before I had reached my peak performance. Reflecting back, the decision for me came down to thinking about which career gave me the best chances of success. I was more confident in my chances as an execu-tive than as a baseball player.”

A Sound Decision

Clearly, Fisher’s decision to focus on his career in business was a good one. His 13 years with Target have seen him rise steadily through the ranks and be involved in almost every aspect of merchandising. This intimate knowledge of the U.S. retail giant left him ideally positioned for his latest role, and he assisted the corporation during its initial planning stages. “Before joining Target Canada, I had strategic pricing as one of my areas of responsibility,” Fisher notes. “My involvement in the planning process prior to our deal being announced was to help determine what our profit model would look like given the existing retail market conditions.”

Those market conditions were one of the factors motivating Target to expand into Canada. “Target has always been and will continue to be focused on profitably growing our core business in the United States,” Fisher says, “but we also realized that international expansion was a critical growth factor for us as we looked at our long-range strategic plan.” Target leadership researched various international options, from emerging markets to well- established markets overseas. Canada – with its robust economy, educated workforce and stable government – provided the best fit. Research showed that Target brand awareness was strong across Canada – 70 percent. In addition, more than 30,000 Canadians held Target’s proprietary credit card and more than 10 percent of the nation’s citizens already shopped at Target stores in the United States or online.

While the decision to move into Canada was made several years ago, it wasn’t until 2010 that the company encountered the right set of circumstances to make it possible. A first, and critical, step was protecting the company’s immediately recognizable trademark. Since acquiring the assets of a company called Dylex Ltd. in 2001, Fairweather Ltd., International Clothiers and Les Ailes have claimed Canadian ownership rights of the Target name, which was registered by Dylex in Canada in 1981. For its part, Target Corp. claimed Fairweather had lost rights to the name since it stopped using it following the acquisition of Dylex. Finally, in February 2012, Fairweather and Target reached an agreement in the courts whereby the Canadian retailer will stop using the Target trademark by Jan. 31, 2013.

Another consideration in the expansion was whether or not to build new stores. Fisher says, in 2010 “we took advantage of the opportunity to buy up to 220 of the leasehold interests of Zellers, an existing discount retailer in Canada owned by the Hudson Bay Co., which would allow us to expand internationally with a large number of stores within our first year of launch. We determined which of the 220 locations would be of best strategic and financial interest for Target, and then decided which locations would be best served as a Target store.” The end result is an ambitious plan to open 124 stores by the end of 2013, with some of the first stores opening in the Toronto area as early as this coming spring. The company will open new stores from then on approximately every two months, first in Western Canada followed by Ontario, Quebec, the Atlantic regions and then multiple provinces.

“This isn’t a typical merger or acquisition,” Fisher notes. “We only bought the leasehold interests, and because of that we need to build our own team, build our own technology infrastructure, and build our own supply chain, all within a two-year timeframe of announcing the deal. In addition to this, we plan to invest an aver-age of more than $10 million per store to completely remodel the existing locations into fully branded Target stores.”

Paramount to the success of their business strategy is building a team, and no one is better known for its focus on teams than Target Corp., whose employees are known as team members and whose career services website proudly proclaims “our team is our greatest asset.” So it was critical that the teams representing Target Canada reflected the communities in which the stores operate. As Fisher states with pride, “I’m excited by the fact that when our stores are fully staffed, more than 99 percent of our team will be filled with Canadian team members.”

Concentric Learning

Expanding into a foreign country requires not only an understanding of differing laws and regulations but also of differing cultural norms. Americans – especially those who share a border with Canada (the longest land border in the world) – have long had a tendency to view the country as “America North,” a misnomer that fails to grasp the history, complexity, socio-economic characteristics and diversity of the Canadian people.

Fisher and his team were determined not to make that mistake: “We were very clear from the beginning that it would have been a mistake for us to treat Canada as the 51st state, or Target’s fifth region. We started our plans with what we called ‘Listening and Learning’ tours across the country.”

On these tours, Target representatives met with leaders at all levels to learn more about the country. They conducted focus groups made up of Canadians who already shopped at Target and those who didn’t. “What was very clear is that Canadians want the full Target brand experience, not something diluted or changed for Canada.” At the same time, the focus groups pointed out, Canadian shoppers expect the merchandise to reflect local tastes, preferences and even climate. While many of the merchandising choices will be based on consumer input and feedback, shelves also will be stocked with Canadian cultural products, a requirement of Target’s deal with the Canadian government.

It is Fisher’s role as president to be engaged in and aware of each step along the path to the largest expansion in Target’s history. And in this role, his workday has become anything but typical. While he and his family have moved to Toronto, he still visits the corporate headquarters in Minneapolis at least once a month. He meets with current team members and interviews prospective team members, consults with local industry and government leaders, and listens to retail peers, among them other U.S. retailers with a longer track record in Canada, well-known names such as Wal-Mart and Sears.

Wherever he is, Fisher is engaged in the full-time job of concentric learning. Fisher believes that one of the most important aspects of being successful as a leader is to be a concentric learner or, as he defines it: “being accountable to your opportunities. You have to ask for feedback, show resilience by accepting what you heard, and then be adaptable by improving where you need to. Leaders who always focus on concentric learning, while soaring with their strengths, will continue to find success in their careers. I believe that’s a big reason why I’ve been fortunate to have the career I’ve had so far.”

Read more from B. Magazine.

Not Olean. He’s proud the Tommies are “two deep” at every position. He likes the competition, insists he will start the players “who are hitting the best and pitching the best,” and knows the future is just as dependent on newcomers as stars.

Guys like junior Kris Edwards, who pitched in only six games last year. … senior John Bauer, rewarded after patiently waiting three years to start at second base. … sophomore Chuck Bruchu, back in action after missing last year with injuries. … sophomore Justin Novak, a backup shortstop. … and freshman Mark Dominik, who got his first start Saturday in Florida.

They all are eager to play, yet they all know their role on a championship team

Edwards graduated from Edina and enrolled at UW-Whitewater, where he relieved as a freshman and was ready to make a bigger contribution as a sophomore until he felt something “kind of snap” in his elbow on a pitch during a fall scrimmage. The result: Tommy John surgery in June 2007 to replace an ulnar collateral ligament.

He came home, took a semester off and enrolled at the University of Minnesota, where he tried out for the Gophers but lacked control of his pitches. He had friends at St. Thomas, transferred here last spring and decided to give baseball one more chance.

“I was healthy, too,” he said. “I never felt pain. The elbow was fine and my velocity was back to where it had been, in the mid-80s.”

Edwards threw only 13 innings but they were big ones, including five against UW-Stevens Point in a first-round NCAA regional game. He shut down the Pointers on seven strikeouts and picked up the win when Taylor Rahm homered in the 17th inning. Ten days later, Edwards found himself on a national championship team.

“The joy of hog-piling!” he said of the celebration after Matt Olson scored the winning run. “Guys said, ‘You transferred in at some time.’ Guys at Whitewater told me, ‘You are so lucky.’ ”

Edwards feels good about his performance so far this year, with 15.2 innings, three wins in four games and a solid five-inning, three-run outing against Minnesota. He’s anxious to do more but knows that “we have a lot of great pitchers. It’s a privilege to be here.”

Bauer took a different – and longer – route to becoming a starter. The senior from Eastview in Apple Valley played junior varsity his first two years and backed up Louie Salmen at second base last year, starting six games but hitting only .200 in 20 at bats.

“I sprained my ankle in the middle of the year,” he said. “I was running to second for a double play, did a quick stop and rolled my ankle. I was out for a couple of weeks, and that hurt.”

His junior varsity years taught him a valuable lesson – patience – and “helped me develop a work ethic,” he said. “I learned how to be my own coach. This year, I want to be there as a supporting senior – not a captain kind of guy but one who leads by example.”

Bauer was one of three Tommies with three hits in Saturday’s first-game win over Chicago, all singles in three consecutive innings, and also scored a run.

Like Edwards, Bruchu has struggled with injuries. He pitched and played third as a freshman out of Hill-Murray but suffered a torn labrum in his right shoulder and had surgery after fall practice. He missed the 2009 season and knew his arm wouldn’t be strong enough to pitch this year.

“I love playing third base,” he said. “It’s a good spot for me. I’m active on bunt plays and I like having to react quickly. I have been given a great chance to prove myself.”

Bruchu has started six of nine games and has had no errors. He had just two hits in his first 13 at bats, but hit two singles against Lawrence in the Florida opener and is getting more comfortable at the plate.

“I know I need to hit better,” he said. “I’m working at it.”

Novak came to St. Thomas from New Prague and spent his freshman season as a junior varsity infielder. He has played in five games – three as a pinch runner – and had his first extended action against Lawrence as he hit an RBI sacrifice fly, reached base on an error, and walked and scored. In the 14-3, second-game win over Chicago on Saturday, he singled his first four times at bat and scored three runs.

“I need to relax and have fun,” he said. “I have been lucky to play behind guys like Roy (Larson). Everyone helps each other out. It’s a true team effort.”

Dominik has discovered the same thing. The freshman pitcher from Hill-Murray is eager to learn from seniors Matt Schuld and Brandon Stone, and during practice one day in St. Paul he talked about what he thought his first start would be like.

“I don’t want to be nervous the first time I go out there – I just want to be calm and throw my game. Easier said than done!

That first start came Saturday against Chicago. He struck out the first hitter on three pitches, then hit a batter and walked one before getting out of the inning. He got into trouble in the fourth when he gave up three singles, two walks and a double as Chicago scored four times to tie the game, and Olean pulled him.

"He showed flashes of good pitching," Olean said of Dominik, who struck out one batter in each inning. "He just got behind in too many counts. He’ll get better."

And that - getting better - is what it’s all about for young players.

It happened again on Tuesday, and for the first time this season – and only the second time in two seasons – Schuld came out on the short end when Macalester defeated the Tommies 5-2.

The loss dropped Schuld’s 2010 record to 4-1 and his career record to 24-5, a sparkling 83 percent winning mark for the senior, who was both an All-American and a third-team CoSIDA Academic All-American last year.

Schuld’s steady performance comes as no surprise to his coaches or his teammates, who want him on the mound for big games. He finished 12-1 in 2009 to break the school record for wins in a season, defeating nine ranked Division III schools and the University of Minnesota.

Despite the gaudy statistics, the lanky finance major from Robbinsdale Armstrong doesn’t feel he’s hit his stride this year.

