MINNEAPOLIS – Minnesota returned to the Big Ten baseball tournament Wednesday after an embarrassing one-year absence for the proud program, toting the regular-season title and the top seed that comes with it.
Riding the multiple talents of Big Ten Player of the Year Matt Fiedler, the sage and steady guidance of Coach John Anderson and the positive vibes of a determined and galvanized team, the Gophers have plenty of momentum for the postseason.
These days, they have even more motivation in its most somber form.
“It’s been a super emotional couple of years,” Fielder said.
That’s because long-time pitching Coach Todd Oakes, who has fought leukemia since 2012, was placed in home hospice care last week with further treatment no longer a viable option.
“It’s taken up a lot of energy,” Anderson said, as his voice wavered and his eyes welled with tears, “but it should when you care about somebody as much as you do.”
Before the team left for Omaha, Neb., where the double-elimination tournament opened play Wednesday, Anderson visited the Oakes home with the conference trophy the Gophers earned for finishing the regular season in first place. He left it at the house for Oakes and his family.
“That’s where it belongs,” Anderson said. “The kids wanted it there.”
Oakes has held the role in his home state since the 1999 season. He’s seen 26 of his pitchers drafted by major league teams, including three-time All-Star Glen Perkins, who was drafted by the Twins in 2006.
“Everyone has him in their thoughts and prayers,” Fiedler said, “and we just hope he’s at peace.”
Oakes, or T.O. for those who know him best, has been a key mentor for pitchers like Perkins and Toby Anderson, a junior who said he wouldn’t have gone to Minnesota if it weren’t for Oakes.
“My dad coached me growing up,” Anderson told the Minnesota Star-Tribune recently. His father, Jeff, played with Oakes at Nebraska. “He had full trust in T.O., so that was kind of the decision for me. He trusted him, I trusted him, and I don’t regret a single minute of it.”
Anderson said the best lesson Oakes taught him was a “never-give-up attitude.”
The survival rate for acute myeloid leukemia, the type of cancer Oakes is battling, is low. But he never gave up. After receiving a bone-marrow transplant from his brother, Gerald, in 2013, he told the Star-Tribune, “Some people don’t get through the initial process. They never get to hear that word ‘remission’ from the doctor.”
Oakes was fortunate enough to hear it twice but the disease returned for a third time and his condition has only worsened.
The Gophers (34-18) forged on for their coach, and opened Big Ten tournament play Wednesday against eighth-seeded Iowa at TD Ameritrade Park, the site of the College World Series, in case they needed any more incentive. It might not have been the start the top-seeded Gophers were hoping for, an 8-2loss to Iowa, but they live to see another day. Minnesota will play again today at 1 p.m.
No. 6 Maryland also upset No. 3 Indiana in the opening round Wednesday, while seventh-seeded Michigan State knocked off No. 2 Nebraska in front of a big hometown crowd. Every team plays again today, starting at 9 a.m. After the bracket is whittled down over the weekend, the championship game will be played Sunday afternoon.
Though the Gophers could certainly reach the NCAA tournament without the automatic bid, they’d rather not leave their status in the hands of the selection committee. They know the power conferences to the west and the south that consistently dominate the sport will fill most of the at-large spots.
“I don’t think anybody can say they’re in in this part of the country,” said Anderson, who received the Big Ten Coach of the Year award for the sixth time in 35 seasons with the Gophers.
They’re right on track, though, after an uncharacteristic 21-30 finish in 2015.
“Everyone believed in this team from day one. To say that I’m surprised, that would be a lie, because I’m not. I knew that we could do this,” said Dalton Sawyer, the No. 2 starter behind Fiedler, who’s 7-2 with a 3.67 ERA and also batting .383 for the third-best average in the conference with seven homers and 13 steals.
The Gophers haven’t won the regular-season title or conference tournament since 2010, the last time they’ve had a team this talented, according to Anderson. The old coach saw the signs of a special group in February, when an 8-7 loss to Oregon State in Arizona triggered a wave of frustration among the players and a quiet flight home.
“When the chemistry and the culture is off the charts,” Anderson said, “that helps you a little bit more.”