Blue-collar mentality

Dan Holcomb says he wants to build a blue-collar baseball team.

The rookie manager of the Thunder Bay Border Cats said he hopes that means being aggressive on the basepaths when the Northwoods League team hits the field Wednesday against the Wilmar Stingers.

Holcomb, a Homer, Mich. native and former pitcher with the NWL’s Battle Creek Bombers, has spent the past two seasons as a graduate assistant coach at Ashford University.

Now 26, the Cats represent his first full-time managing gig.

Expect a lot of running from the get-go, Holcomb said Monday, before heading to league mandated meetings in Rochester, Minn.
“If we have guys who can run, we like to put guys in motion and put the pressure on the defence. But it’s got to be the right guys there,” Holcomb said. “The hard part is we haven’t seen a lot of these guys play.

“But we’re going to take this time to get to know them, see what they can do and try to put the best team on the field.”
Essentially, it’s like building an expansion team from scratch, Holcomb agreed.

Like most teams in the summer collegiate circuit, the Border Cats each summer are faced with the prospect a handful – or fewer – returning players each season.

With the Northwoods League expanding rosters this year from 26 to 30, finding the right mix of players got that much tougher.

But it’s not just ability on the field that Holcomb was looking for while recruiting the 2013 squad.

Even one bad apple can do plenty of damage, he said.

“Even good kids make mistakes now and then, but I think we did a great job of creating a relationship with the college coaches and making sure we were comfortable with the program they were coming from,” said Holcomb, the 10th manager in the team's 11-season history.

“We talked with the kids and made sure we got to know them. We did our homework by calling different coaches in the area and different scouts that had seen them play, and gotten to know them as well. We wanted to make sure we had a great relationship with those kids before we brought them up.”

Holcomb said he plans to go with 16 pitchers and 14 position players, and expects to mostly avoid the first-week woes of late arrivals – though several players are still competing at regionals for their college programs.

Most notable on the early absentee list is Oakville, Ont.’s Kyle Hann, an infielder slated for the hot corner who was a member of the 2012 Canadian junior national team.

Returnees include catcher Cory Kay, OF Tyler Duplantis and 1B Ryan Casillas.

The Cats have also signed local infielder Carter McEachern, who plays for Trinity University in Texas, to a temporary contract. McEachern is a former goaltender with the Thunder Bay North Stars.

Cat tracks: The Cats will open in Willmar Wednesday for a pair and play once in St. Cloud on Friday on their way home to Thunder Bay. They’ll make their 2013 Subway Field debut against Willmar, the first of a four-game home-stand ... The Alexandria franchise will be known as the Blue Anchors, dropping the Beetles name after the team was sold over the winter ... The Northwoods League will feature limited cross-division play this summer.