“I’ve given up too many walks and runs,” he said last Saturday, an off day for him, as the Tommies prepared to play Bethel. “I’m making too many bad pitches, or wasting pitches. Mechanically, I’m getting more comfortable – I just have to make sure I know where the ball is going all the time!”

Schuld pinpointed his Macalester loss to a failure to get early pitches over for strikes. He gave up all five runs in the second inning on five hits, a hit batter and a wild pitch. “They put together a few hits,” he said, and “four of the runs came with two outs. I just couldn’t finish the inning the way I should have.”

Coach Chris Olean agreed with his pitcher’s self-assessment. “He just had a bad inning,” Olean said. “He needs to get ahead in his counts and stay ahead in his counts.”

Schuld pitched and played shortstop at Armstrong, and chose St. Thomas over St. John’s for college. He broke a bone in his leg as a freshman during the team’s Florida spring break trip and came back strong as a sophomore, recording a 7-3 record as St. Thomas won its sixth straight MIAC regular-season title but lost in the NCAA regional playoffs.

Despite losing three All-Americans off that 2008 squad, Schuld felt confident of the Tommies’ chances heading into last season. They won the MIAC title again but then fell 19-1 and 8-0 to St. Olaf in the conference playoffs and limped into the regional tournament.

Schuld pitched well, throwing 12 innings in a 17-inning win over UW-Stevens Point in the opener. He won his second start 11-2 over St. Olaf to put the Tommies into the title game, which they won to advance to the national tournament.

He won his first game there 9-1 over Chapman. The Tommies headed into the final day knowing they had to beat Wooster twice to win the title, and Schuld took the ball for the first game.

“Everybody is gunning for us.”

“I was so excited,” he said. “You walk in knowing you are playing for the national championship. We had the same mentality as in the regionals – go out and play hard. We were loose, and we knew we had a good team, so we thought we had a chance.”

Schuld pitched a complete game, 6-4 win over Wooster, and then had to sit in the dugout and sweat out 12 innings before Dan Leslie drove in Matt Olson with a single to win the national championship.

“It was the best feeling of my life,” Schuld said. “I keep looking back at the highlight tape, and I still get goose bumps watching Matt go around third to score the winning run. It’s hard to beat that.”

Schuld and his teammates would like another chance to at least match that. Expectations are high with 19 of 25 players returning from the title team, but Schuld believes everyone has the right attitude and approach: one game at a time, with a goal of winning an eighth straight MIAC title.

“Everybody is gunning for us,” he said. “We had close games against Carleton (to open the MIAC season), and then we split with St. John’s (and Mac). We can’t sit back and relax. We have to be aggressive. We just want to win the MIAC and then see what happens in the playoffs.”

Schuld attributes the Tommies’ 19-3 start to the veteran lineup, good team chemistry and the sound coaching of Olean, who took over for the retired Dennis Denning. Schuld also credits Olean, who starred for the Tommies’ 1999 national runner-up team and served as their pitching coach from 2001 to 2009, for making him a better pitcher.

“I came in so raw as a freshman,” he said. “My mechanics were all over the place. Chris got his hands on me and straightened me out. I added five miles to my fastball, and he gave me confidence in myself. He can look at one bad pitch, suggest an adjustment and everything turns out OK.”

Major league scouts having been showing up at games to watch Schuld, but for now he is trying to put the scouts out of his mind and focus on one thing when he takes the mound.

“You can’t throw for a scout or anybody in the crowd,” he said. “You have to throw your own game, and for your team.”

St. Thomas fell 2-1 to UW-Stevens Point Thursday in a second-round NCAA Midwest Regional thriller, and now must win four games in a row on Friday and Saturday to return to the College World Series.

The Tommies (34-8) grabbed a quick 1-0 lead in the top of the first inning when Matt Olson smashed an 0-1 pitch from Scott Williams over the left-field fence.

Four innings later, it was Jeremy Richter’s turn to star. St. Thomas pitcher Kris Edwards retired the first two Stevens Point batters but gave up a single to Sam Spurney, and Richter knocked out a 2-0 pitch for a one-run Pointer lead that held up. The Tommies outhit the Pointers 8-4 but left six runners on base and had two more tagged out on running plays.

Coach Chris Olean found little to fault in his team’s play and credited Edwards for a well-pitched game. He gave up only four hits in falling to 8-4 on the season, with all four of those losses by one run.

The Tommies will play Carthage at 1 p.m. Friday in an elimination game. Olean urged his players not to take the Red Men lightly even though they dropped a 14-6 opening round game to St. Thomas on Wednesday. “They are a dangerous team, and they’ll be ready for you,” he said.

If the Tommies defeat Carthage, they’ll play again at 4 p.m. Friday against the loser of the 10 a.m. Stevens Point-Whitewater game. Win again and St. Thomas would have to beat the Stevens Point-Whitewater winner twice on Saturday.

That’s a formidable challenge, but the Tommies are familiar with it. They dropped their MIAC playoff opener to Augsburg and then won four consecutive games, including two over Augsburg, to capture their eighth playoff title in 11 years. The Tommies also are used to playing in elimination game, having won 10 in a row – six in the 2009 NCAA tourney plus four MIAC games this year.

After the game, Edwards said he thought his fastball was effective throughout the game. On the 2-0 pitch that Richter hit for his 10th homerun of the season, “I got behind in the count and threw the ball down the middle,” Edwards said. He did what he was supposed to do.”

The Tommies put runners on base in the fifth, seventh, eighth and ninth innings but could not bring the tying run across the plate.

In the fifth, John Bauer and Olson single and were on the corners with one out. They attempted a double steal, but the Stevens Point second baseman cut in front of the bag and threw out Bauer at the plate.

Tayler Rahm was stranded at third after a one-out double in the seventh, and in the eighth Olson singled for his third hit of the game but slipped while returning to first during a pickoff attempt and was tagged out. Roy Larson opened the ninth with a single and moved to second on a sacrifice bunt but two flyouts ended the game.

The win was redemption for Stevens Point, which lost two Midwest regional games to the Tommies last year, and Williams. He started and pitched nine innings in a 17-inning, 2-1 loss to St. Thomas in an opening-round game. Two days later, the Tommies eliminated the Pointers 6-0.

Rahm’s hitting exploits in the Tommies’ 10-1 start have raised his career totals to 63 RBI and .378 for average – he hit .374 as a freshman (34 of 91) and .330 as a sophomore (31 of 94). After his three hits and five RBI in Friday’s 17-1 win over Lawrence, Rahm said he is trying to be more flexible in his approach at the plate. “I’m trying to hit the ball the other way instead of always pulling the ball to left,” he said. “So far, so good.”

He isn’t doing too shabby on defense either, with 24 putouts and no errors.

He pitched on the junior varsity his freshman and sophomore years, and also began his junior season there. He was called up to the varsity but made just two appearances in relief and didn’t dress for the NCAA Division III tournament, which his team won.

As a senior this year, he made the varsity staff for his first spring break trip to Florida. He pitched five innings in relief in the opening game against Lawrence and picked up his first career win. He got his first career start two days later against Grinnell and won again. Two more starts followed, against Bethel and Gustavus on the road, and two more wins resulted.

All of a sudden, Nelson found himself with some of the best statistics on the team – a 4-0 record and an 0.75 ERA in 24 innings. He has held opposing batters to a .195 average, struck out 20 and given up only four walks.

So just what happened? Why the big transformation?

“I didn’t know what to expect coming into this year,” Nelson said. “”I hoped I would get some chances, and I have been lucky to capitalize on them. Fortunately, the other teams haven’t been hitting the ball too hard. I’ve been able to sneak by them.”

“Sneaky” isn’t the word that St. Thomas Coach Chris Olean uses to describe Nelson’s performance. Olean says the 6-foot-2, 215-pound southpaw from Benilde-St. Margaret is a hard worker who is full of confidence. And patience.

“Matt just gets better and better every game,” Olean said. “We put him in some lesser-pressure situations in Florida and he responded well. He has taken the opportunity and run with it.”

Nelson loves competition. The St. Louis Park native played basketball, baseball and football at Benilde-St. Margaret, where the Red Knights finished third in the state baseball tournament his junior year. He pitched and played first base, and chose St. Thomas over Xavier in Cincinnati for college because he wanted to be closer to home.

Olean and Nelson agree his success this year largely has been a result of throwing strikes, especially on first pitches. Nelson struggled with his control in the past but has found that all of the extra work with his coach paid off. He even has mixed in a few sidearm pitches, at Olean’s suggestion.

“Going out there and getting comfortable on the mound is important,” he said. “I need to be sharp every game. I’ve never been the hardest-throwing pitcher. I don’t overpower guys. I just throw to spots. I want to put the ball in play and get back in the dugout.”

“Matt has a well-located fastball, a decent changeup and a good curveball,” Olean said. “He’s been able to throw his pitches in good spots, and those can result in strikeouts.”

Nelson admits he has been fortunate in the amount of run support his teammates have provided. He has cruised comfortably in all four wins plus a relief appearance, as the Tommies scored 33 runs while he was on the mound.

“That sure makes it easier,” he said. “I just have to go out there and throw strikes.”

Nelson, a finance major, will graduate in May. He has an internship this semester with Punch and Associates, an Edina investment firm, and he likes that line of work.

In the meantime, though, he has a few more starts – and, he hopes, a few more wins – ahead of him. He doesn’t want to rush the season. It’s taken him a long time to get to this position, and he intends to enjoy every moment.

He is, after all, a patient young man.

The Tommies (35-8) advance to play another elimination game, scheduled to start at 4:25 p.m. Friday, against UW-Whitewater. The Warhawks lost earlier Friday, 12-4, to UW-Stevens Point.

If St. Thomas defeats Whitewater, it then would have to beat Stevens Point twice on Saturday to claim the regional crown and advance to the national tournament May 28-June 1 in Appleton, Wis.

Friday’s win was the 11th consecutive elimination victory for St. Thomas in NCAA and MIAC playoff games going back to last May’s Midwest regional tournament.

The Tommies grabbed a 4-0 lead over Carthage in the first inning. Matt McQuillan singled, Matt Olson reached on an error and Tom Wipler hit a three-run homerun. The next batter, Roy Larson, also homered.

Carthage battled back, scoring five runs on six hits in the bottom of the fourth off St. Thomas starter Matt Nelson, who came into the game with a 6-0 record and a 1.36 ERA.

“I had trouble hitting my spots most of the day,” Nelson said after the game. “Too many balls ended up over the plate, and they (Carthage hitters) found some holes. I just plugged away and felt better in the later innings.”

Wipler tied the game in the fifth inning on a solo homerun to center field – his seventh homer of the year and fifth since last Saturday, when he hit three in MIAC playoff wins over Concordia-Moorhead and Augsburg.

“I’m just seeing the ball really well right now,” Wippler said of the two homeruns, which came on fastballs from Carthage starter Scott Danley.

The Tommies took the lead in the sixth when Olson knocked in John Bauer with a single to left. They added an insurance run in the ninth when Chuck Bruchu singled, stole second, went to third on a groundout and came home on a Brady Field single.

Nelson lasted until two outs in the eighth inning, when he gave up a walk and single. Brandon Stone relieved and loaded the bases with a walk but induced a groundout to escape the inning. He retired the first two Red Men in the ninth, issued a walk and got the final out on a grounder.

“We knew that game wouldn’t be easy,” Coach Chris Olean told his players. “Carthage tested us.”

They responded as instructed and slapped 17 hits, including 13 singles, to pick up a pair of 6-1 wins and run their winning streak to eight games. The pitching staff held its own as well, with starters John Licht and Matt Nelson scattering nine hits to shut down the Pioneers in the doubleheader at historic Dodgertown.

Olean was particularly pleased with the second-game effort. After flying out seven times in the opener, the No. 1 Tommies (10-1) had only one such out in the nightcap.

“You made a fantastic adjustment,” Olean told his players afterwards. “We knew what the wind conditions were like. ‘Small ball’ was huge today. We showed that we could put together runs doing the little stuff right.”

The Tommies opened the first game with two first-inning runs and scored single runs in four of the next five innings. Designated hitter Drew Cremisino led the eight-single attack with three and leftfielder Tayler Rahm had two, backing the five-single, complete-game pitching of Licht in his first start of the year.

Licht gave up a single and a walk with two outs in both the third and fifth innings, and after the game Olean told the sophomore pitcher from Minneapolis Southwest that he needed “to bear down and get out of those one-batter funks.”

“It’s just a lack of mental toughness,” Licht said. “That will come with time. I get two quick outs and relax too much. I need to focus on that third guy. The big thing for me is to get a lot of ground-ball outs (he had 11).”

In the second game, St. Thomas banged out nine more hits, and four were shots into the right-center gap for triples by Rahm and shortstop Roy Larson and doubles by designated hitter John Means and first baseman Tom Wippler. The Tommies tallied single runs in the second and fifth innings and two each in the third and fourth.

Nelson, a senior southpaw from Benilde-St. Margaret, picked up his second win in three days. The first came in five innings of relief on Friday. On Sunday, in his first career start, Nelson induced the Pioneers to hit 12 fly balls to the outfield, with senior Matt Olson nabbing seven in right. Junior Kris Edwards pitched the last two innings and gave up the only Grinnell run in the seventh.

Two sterling defensive plays highlighted the fifth inning. Matt McQuillan proved again why he may be the best defensive centerfielder in the country with a diving backhanded catch in left-center. Grinnell followed up with two singles but catcher Brady Field alertly picked off a runner at first base, and the inning ended harmlessly with another fly ball to Olson.

St. Thomas returned to Winter Haven Sunday evening and will play a nine-inning game Monday against Edgewood College (6-3) of Madison in nearby Auburndale. The Tommies will travel to Fort Myers for an exhibition game vs. the Minnesota Twins’ rookie team on Tuesday.

But as St. Thomas prepares to celebrate Dennis Denning Day during a first-place doubleheader showdown against Concordia-Moorhead on Saturday, you may not know how hard Denning worked to get to the top of the coaching ranks.

It’s an inspiring story of a scrawny boy who learned how to play baseball in the streets and alleys of St. Paul, worked long hours at odd jobs to afford a Catholic education, and gave back selflessly to his beloved hometown by teaching thousands of youths how to play the game.

It never made any difference to Denning if the kid standing before him was a budding star or lacked the basic skills of how to hit, catch, throw and run. As long as that kid wanted to play and was willing to listen and work hard, Denning welcomed him on the field.

“It’s seeing guys develop into good people,” Denning replied when asked to name the biggest thrill of his career. “I don’t care about my record. I care about the friendships. I have had a lot of fun, and I am just happy I had the opportunity to do what I did. That’s what I’ll remember.”

Denning has a lot to remember, and likes to talk about his youth. His family – machinist dad, homemaker mom, two brothers and a sister – lived on Rondo Avenue west of downtown St. Paul, and he attended Cathedral School. Construction of Interstate 94 wiped out the Rondo neighborhood in the 1950s and the Dennings moved to Stewart Avenue near West Seventh Street.

Kids entertained themselves those days by playing baseball and other sports on makeshift fields. Pickup games could last for hours. Denning played on an older brother’s team but was allowed to play only in the field – and not bat – for two years because he was too small.

“I remember the first time I got to bat,” he said. “We had a ball held together with black electrical tape, and I hit it into the dump – it really was a dump! – in left field. It was more or less a homerun. I’m running around the bases, but I had to stop at third because our rule was you couldn’t head for home until the fielder picked up the ball in the dump. This guy picked up the ball, fired it in and threw me out at home!”

At another neighborhood “field,” Denning and his cronies built a backstop out of chicken wire. Railroad tracks ran through the outfield, and beyond the tracks was a hill. If you hit the ball over the hill, it was a homerun.

“We kept track of homeruns,” he said. “One kid must have hit 100 homeruns one summer. We’d play three, four, five, even six hours at a crack. That’s just what we did. There wasn’t much else to do.”

Denning attended nearby St. Francis de Sales School, where he played baseball and basketball. He also played in city leagues at neighborhood parks, and as an eighth-grader he coached t-ball at a playground on St. Clair Avenue. He expected to attend Monroe High School, but a family friend convinced him to enroll at Cretin, where he worked a variety of jobs before classes and in the cafeteria during lunch hour to pay off his tuition of $175 a year.

“I tried out for football as a freshman but I weighed only 95 pounds, and they said they didn’t have a uniform small enough for me,” he recalled. He and Huck Shields, a lifelong friend who ended up as his assistant coach at St. Thomas 35 years later, made the B-squad basketball team as freshmen.

“But we never got the opportunity to play,” he said. “At Christmas, I quit basketball to set pins at the St. Francis bowling alley. I needed a job.”

Denning found more success in baseball, although he struggled there, too. He didn’t make the varsity until his senior year in 1962, starting at second base for a Cretin team that won the state Catholic title. He also played on summer teams that won two state American Legion titles.

“We ‘10-runned’ everybody,” he said, referring to games that ended when Cretin led by 10 or more runs after five innings, “and seven of the starters on our state title team went on to play professional baseball or hockey.”

He also continued to coach baseball and basketball in elementary schools and at playgrounds. “I never got paid for that – never got a dime,” he said. “I just enjoyed doing it. I never really thought about not getting paid. I just liked working with little kids and having fun.”

Denning’s baseball exploits caught the eye of Tom Feely, the College of St. Thomas baseball (and basketball) coach. Denning cobbled together enough money, including a $150 scholarship and work as a stocker at Montgomery Ward, to cover his tuition.

“I thought, ‘What the heck, I might as well go to St. Thomas,’ ” he said. “I didn’t even know where St. Thomas was. I had to ask somebody for directions!”

A sociology major, Denning played baseball for three years and taught physical education and coached at St. Luke’s School. He played mostly infield and occasionally pitched, and the Tommies won the MIAC his junior year. The Baltimore Orioles drafted him that summer and he signed a contract after bargaining for a higher bonus than a scout wanted to give him.

“He offered me $2,000, and I said that I had to have $5,000,” Denning said. “He beat me up a little bit and said I didn’t really want to play. But then he called back five days later and said, ‘Okay, I’ll give it to you – but you better earn it!’ ”

Denning used the bonus to buy a Wisconsin lake cabin that he still owns – 45 years later. He played in the minor leagues for four years, returning to St. Thomas each fall to take classes, but had to quit baseball because of a wrist injury.

He finished his degree and taught social studies, math and physical education at nearby Nativity of Our Lord School for 10 years while also coaching boys’ football, basketball and baseball and girls’ volleyball. He moved to Cretin in 1977 to teach physical education, coach freshman football and basketball, serve as athletic director and, as varsity baseball coach, lead the Raiders to six state titles and a 379-76 record in 17 years. In the summers, he ran baseball camps that attracted hundreds of youths and coached a neighborhood VFW team.

“You coached year-round in the Catholic schools,” he said. “If you were in education, they just expected you to coach. It was that simple.”

He never complained, though. He loved sports, he was thrilled to work with kids and he discovered he had a natural talent for coaching. Some of it was Xs and Os, he said, and some of it “was just having common sense.”

Taking a step up to the college game in 1995 may have looked easy to observers – St. Thomas was MIAC regular-season or playoff champion for 14 consecutive years, won national titles in 2001 and 2009 and twice finished as runners-up. But even Denning felt some growing pains.

“I remember our practices in the field house my first year,” he said. “I set up 16 different drill stations for hitting. Sixteen! Too high. I was over-coaching. The last five years, I got it down to five drills. I was always learning how to do things better.”

His players came to treasure the knowledge he brought to the game. “I think of Coach Denning as an old-school coach,” Ryan Benson, a member of the 2001 national title team, once said. “He makes you polish your shoes before games, and we all wear our uniform pants and socks the same way. He asks you to hustle on and off the field, and to run out every ground ball. If you’re slacking off, he sees that. He pays attention to a lot of little things.”

The drills, the practices, the games, the recruiting . . . they eventually took a toll. Denning got tired last season and was concerned he wouldn’t be able to bring the same high energy level to coaching this year, so he retired. He insists he has no regrets, although he misses elements of the game.

“Coaching kids and looking forward to the competition – the us against them,” he said. “That’s what I miss. We had some great games over the years. I’ll never forget them.”

It’s not exactly as if Denning has given up coaching for good. He and his wife Nancy have 11 grandchildren, with No. 12 due soon, and he expects a baseball player or two will emerge from the pack and need a little one-on-one work with grandpa. On the afternoon of this interview, he was heading out to watch Logan, the oldest grandchild at 10, play in a game.

And on Saturday, Denning will be back on campus, likely with Logan and a passel of grandkids in tow, to watch the Tommies try to fend off Concordia and hold on to first place in the MIAC.

It promises to be a fine day . . . Dennis Denning Day. Drop by to watch one of the best Division III teams in the country play baseball, and take a moment to say thanks to a man for a lifetime of teaching and coaching and memories.

Last weekend, the senior rightfielder was 4 for 9 at the plate with a homerun, four RBI and three runs scored as St. Thomas clinched its eighth consecutive MIAC title with a doubleheader sweep of archrival St. Olaf.

On Wednesday, in between classes and practice, the mechanical engineering major participated in the senior engineering design show. He and four other students, working for Cardiovascular Systems of St. Paul, presented their design for a sheath for inserting a device used to treat Peripheral Arterial Disease.

And on Friday, it will be back to the baseball diamond as St. Thomas opens the MIAC playoffs at 3:30 p.m. against Augsburg in Dundas. The double-elimination tournament winner will advance to the NCAA regional tournament next week; the Tommies likely will receive a bid even if they lose this weekend because of their regular-season title, 29-6 record and No. 5 national ranking.

Olson is excited for postseason play. The stakes are higher and the pressure is greater, but he is used to it. He has been on three teams that played in the regional tournament and last year received the Most Outstanding Player award in the national tournament, scoring the winning run in the 12-inning title game against Wooster.

For now, however, Olson isn’t thinking about NCAA playoff games. He is concentrating only on the MIAC playoffs.

“This is a great time of year,” he said. “Everything is on the line. This is when it all matters. Our focus is on getting things done this weekend. If we do well, that can set us up for a higher seed in the regionals. It’s as simple as that.”

The Tommies head into the weekend with a five-game winning streak, but they know they have played inconsistently on offense. They drubbed St. Olaf 19-4 in the first game last Saturday, banging out 19 hits, and then managed only four hits in squeaking out a second-game win, 2-1. The previous Thursday, they had only three hits in a 1-0, 2-1 sweep of Hamline.

“Our pitching has been fantastic all season,” Olson said. “We have the lowest ERA (2.17) in the nation, and that has saved us. The hitting will come around. We always seem to get the other team’s best pitcher throwing his best game against us.”

Olson has been a model of consistency throughout his Tommie career. He has hit .363 in 143 games over his four years, including a career-high .398 this year. His slugging and on-base percentages of .519 and .470, respectively, are comparable to last year. And in the field, he has had only one error (as a sophomore) in 204 chances – a .995 career fielding percentage.

He has stolen 16 of 19 bases this year, an 84 percent clip that matches his 41-of-49 mark over four years. He likes to steal bases and will do anything to get on base, often beating out bunts or patiently waiting out a pitcher for a walk (13 this year). He has been hit by four pitches this year.

“When I’m at first, talking to Vandy (coach Matt Vanderbosch), he’s telling me whether the pitcher might be going to home or whether he’ll throw an off-speed pitch,” Olson said. “If I’m on second and he isn’t paying attention to me, I’ll run. The coaches tell me that you want to create the mindset that you’re going to run every time even if you don’t.”

Coach Chris Olean appreciates Olson’s mentality and says he has a “green light” to run whenever he thinks the conditions are right.

“He gets the bunt single down nine of 10 times, and then speed takes over,” Olean said. “We know that Matt can drive the ball, but he’s just as valuable when he’s on the bases. He likes to be the igniter.”

Two recent examples illustrate Olson’s value as a runner. He had the game’s only run in the May 5 win over Hamline, scoring after a bunt single, an error, a stolen base and a groundout. On May 2 against St. Scholastica, he had a two-out bunt single, came around to third over an overthrow of first base and scored on a single.

Yet as much as Olean appreciates Olson’s speed, he loves to see a flash of power. With three runs already plated in the second inning of the St. Olaf opener, Olson stepped to the plate and crushed a pitch over the left-center fence for a three-run homer and a 6-0 Tommie lead.

“Matt has a flair for the big moments,” Olean said. “As somebody said after the St. Scholastica game, ‘It’s May. It’s time for Olson to get hot.’ ”

Olson certainly was hot last May. In 20 games, he batted .427 (29 for 68), scored 23 runs and had 14 RBI. He went 11 for 22 with 11 runs – including that championship clincher – in the national tournament.

Olson just hopes the Tommies can stay hot for three more weekends. When it’s over, he’ll have little time to rest. He’ll be back at St. Thomas pursuing a master’s degree in mechanical engineering. He plans to be a full-time student and, if schedules go right, he will complete his studies by this time next year.

That’s Matt Olson for you. Busy all the time.

The Tommies finished the season 35-9, with seven of those losses coming by only one run. That situation repeated itself twice during the NCAA Midwest regional tournament, first with a 2-1 loss to UW-Stevens Point on Thursday and then with the Whitewater win.

St. Thomas trailed the entire game as Whitewater jumped out to leads of 1-0, 3-0 and 5-2. The Tommies rallied in the bottom of the seventh for two runs and had bases loaded with one out but couldn’t deliver the tying run, and the Warhawks held on to win.

“Thank you for a good season,” Coach Chris Olean told his team in the post-game huddle. “I had a blast in my first year, and I hope I lived up to your expectations.”

Olean also commended his eight seniors – John Bauer, Derek Jacobson, Roy Larson, Matt Nelson, Matt Olson, Matt Schuld, Brandon Stone and Tom Wippler – for their leadership. “You have been leaders all year, and you set a great example for everyone.”

Whitewater advances to a Saturday rematch with Stevens Point, which beat the Warhawks 12-4 in Friday’s first game. They will need to beat the Pointers twice on Saturday to advance to the national tournament May 28-June 1 in Appleton, Wis.

The Warhawks struck early on Friday, opening the game with three consecutive hits off St. Thomas starter Bryce Gapinski to take a 1-0 lead. They added two runs in the fourth inning after two were out on two hits and a throwing error.

St. Thomas got on the scoreboard in the bottom of the fourth on back-to-back doubles by Tom Wipler and Roy Larson, who later scored on a catcher’s error. Whitewater boosted its lead to 5-2 with single runs in the sixth and seventh.

The Tommies loaded the bases in their half of the seventh on a walk, a one-out single and a walk. Wipler and Larson followed with back-to-back RBI singles to cut the Whitewater lead to 5-4 with the bases still loaded. But St. Thomas couldn’t squeeze in the tying run.

“That hurt,” Olean said. “We battled – we really battled. We just needed one more hit there.”

The game ended with both teams’ aces – Matt Schuld (10-1) for St. Thomas and Riley Tincher (12-1) for Whitewater – on the mound. Schuld held the Warhawks to two hits over the last three innings, and Tincher gave up a two-out single to Wippler in the ninth before inducing Larson into a short-to-second force to end the game.

They also are fortunate because they have grandparents who show up faithfully at fields from Minnesota to Florida to watch their progeny play a game that keeps them young at heart and full of joy.

Larson could be considered doubly blessed on the Tommies’ spring break trip to Florida. All four of his grandparents – Dennis and Mary Jayne Larson of Burnsville and Frank and Betty Schneider of Roseville – sat in the stands of Lake Myrtle Field No. 4 for Saturday’s doubleheader against the University of Chicago. Perched next to them were Matt Olson’s grandparents, Carl and Muriel Olson of Crystal.

The Olsons have followed the athletic exploits of Matt, the Tommies’ fleet rightfielder, since he was in grade school playing football and hockey as well as baseball. Carl, a 1954 St. Thomas graduate in sociology and education, taught English and drama for 37 years at Shakopee High School, where the auditorium is named after him. Muriel worked as a cashier at Lund’s. They have three children and six grandchildren, with Matt the oldest.

“We love baseball,” Carl said. “The college game goes so fast and is so spirited. We enjoy the competition.” Added Muriel: “It’s just exciting. We love to be outdoors, and watching the team win the national title last year was the thrill of a lifetime.” Pointing out how Matt won the Most Outstanding Player award after getting 11 hits in 22 at-bats and scoring 11 times, Carl said: “They couldn’t keep him off the bases, and then they couldn’t stop him on the base paths.”

Roy Larson’s four grandparents have the same kind of pride in Roy, and on Saturday he made them beam a little more when he knocked in six runs with a homer, triple and single in the first game..

Dennis and Mary Jayne are the parents of five children, and they joke that they spend most of their free time at games, what with 11 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. Before they retired, Dennis worked in graphic arts printing and sales, and Mary Jayne was a homemaker.

“Good baseball is rewarding,” Dennis said. “It’s both an individual sport and a team sport.” He appreciates the discipline of St. Thomas’ teams, right down to their well-kept uniforms with the high stockings. Mary Jayne is impressed with the players’ camaraderie “and the way they are working towards a common goal.”

Frank and Betty have three children and five grandchildren. She worked as a bookkeeper and secretary at several churches, and he was a headhunter and – for the last 24 years – a Catholic deacon whose first baptized child was Roy.

“I enjoy coming to games like this,” said Frank who was a catcher on amateur teams in Chanhassen and Victoria as a young man and knows how hard his grandson has worked. Betty calls him “a focused and dedicated ballplayer” who is committed to his teammates. She was thrilled at their national title run last year: “To see them fight so hard and win, it was just so special.”

All of the grandparents like the look and feel of this year’s St. Thomas team, and they plan to take in as many MIAC games as possible over the next six weeks. They know the season still is young and many hurdles remain, but there is nothing more they would enjoy than the chance to return to Appleton, Wis., in late May and watch their grandsons chase another national title.

Roy Larson and Matt Olson indeed are fortunate baseball players, aren’t they?

But the best rivalry, at least over the last 15 years, may well be St. Thomas-St. Olaf in baseball, and on Saturday the MIAC’s elite teams will slug it out in Northfield with yet another championship at stake. St. Thomas and Concordia lead the conference at 13-5, trailed by St. Olaf and St. John’s at 12-6 and Augsburg at 11-7. Four of the five teams will qualify for the MIAC playoffs.

During the Dennis Denning-Matt McDonald coaching era from 1995 to 2009, the Tommies and Oles won 14 of 15 regular-season titles and all 10 playoff titles. St. Thomas won or shared 11 regular season and seven playoff titles to St. Olaf’s 4 and 3. In 50 games, the Tommies defeated the Oles 32-18 – 19-11 in regular season, 11-6 in conference playoffs and 2-1 in NCAA playoffs.

While those numbers favor St. Thomas, Coach Chris Olean says history doesn’t mean a whole lot when these two teams face each other on the diamond. He expects nothing less than a dogfight on Saturday.

“It’s hard to point out one thing about our rivalry,” he said. “We’re just very evenly matched teams. It will come down to who plays better baseball on Saturday, and more than likely they’ll turn out to be two very close games.”

“We have genuine, mutual respect for each other,” said McDonald, who is in his 16th year at St. Olaf and has a career record of 428-205 (.676). “It’s one of those classy rivalries built on respect and a history of good baseball. The guys play as hard as they can to win.”

Denning, who retired after the 2009 season, said he always expected close games against St. Olaf. He still remembers the 2000 MIAC playoff title game. The teams split during the regular season and faced each other three times in the double-elimination playoffs. The Tommies won the first game 4-1, lost the second one 13-8 and took the title game 2-1.

“Ninth inning, St. Olaf loads the bases with two outs against Mike Honsa,” Denning recalled. “He gets the strikeout to end the game.”

Other games weren’t as close. Last year, the teams split eight games. During the regular season, St. Thomas won 2-0 for Denning’s 500th career win and St. Olaf took the second game 9-7. The Tommies beat the Oles in the MIAC playoff opener 4-3 but then were shelled 19-1 and 8-0. Both teams advanced to the NCAA regional playoffs, where St. Olaf won 5-2 but St. Thomas bounced back with 11-2 and 5-0 wins on the final day to move on to – and win – the national tournament.

“Had we lost one of those (last two) games,” Olean said, “St. Olaf would have played in the World Series and would have had a good chance to go all the way, too. They had a veteran team. It came down to who was hot that day.”

McDonald, a 1989 St. Olaf graduate who played second base on MIAC championship teams his junior and senior year, recruited Olean out of Minneapolis Washburn. Olean recalls visiting St. Olaf but ultimately chose St. Thomas, wanting to be closer to home.

“Chris was a bulldog of a pitcher,” McDonald said of Olean, who was 24-8 in his St. Thomas career and won All-American honors as a senior, when the Tommies finished second in the nation. “He’s one of the best college pitchers I’ve ever seen. Without him, St. Thomas might not have jumped to national prominence right away.”

Now the former recruit will square off against the veteran coach. Neither team has clinched a conference playoff spot, so Saturday’s doubleheader (1 p.m. in Northfield) will be important. That’s no surprise to either coach, and they also wouldn’t be surprised if they both advance to the May 14-16 playoffs in Northfield and Dundas and play each other at least once.

St. Thomas-St. Olaf baseball, after all, is one of the best – if not the best – rivalries in the MIAC.

A child of the ’60s, I spent summer afternoons at Gainey Park near our home in Owatonna, playing in pickup games as soon as enough neighborhood kids showed up at a field formed into a perfect wide V by two streets. A long fly ball to left would land in Selby Avenue or someone’s yard, but a shot into foul territory down the first-base line would scoot across Lemond Road into a cornfield, and we would trudge the rows and hunt for the ball.

Before dinner, my dad and I often played catch in our front yard, flipping the ball back and forth to warm up. He tossed grounders, first to the right and then to the left, mixed in a line drive or two and lobbed pop flies over my head. Some balls fell just beyond my reach, but I stabbed others with a last-minute dive or cradled them into my glove while looking over a shoulder, ala Willie Mays.

After dinner, dad turned on the radio on the kitchen counter, fiddling with the tuning knob to make sure WCCO-AM came in just right and cranking up the volume so he could hear Herb Carneal and Halsey Hall call the Twins game from wherever he chose to sit. This was long before cable television networks had emerged to bring you every game, and only a handful were broadcast on WTCN-Channel 11, so the radio was our reliable connection to the park.

Several times a summer, I jumped into the back seat of a car and rode to Bloomington with dad and his buddies to see a night game in Metropolitan Stadium. I always brought my glove (caught a foul ball once), always kept score (made up my own scorecards), always had a Frosty Malt (cost a quarter) and always fell asleep on the way home (what kid wouldn’t?). I favored twi-night doubleheaders – twice the action, hot dogs in between games and staying up after midnight.

While this preoccupation with baseball may give you the impression I was good at the game, I wasn’t. I was just an ordinary player, but that didn’t make any difference. I thought I was good, and that’s what counted. As I pretended to be Harmon Killebrew launching a homer or Willie Mays chasing down a fly ball or Camilo Pascual snapping off a curve, or as I listened to Herb and Halsey describe the action, I fell in love with a game the pundits call our national pastime.

Forty-plus years later, I still love baseball. I rarely play in a pickup game (a thing of the past), I don’t play catch in the yard anymore (my kids grew up and moved out) and I don’t listen on the radio unless I’m in the car (I prefer a high-definition, flat screen TV). But I still go to games as often as I can because of what baseball taught me as a kid – and is still teaching me today.

Baseball taught me all kinds of values. The value of teamwork – I could be a great hitter or pitcher, but unless there were runners to knock in or fielders to catch the ball, I wouldn’t succeed. The value of discipline – to run out routine grounders and pop-ups because you never knew when one might be bobbled or dropped. The value of fundamentals – of doing the little things right, time after time, to achieve consistency. And perhaps most importantly, the value of never giving up – of knowing there was always a chance to win as long as your team had one last “ups.”

Shared values on a team lead to trust among players, and with trust comes a bond that perseveres through good times and bad, success and failure, wins and losses. Baseball more than any other sport best reflects those values, that trust and that bond – and in the process it helps to teach us how to be better human beings who appreciate the simple things.

I have a t-shirt, received as a present many years ago, imprinted with the words: “Baseball is Life: The Rest is Just Details.” While obviously overstated – even this baseball junkie would be the first to admit his life would go on fine without baseball – the words suggest the importance of an avocation and how one can help you deal with more significant issues in life.

My avocation since returning to campus as an employee nearly 20 years ago has been Tommie sports, especially basketball and baseball. I love sitting a few rows behind the team and watching the ebb and flow of a fast-paced basketball game as long, of course, as we are hitting 50 percent of our shots, playing solid defense and committing few turnovers. But as March Madness melts away, as it sadly did this year on March 4 when both Tommie basketball teams lost opening-round NCAA playoff games, my attention turns fully to baseball.

From the beginning, this season promised to be different than any in my memory because of the retirement of Dennis Denning after 15 years as St. Thomas coach. I admired the way that Dennis coached the game – his execution of Xs and Os, his uncanny ability to make the right decisions at critical times and his emphasis on the values I cherish. Teamwork. Discipline. Fundamentals. Never giving up. Dennis embodied those values better than anyone I knew and instilled them in his teams. They meshed perfectly last May when the Tommies, facing six elimination games in the regional and national tournaments, kept battling back and won the NCAA Division III title 3-2 in the 12th inning of the best college game I’ve ever seen.

At his retirement press conference in December, Dennis talked about the importance of not setting out to win a national title but of following “the path” to get there. His perspective – that as a coach or a player or even a fan, you need to savor every moment of every step – came across as common-sense wisdom. It also was an insightful final message for the 2010 Tommies: You’re good; you’re among the best, in fact. But don’t set a goal of winning a national championship; set a goal of enjoying the path.

As I stepped onto the makeshift practice field inside the Concordia University football field “bubble” last month, I wondered about that path and how the Tommies would follow it under interim Coach Chris Olean. I also wondered how Olean would hold up under undeniably high expectations.

“Pressure?” he said. “Let’s see. We won a national title last year, I’m succeeding a legend and we’re rated pre-season No. 1 in the country. What pressure?”

We laughed, and he pledged to carry on the winning tradition and have fun at the same time. As I watched his players work through their drills that day and later interviewed the team’s leaders, I was struck by their maturity and their resoluteness. They know they have big bulls-eyes on their backs – that everyone they play will give a little extra and put their best pitcher on the mound because they want to beat the No. 1 club in the country. They also know they’re good. “We’re confident, with a little bit of swagger,” said senior rightfielder Matt Olson, who was Most Outstanding Player of the Division III tournament. “Not cocky, but confident. We know we can go out and compete with the best teams in the nation, and that we have what it takes to win.”

As serious as Olson was at the moment, he also talked about the sheer joy of playing the game. So did every one of his teammates. That’s why they’re willing to practice at 6 a.m. in a high school gym. That’s why they grind through repetitious drills – hitting and running and throwing, over and over again. That’s why they play a game at 9:45 p.m. on a Saturday when their friends are at a party or a movie. They play because they love baseball, and they intend to enjoy every step of the path.

That was quite obvious the afternoon of March 17. Astronomers and meteorologists may say spring began at 12:32 p.m. March 20, but the vernal equinox came nearly 72 hours earlier for the Tommies. At 3 p.m. St. Patrick’s Day, our Boys of Spring stepped not along a parade route or into a bar to drink green beer, but onto Koch Diamond for the first outdoors practice of the season.

The sun was out, the temperature was in the low 60s, the field was in remarkably good shape and the spirits were high. Everybody had an extra bounce in his step and a big smile on his face.

Including me. As I stood in the outfield to interview pitcher Bryce Gapinski, I kept an eye on centerfielder Matt McQuillan as he gracefully chased down fly balls, tracing the ball as it flew off a bat high into that bright blue sky before nestling into his glove

Almost the same way those balls dropped in my glove more than 40 years ago, I joked to myself as I walked off the field. I kept looking back at the team. It was tough to go back to work. Finally, I bounded up the steps to the parking lot and took off.

I’ll be back soon, ready to settle in behind home plate and help the umpire call balls and strikes; ready to cheer a line drive to center, nod at a masterful changeup for a called third strike and marvel over a beautifully turned double play; and ready to relive my earliest childhood memories.

They’ll always revolve around baseball.

I wrote an essay on how my earliest childhood memories revolve around baseball and how the sport taught me values such as teamwork, discipline, doing the little things right and – perhaps most importantly – never giving up. Shared values on a team lead to trust among players, I said, and with trust comes a bond that perseveres through good times and bad, success and failure, wins and losses. Baseball more than any other sport reflects those values, that trust and that bond.

The romanticized images in my essay resonated with some readers, but others just shrugged and kidded me: “Nice stuff, but c’mon – baseball is s-o-o boring. … Wake me up when that 1-0 game is over and tell me who won. … Have fun getting wet and freezing out there.”

Improperly chastened but conceding that everyone doesn’t view our national pastime with my fervor, I vowed to remove my blinders and re-evaluate my fondness for the game. My yardstick would be the St. Thomas baseball team – the defending NCAA Division III champions ranked No. 1 in the country going into the 2010 season.

To build enthusiasm for a season, it sure helps to escape a Minnesota March for a few days and venture to Florida with the Tommies on their annual spring break trip. They lived up to the early-season hype, winning all eight games against college opponents by outscoring them 88-18 and giving a Minnesota Twins rookie team a spirited fight before falling 10-7.

New Coach Chris Olean called it a “good” trip and broke down his team’s performance: “outstanding” defense, especially in the outfield, “nice job” at the plate and “solid” pitching. “We’re a very solid team,” he said. “We’re better than we thought we were.”

The 13-1 Tommies stumbled after they returned home. After a sweep of Carleton to open the MIAC season, they split five of their next seven conference doubleheaders, leaving too many runners on base and dropping too many one-run games. They went into the final week of play knowing they needed to win their final four games to capture their eighth straight MIAC title and that a loss or two could knock them out of the conference playoffs.

“This will be the true test of the team,” I thought after another schizophrenic doubleheader split with MIAC co-leader Concordia, winning 12-0 and losing 5-1. “We sure are not playing like the No. 5 team in the country right now.”

We did the next day, defeating No. 9 St. Scholastica, 5-1, for the third time this season. We suffered through another miserable day at the plate the following Wednesday, edging Hamline 1-0 and 2-1 despite scratching out only three hits on one of the windiest days I have watched baseball. The wind was blowing in, of course, making the occasional rain – and sleet! – all the more distracting.

It was fitting that archrival St. Olaf would be the opponent in the regular-season finale in Northfield. The Tommies or the Oles had won the last 14 MIAC regular-season titles and all 10 playoff titles, and the previous year the teams had split eight games. St. Olaf needed to win at least once to make the playoffs, and there still was a mathematical possibility that St. Thomas could miss them if it lost both games.

Never fear. Behind pitching ace Matt Schuld, the Tommies raced to a 19-0 lead in the opener before giving up four runs in the last inning. What happened in the nightcap shouldn’t have been a surprise, considering the season’s up-and-down nature. St. Thomas won 2-1 on only four hits (after 19 hits in the first game), but won the title and knocked St. Olaf out of the MIAC playoffs.

Which St. Thomas team would show up for the playoffs? I wasn’t sure during the first game, when the Tommies lost 3-2 to Augsburg. Faced with elimination unless they won four consecutive games, Olean was blunt in the post-game huddle. He told his seniors – multi-year starters like first baseman Tom Wippler, shortstop Roy Larson (at right) and rightfielder Matt Olson – that it was time to show some leadership.

I wondered if the move would backfire. It was risky to call out the seniors and tell them they weren’t working hard enough and needed to deliver. These players had performed valiantly in winning the national title a year ago. How would they respond to such an in-the-face challenge?

Like veterans, that’s how. Schuld recorded a complete-game shutout in the 5-0 win over St. John’s. Wippler hit the game-winning homerun in the 11th inning as the Tommies defeated Concordia 7-6, then an hour later hit two more homeruns and a double in a 17-1 thrashing of Augsburg. In that game and the 19-9 title game win over the Auggies, Larson and Olson each hit a homerun and combined for 11 hits, eight RBI and seven runs.

“I knew they would come through,” Olean told me the following week as the team prepared for the NCAA regional tournament in Whitewater, Wis. “These guys not only are good players, but they are proud players. They didn’t want to let the guys down.”

That kind of leadership remained on display in Whitewater, where St. Thomas twice defeated Carthage (14-6 and 7-5) but lost painful one-run games to Stevens Point (2-1) and Whitewater (5-4) to get knocked out of the tournament and end their season at 35-9.

The Tommies went down fighting. Schuld won the Carthage opener and, on two days rest, came into the Whitewater game in relief and shut out the Warhawks over the final three innings. Wippler had seven hits, including two homeruns, and seven RBI over the four games. Larson and Olson also had homers and six and four hits, respectively.

The final inning of their final game was a difficult one for those four seniors, but they battled until the last pitch. Schuld set down Whitewater 1-2-3 in the top of ninth. Olson struck out swinging for the second out in the bottom half of the inning, but Wippler kept hopes alive with a single to center. Larson came to the plate hoping to replicate his feats earlier in the game, when he followed a Wippler double in the fourth and RBI single in the seventh with ones of his own.

Or maybe a homerun? This, unfortunately, wasn’t “The Natural,” with a lights-shattering blast from another Roy – the mythical Mr. Hobbs – to win the game. Larson grounded out, short to first, on the first pitch, and the season was over.

Olean had only a few words in the post-game huddle, but they were from his heart. “Thank you for a good season,” he said. “I had a blast in my first year, and I hope I lived up to your expectations.”

He paused to commend his eight seniors – John Bauer, Derek Jacobson, Matt Nelson and Brandon Stone, in addition to Larson, Olson, Schuld and Wippler. “You have been leaders all year,” he said, “and you set a great example for everyone.”

With that, Olean walked away. The players gathered closer together and raised their hands to form a peak. “On 3,” said Schuld. “1, 2, 3 …” and his teammates chanted “Tommies!”

The scene took me back to early in the season and the Florida trip. I had hung around the dugout for an hour before one game to observe the team for a story on its pre-game preparations. Just before the team took the field for the first pitch, it gathered in a huddle. One player began “Hail Mary” and then “The Our Father,” after which another said, “Mary, Queen of Victory, pray for us!” They fell silent for a moment before a third player said, “On 3 . . . 1, 2, 3 . . . Tommies!”

And that’s when it hit me why I love baseball – and especially St. Thomas baseball.

Sure, the 35-9 record is to be admired, as is the eighth straight conference crown and the 15th straight trip to the NCAA tournament. So are having the No. 1 team earned run average (2.41) and No. 3 team fielding average (.971) in Division III. So are individual awards such as Schuld, who set a MIAC career record with 30 wins while carrying a 3.69 GPA, being named National Pitcher of the Year and Academic All-America of the Year.

Those accomplishments and that kind of recognition are well-deserved, but years from now, the Matts, Toms and Roys won’t remember their batting averages or their ERAs or the final pitches of their last collegiate game.

They will remember values such as teamwork, discipline, doing the little things right and – perhaps most importantly – never giving up.

They will remember how shared values on a team lead to trust among players, and with trust comes a bond that perseveres through good times and bad, success and failure, wins and losses.

And they will remember – and they will know in their hearts – that baseball, more than any other sport, reflects those values, that trust and that bond.

That’s why baseball matters.

The No. 1 Tommies ran their record to 11-1 in winning their ninth game in a row, backed by the pitching of sophomore Bryce Gapinski. He picked up his second win of the season by scattering seven hits and four walks over eight innings and recording 17 ground-ball outs. Brandon Stone pitched a scoreless ninth.

St. Thomas scored all the runs it needed in the third inning, crossing the plate three times on four hits. The Tommies added single runs in the 5th, 7th and 8th innings and two in the sixth. Edgewood’s lone run came in the sixth.

Shortstop Roy Larson had a perfect day at the plate with three hits and two walks, and drove in two runners. First baseman Tom Wippler and centerfielder Matt McQuillan each had two hits. Rightfielder Matt Olson had one hit in one official at bat, but also walked twice, was hit by a pitch, executed a sacrifice bunt and stole two bases.

Edgewood (6-4) started pitcher Matt Krueger, who had 19 strikeouts in 17 innings this spring, but only two Tommies went down on strikes in his six innings on the mound. He fell to 2-1.

St. Thomas travels to Fort Myers Tuesday for a noon exhibition game against the Minnesota Twins’ rookie team. The Tommies will finish their Florida trip with nine-inning games against Edgewood and SUNY-Purchase on Wednesday and Thursday in Auburndale.

UST was 9-1 all-time in MIAC first-round games before Friday.

Tommie starter Kris Edwards allowed three runs in eight-plus innings and lost his third one-run game of the season.

Augsburg (20-20) jumped to a 1-0 lead in the fourth inning and the Tommies tied it up in the bottom of the inning on a Roy Larson hom erun. UST took a 2-1 lead in the fifth when Tayler Rahm’s two-out single to deep short scored John Bauer from third.

The Auggies tied the game in the sixth and won on Adam Seaman’s eighth-inning homer to deep center. The Auggies scored their first two runs on separate two-out hits.

UST had only seven hits, and just one in the last four innings. The Toms missed a prime chance to tie the game in the eighth inning. Matt McQuillan singled and stole second, then took third on a ground out. But a strikeout and ground out stranded McQuillan.

Each team turned three double plays.

The Tommies won the NCAA Division III championship with a pitching staff that recorded a 2.12 ERA and a defense that made only nine errors in 12 playoff games. For the season, St. Thomas led Division III for the second straight year with a fielding average of .978.

With three starters and a closer returning for the 2010 season, it would be easy to say pitching is the key for the Tommies this season. But when asked to list four other factors that will mean success, each coach has a slightly different perspective.

Interim Coach Chris Olean puts a premium on pitching, and that’s no surprise. Olean was an All-American pitcher for St. Thomas when it finished second in the nation in 1999 and coached the Tommie hurlers the last nine years as an assistant coach under Dennis Denning.

“No. 1 is to keep Matt Schuld and Brandon Stone healthy,” Olean said. “Matt has to beat the other team’s No. 1 or we won’t move on. He proved he could do it last year (when nine of his school-record 12 wins came against nationally ranked teams, plus a win over the Minnesota Gophers). Brandon is the guy we’ll rely on when we have that one or two-run lead in the last inning.”

Olean’s following four factors are:

• No. 2: Catching Junior Brady Field is back from splitting the job last year with Ben Wartman, who decided not to return but to concentrate on getting ready for his senior year as the Tommies’ leading rusher in football. Olean knows he needs to develop a second catcher and plans to tap junior Andy Kappers, a first-year player who also starred on the hockey team.

• No. 3: Team defense The coach believes St. Thomas can three-peat as the nation’s top defensive team, pointing to an outfield that returns the peerless Matt McQuillan in center and Matt Olson in right, with first-year starter Taylor Rahm in left. Shortstop Roy Larson and first baseman Tom Wippler are veterans, joined by newcomers Chuck Brucci and John Bauer at third and second.

• No. 4: Hitting Olean hired assistant coach Matt Faulken, a 1998 and 1999 teammate and two-time All-American who led the nation in RBI as a junior, with a goal of being more aggressive at the plate and developing “a little more power.” The Tommies hit .324 last year but had only 23 homers, 17 triples and 104 doubles among 547 hits. In six Metrodome games this month, St. Thomas hit .286 with 14 doubles and three triples but no homers.

• No. 5: Aggressive base-running One goal of Matt Vanderbosch, another new assistant coach, is to have the Tommies run more. “We have fast guys,” Olean said, “but we haven’t stolen a lot of bases in the past. We need sustained pressure on defenses – when you get guys on base, you can make things happen.” The Tommies had nine stolen bases in 10 attempts in their first six games.

Two of Faulken’s five factors have to do with offense – no surprise in that he runs the Line Drive Baseball Academy in Lino Lakes. He wants the Tommies to take better advantage of offensive opportunities and aims to score runners from third with less than two outs at a 70 percent clip. “We need to cut loose,” he said. “If we attack the ball and have an attitude at the plate, it will make a difference.” His other three factors:

• Throw strikes “If we stay ahead of hitters,” he said, “we’ll be in games.”

• Eliminate “stupid” mental mistakes “The physical mistakes you can handle, but the mental mistakes will hurt you.”

• Have a killer instinct He cited the second win over St. Scholastica on March 6 as an example. The Tommies scored three runs in the top of the first and, with Schuld on the mound, “coasted” to a 3-1 win. “It’s not that we lacked intensity,” he said, “but we didn’t focus enough. We thought a 3-0 lead with our ace was good enough.”

Vanderbosch also put pitching and defense at the top of his list, but emphasized the importance of productive at-bats (“work the counts; a 10-pitch out is a good out”) – and doing little things right.

“You can have all the tools in the world,” he said, “but it’s the little things that make a difference: moving a runner from first to third, getting a runner home from third with one out, not messing up a sacrifice bunt. That stuff counts.”

Ray Noble, another 1999 Olean teammate, is the third new assistant coach. He will handle the junior varsity, and after pitching and defense wants to maintain a high energy level. “It’s a long season,” he said. “The first game, watching these guys, you could see the energy and excitement. They were jumping out of their skin.”

Noble also values “game management” skills, or what he called “the difference between good and bad coaching: when to pull a pitcher, when to hit and run, when to steal. That comes from experience,” he added, “and this coaching staff has it.”

Several pitches later, the right-handed batter swings just a fraction of a moment late but makes good contact with the ball, lofting it to right. The wind picks up the ball and the rightfielder gives chase, but the ball clears his head and the fence for a homer. The batter lopes around the bases and slaps Mauer’s outstretched hand as he rounds third.

At the end of the inning, Mauer saunters back to the bench and sits with his coaches, occasionally exchanging a few words but for the most part remaining quiet. He soaks in everything that transpires in the intrasquad game among Twins rookies, alert to every little movement on the field.

“Jake is a student of the game,” said Jim Rantz, standing in a tower that overlooks three fields in the complex. “He comes from a baseball family. He’s a teacher. He has patience. He is strong on fundamentals. He has the respect of the players. He is good in the community. All positives.”

Rantz has been with the Twins’ organization for 50 years, the last 24 as director of minor league operations. He knows baseball, and he likes what he sees in Mauer, who this season is managing the Class A Fort Myers Miracle for the Twins.

“Most importantly,” Rantz added, “Jake has a passion – a real passion – for baseball.”

People always have said that about Mauer, who has excelled at baseball since he was a skinny little kid playing in his backyard with younger brothers Billy and Joe. Jake starred at Cretin-Derham Hall, where the Raiders won two state titles; he starred at St. Thomas, where his team won a national title after twice finishing second; and he was moving up in the minor leagues until an elbow injury four years ago ended his playing career.

“I just love baseball,” he said. “It’s that simple. There’s just something about the game that appeals to me. And now, to be managing in an organization like the Twins … it’s very special, too.”

Mauer, 31, was born in St. Paul, attended St. Columba Catholic School and starred in basketball and baseball at Cretin-Derham, where he played second base. He considered only two universities, Creighton in Omaha and St. Thomas, and chose the latter “because I really didn’t want to leave home, and I wanted to play for Dennis Denning.”

Mauer sparkled under Coach Denning, taking over at second base as a sophomore, leading the Tommies to three straight national title games and participating in the team’s historic January 2000 trip to Cuba. A .391 career hitter, he holds school records in career hits (243), runs (181) and games (187) as well as season hits (83) in 2001, when he hit .449 and had 58 RBI as the Tommies won the NCAA Division III title, 8-4 over Marietta, in his last collegiate game.

“It was an unbelievable feeling,” he said. “I remember the bus ride back from Appleton(Wis.), when we lost to Montclair State the year before, was so long. My senior year, that bus ride home seemed like it took 20 minutes.”

Denning, who retired in February after 15 years at St. Thomas, considers Mauer the best player he coached in more than four decades.

“He was the best hitter and the best defensive player,” Denning said. “He hardly ever made an error. He was a good runner and he made tough plays. He pulled everyone together. The sign of a really good player is one who makes the people around him better. Jakie did that.”

Mauer won All-American and Division III all-tournament honors his junior and senior years and was co-Player of the Year in the MIAC in 2001, but he shrugs today in talking about awards. He always has been more interested in something else.

“Everybody on the team has a job,” said Mauer, who majored in entrepreneurship but is a few courses short of his degree. “Everybody does his part, whether it’s driving in runs or playing good defense. I tried to do whatever it took to win. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if you went three for four, but what the score was and if you helped your team win.”

Days after the Tommies’ championship season ended, the Twins drafted him in the 23rd round – the 667th player selected overall. The No. 1 pick, also by the Twins: Joe, his younger brother by four years, who had just graduated from Cretin-Derham.

The Twins surprised Jake by drafting him – he expected the Pittsburgh Pirates to do so – and he was thrilled to have the opportunity to finally play organized baseball with Joe.

“I always knew Joe was good from playing in the backyard with our buddies and from what he did in high school,” Mauer said. “But then I had a chance to play with him on a day-to-day basis against All-Americans from big colleges. Joe was better than all of them. It was an eye-opener for me to see how talented he really was.”

The Mauers’ first assignment was with the Twins Class A rookie team in Elizabethton, Tenn. They moved to the Class A Quad Cities River Bandits in 2002 and the Fort Myers Miracle in 2003, but Joe moved up that year to Class AA New Britain, Conn., and eventually the Twins. Jake stayed with the Miracle, playing several positions and learning something every day.

“The minor league game was quicker,” he said. “In college, one or two pitchers threw 90 (mph). But in pro ball, that was a daily deal. There were adjustments that had to be made, and it took me a while to get comfortable at the plate.”

Mauer continued to make progress, going to the Twins’ major league spring training camp in 2004 and starting the year at New Britain. His goal was clear – he wanted to play in the majors – but he knew it would take time and patience.

“As long as I was having fun and making progress, I didn’t have a timetable,” he said. “I thought I would have the opportunity to play in the big leagues at some point. I knew I might not be an every-day player, but I understood what my role might be – to play defense, pinch hit and pinch run. I thought I’d be able to make a contribution.”

“Jake is one of those guys who gets the job done quietly,”Jose Marzan, his Miracle coach in 2003, told the Fort Myers News that year. “Play him at third base. Play him at shortstop. He plays at second base. He goes out there and gets outs. I told him, ‘Jake, everywhere you play, you get outs. The ball is hit to you and it’s an out. That gives you a lot of value in the future.’”

During spring training in 2005, however, Mauer felt a tingling sensation in his right arm when he threw. He played at New Britain but the problem worsened. He had elbow surgery – his ulnar nerve was rerouted – but he still struggled to throw the ball across the infield. He felt good early in 2006 spring training, “but then it was the same thing as before,” he said. “I just couldn’t throw. I started to think, ‘I need to figure something else out.’”

That something else was coaching. The Twins floated the coaching idea, and he grabbed it. He stayed in Fort Myers as hitting coach for the Twins’ rookie team in the Gulf Coast League that year and in 2007, and also worked with the infielders. He managed the team the following two years, winning the division in 2009, and was promoted to the Miracle job last fall.

Work as a minor league coach and manager is full of challenges. Mauer focuses on both their physical skills and their mental acuity, “seeing how well they understand the game.” Players come and go, some moving up to another team and others getting cut. The Miracle will play 140 games this year, all in Florida, and will travel up to eight hours by bus for a game. Players earn $1,300 a month, get $20 a day on the road for meals and share hotel rooms.

“Patience is extremely important, especially in a game where you fail 70 percent of the time,” he said, referring to how good hitters have a .300 average. “It’s not every day you’re going to be great, but you learn from those tough days and you learn from your mistakes. It’s the same with managing.”

As the season grinds on, Mauer tries to keep everything in perspective for players who, just as he once did, push themselves to become better and worry about mistakes.

“It’s a long year, but it’s baseball,” he said, his eyes widening. “It’s a game. You get to put on a uniform and go out and play! That’s a pretty good thing.”

His college coach believes Mauer is good enough to coach and manage in the majors – perhaps with the Twins and perhaps while his brother Joe still is catching at Target Field – for the same reason that made him a winner when he played.

“Jakie is a leader,” Denning said. “He doesn’t talk a lot, but when he says something, people listen. He knows the game. He was a smart player – always one, two, three steps ahead of everybody else. He manages the same way.”

As the third and final out is made in the ninth inning on a sunny but very windy March afternoon in Fort Myers, Mauer saunters out to meet three infielders. They chat quietly for a few moments near third base, and then Mauer claps three times and they jog off.

“I like to ask them a question about what they did and hope they answer it themselves,” he said. “If they are able to answer the question, I know the wheels are turning. I can only do so much as their manager – once they go in between the lines, they’re on their own.”

In a sense, Jake Mauer is on his own now, too, but he’s not alone. He has his players. And most importantly, he has a passion – a real passion – for baseball.

Tough, that is, in terms of living up to expectations, and in rather short order. He was named the St. Thomas coach in early January, with the opening day of practice just three weeks off, and those practices were held at two other schools because of construction on the St. Thomas campus.

“Pressure?” Olean asked one afternoon as he watched the Tommies work out in the football field “bubble” at Concordia University. “Let’s see. We won a national title last year, I’m succeeding a legend and we’re rated pre-season No. 1 in the country. What pressure?”

He laughed. It’s good that Olean has a sense of humor. It’s also good that he is a baseball veteran: A St. Thomas Hall of Fame pitcher who played two years in the minor leagues, coached the Tommie pitchers the last nine seasons and coached a state champion amateur team.

In other words, he has experience. So when Dennis Denning surprised the baseball world in December and announced his retirement after 15 years as coach and two national titles, Olean knew he wanted the job as interim coach for this season. He quit his regular job even though there was no guarantee he would be hired as the permanent coach for 2011.

“When the chance came up, I had to take it or move on,” he said. “It was that simple.”

Olean has made a strong impression two months into the job. The Tommies have roared to an 11-1 record and are d3baseball.com’s unanimous choice as the No. 1 team in the country. That one loss – 5-4 to the Minnesota Gophers in 12 innings – still grates on Olean.

“We had that game won,” he said one Saturday morning in his office as he waited for a high school recruit to stop by for a visit. “I went home that night and never went to bed. I just kept playing the game over and over in my head. We should have won!”

The comment reflected what teammates, coaches and players have long known about Olean. He’s incredibly competitive and he doesn’t like to lose.

He grew up in Minneapolis and played baseball and hockey at Washburn High School, where he led the state in homeruns his senior year. He recalls the Twin Cities title game, when he hit a three-run homer and closed the win for his Millers over undefeated Cretin-Derham Hall. He believes that was the first time that Denning, in his first year at St. Thomas, saw him play.

Olean was prepared to go to the University of Minnesota, but a scholarship offer was pulled and he was told he’d have to take his chances as a walk-on player. That didn’t sit well with him, and after talking to Denning at a summer all-star tournament, he decided to enroll at St. Thomas.

He had a 24-8 record and a school-record 246 strikeouts during his career and won All-American honors as a senior, when he had a 0.60 ERA and lost the national title game 1-0. Teammate Jake Mauer ’01, now manager of the Minnesota Twins’ minor league team in Fort Myers, Fla., remembers Olean as "mentally tough and a quiet leader. When he was out there with the ball, his confidence permeated through the entire team."

The Brewers drafted Olean in the 17th round and he spent the summer playing rookie league baseball in Ogden, Utah, and Helena, Mont. He worked both as a starter and reliever and finished the season with a 6-1 record and five saves. He played Class A baseball the following year with Beloit and counted a one-hitter among his wins. But he wasn’t happy alternating as a starter and a closer, he told the Brewers so at the All-Star break. When they couldn’t promise him a definitive role, he quit and came home.

“I loved the competition and the games,” he said, “but I didn’t like the lifestyle and the politics. I just didn’t want to be part of it anymore.”

Olean worked in sales and marketing for a sports apparel company, and the following winter he joined Denning’s staff as a part-time pitching coach. The Tommies won the Division III championship that year, and Olean remained in the position for eight more seasons, including the 2009 national title. He held down full-time jobs and spent summers playing for amateur teams that won or finished second in several state tournaments.

He pitched for the Miesville Mudhens in 2005, became their manager the following year and won the state Class B title in 2007. It was an invaluable period.

“I wanted to gain that head coaching experience,” he said, “and I did everything else, too: fund-raising, concessions, field management, scheduling, the works. It was great experience managing people and communicating with volunteers.”

Thus, Olean felt he was ready when the St. Thomas job came open even though he faced a significant personal challenge. His wife Shannon, a St. Thomas alumna and a probation officer for Dakota County, had surgery for thyroid cancer last year, subsequently underwent radiation therapy and would need to undergo surgery again in February.

“There was a lot of heavy stuff going on – quitting my job, cancer, a career change,” he said. “We talked about it and thought, ‘What do we have to lose?’ She told me, ‘This is what you want, so do it.’ She was 100 percent behind it. … And she told me that if I didn’t take the job she wouldn’t talk to me for a couple of months.”

Olean’s first move was to hire his coaching staff. He brought in new assistant coaches Matt Vanderbosch, a Miesville teammate and former Minor League Player of the Year for the Boston Red Sox, and 1999 Tommie teammates Matt Faulken and Ray Noble.

“I needed good character guys who would be positive influences on the kids,” Olean said. “Their experience was important – it gave them instant credibility with the players. Matt and Ray being alumni is important, too. They have a passion for St. Thomas baseball.”

Olean wondered if it would be hard to win over the returning veterans, but he discovered early that “they’re responding well – to what we’re teaching them and to me.” He knew how much they liked Denning, and he respected that because of what Denning had done for him.

“I learned a ton from being around Dennis,” Olean said. “He was always coaching and always teaching. He let me do my own thing with the pitchers; he let me have the freedom. He might have been a little nervous doing that at the beginning, but he let me go.

“He was the best in-game tactician I’ve seen. I’d look up and think, ‘Why the hell is he doing that?’ But it worked – over and over again.”

Olean is making things work, too. Baseball observers knew the Tommies would be good this year, thanks to 19 returning players, but the 11-1 (almost 12-0!) start has turned a few heads. He likes the top spot. And he likes winning.

“The first thing I told the players was, ‘The day after you won the national championship, you no longer were national champs.’ You’re a new team and you have to do it all over again. You have to earn that No. 1 national ranking every time you go out there.”

So far, they have done just exactly that, and the man who may have the toughest coaching job in Division III baseball is proud of them.

The Tommies (30-7) scored twice in the first inning against the Johnnies and rode the coattails of pitcher Matt Schuld, who set an MIAC career record for wins with 29 in recording the shutout. St. Thomas added two runs in the fifth and one in the eighth to close the scoring.

Earlier Friday, Augsburg won another one-run game over the Tommies after rallying from a 2-1 deficit, and Adam Seaman’s eight-inning homer broke a 2-2 tie. The Auggies went on to defeat Concordia-Moorhead 6-1 Friday night to advance to Saturday’s 5 p.m. title game.

The Tommies, who won the regular-season title, will need to win three games in a row to capture the playoff championship. If they defeat Concordia at 1 p.m. Saturday, they will have to beat Augsburg twice – at 5 p.m. Saturday and at 1 p.m. Sunday. Al remaining games are in Dundas.

After the win over St. John’s, Coach Chris Olean challenged the Tommies – and especially his seniors – to come out and play their best game on Saturday. “We need you to step up,” he said. “I’m getting tired of guys striking out with players on base. We need more hits.”

Assistant coach Matt Vanderbosch told the hitters that it’s time “to lock in and get hot. You’re giving away too many at-bats,” he said, “especially with runners in scoring position.”

That situation stung St. Thomas several times on Friday, but most painfully in the Augsburg game. Trailing 3-2 in the bottom of the eighth, Matt McQuillan led off for the Tommies with his third single of the game, stole second and advanced to third on a sacrifice fly. But the next two batters grounded out and struck out, stranding McQuillan – the tying runner – at third.

While the Tommies struggled at the plate with only 14 hits on the day, they excelled in the field, turning three double plays in the first game and two in the second. Shortstop Roy Larson and second baseman John Bauer came up with several fielding gems against St. John’s, each ranging behind second base to snag grounders and throw out the runners.

“Defensively, we were outstanding,” Olean said, “and we have enough pitching. We have to be more consistent offensively. It’s been the same story all season long.

The title also placed big bulls-eyes on the backs of 19 returning players, who know that every opponent this year will take its best shot at knocking off the No. 1 Tommies.

And they’re just fine with that. In fact, they like being the top-rated team in the country because they know it will force them to play their best every time they take the field.

“We’re confident, with a little bit of swagger,” said senior rightfielder Matt Olson, who was named the Most Outstanding Player of the 2009 Division III tournament after hitting .500 and scoring the winning run in the championship game. “Not cocky, but confident. We know we can go out and compete with the best teams in the nation, and that we have what it takes to win.”

“That’s why we put in all this work,” senior shortstop Roy Larson added. “It shows what we can accomplish if we work hard.”

All-American senior pitcher Matt Schuld, who set a school record with 12 wins last year, takes heart in the way St. Thomas kept bouncing back. Even though they lost 19-1 and 8-0 in the MIAC playoffs to St. Olaf, the Tommies received a bid to the NCAA regional playoffs because of their regular season conference title. They won three elimination games – including two over the Oles – and then won three more elimination games in the national tournament.

“It wasn’t just the fact that we won last year, but the way we won and how many times we had to come from behind,” Schuld said. “It’s already made a difference this year. We were down 3-0 (and 5-4) to St. Scholastica in the Metrodome but came back and won. We know what we have to do to win.”

Senior first baseman Tom Wippler is impressed – but not surprised – at how his teammates have handled adversity. “There’s almost less pressure because we know each other so well, and we trust each other,” he said.

High expectations can be intimidating, but the Tommies insist they concentrate on playing one game at a time. Their short-term goal is to win their eighth straight MIAC regular-season title and then take their chances in the NCAA playoffs. Along the way, they plan to have some fun.

“We know what we can do,” said senior closer Brandon Stone, who threw seven shutout innings to beat Wooster in the championship game. “We need to stay loose and play our game. Coach (Chris Olean) tells us, ‘If you play your game, you can win.’ ”

“We have all the tools,” said Matt McQuillan, a junior centerfielder and three-year starter. “It’s in our hands. If we play up to our potential, we’ll win.”

Olean likes to hear that kind of talk, just as he likes the early look of the veteran team that he inherited from recently retired Dennis Denning. And in case you thought otherwise, it doesn’t bother Olean to have those bulls-eyes on the Tommies’ backs.

“Every team is going to come at you hard because you are the national champs,” he said. “They want to knock you off. You have to use that as a plus – to know that every game you have to play well. It helps you keep your focus.”

As important as the national title was, Olean said, this is a new season.

“The first thing I told them was, ‘You are a new team and you have to do it all over again. You have to earn that No. 1 national ranking every time you go out there.

“We’re up for it.”

If you do, congratulations. If you don’t, click on the video above and listen to sophomore John Licht explain how he threw one of the changeups last year but has switched to the other this year.

Licht, a sophomore from Minneapolis Southwest, came to St. Thomas with a goal of playing the infield. Coach Dennis Denning had too many infielders and not enough pitchers last year, so he converted Licht into a starting pitcher. He finished his first college season with a 6-2 record and a 3.66 ERA, striking out 33 and walking only seven in 47 innings. He saved his biggest games for the playoffs, throwing nine-inning, complete-game wins to eliminate UW-Stevens Point in the regionals and Carthage in the nationals.

This year, Licht has won his only start – 6-1 over Grinnell on Sunday, when he scattered five singles over seven innings for another complete game. He gave up only one hit and no runs over 4.2 innings in two relief appearances this month in the Metrodome.

The Tommies advance to play Augsburg in a 5 p.m. game and need to win to force a Sunday rematch foor the title.

The Cobbers rallied from deficits of 5-1, 6-3 and 6-4 deficits, the latter with a two-run homer in the bottom of the ninth.

UST freshman Mark Dominik, in his first career postseason game, earned the win as he pitched the final two innings. Dominik starnded a runner in scoring position in the 10th and 11th innings.

Starter Matt Nelson worked into the eighth inning in his longest career outing and allowed three earned runs.

Matt McQuillan had three hits and reached base five times. Drew Cremisinio hit a solo home run.