The championship drought continues.
It’s been eight full seasons since the Okotoks Dawgs’ last won a Western Major Baseball League title. The head coach of those last two title teams got a bonus when he coached the team.
He was home _ and not that place 90-feet from third base.
“My wife and I when we grew up we were both small town _ I was Peace River and she was Dewberry,” said A.J. Fystro, the head coach for the 2008-09 champions Okotoks Dawgs. “When we lived in Calgary we said when we had kids we wanted to move to a smaller town.
“We love Okotoks and we don’t see ourselves going anywhere else.”
Fystro currently works at Grand Slam Sports in Okotoks. He is also technical advisor for the Foothills Minor Baseball Association.
Family is important to Fystro – in fact it was family that got him into the Dawgs fold back in 2004 when they were the Calgary Dawgs.
“It was through my dad (Clint Fystro) and through the relationship he had with (Dawgs’ executive director) John Ircandia,” Fystro said. “I was playing and coaching in the U.S. and dad told John about me and also my older brother had coached in the Junior Dawgs program. I was hired as an assistant with the Dawgs under Dave Robb.”
It was a winning combination. Robb and Fystro led the Calgary Dawgs to their first WMBL title in 2004.
Coaching under Robb was like learning math from Einstein. Robb’s love of baseball is like the game itself -- timeless.
“I learned a lot from him when I was young,” Fystro said. “He is one of the reasons why I was successful. I got a lot of my opportunities in baseball because of him.”
Fystro played three years at Merced Junior College in California and would coach there for another seven years.
He rejoined the Dawgs in 2008 while coaching at the University of Calgary.
“It was one of many opportunities that John Ircandia gave me,” Fystro said, adding his stint with the Dawgs also helped with his job at the U of C.
He had inherited a good team. The now Okotoks Dawgs had won the title in 2007 under Robb-Eric Coleman.
Fystro’s philosophy was, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
“With that team in 2008 we had a lot of veteran players, the Manny Kumars, Jeff Dudas, Brett Thomases, Alex Jensens, those were the instrumental guys that everybody talks about,” Fystro said. “They were the leaders, they took care of things on and off the field.
“Me as manager, it was like a Joe Torre kind of thing – just put them out there and they took care of business.
“I made some changes now and then but when you have those core guys, it’s pretty simple.”
He said one of the highlights of that year was a game they lost in the best-of-five final against the Swift Current Indians in 2008. Starter Jeff “The Bulldog” Duda, pitched 10 innings, but lost 1-0 in Game 1 in Saskatchewan.
“I told the guys ‘We are going to look back on this game when we win this thing and say how good was Game 1 even though we lost it.’”
The Dawgs would win Game 2 when Mark Hardy pitched a 2-1 gem. The Dawgs then took their second straight title by winning the next two games at Seaman Stadium.
Fystro won his third championship ring and second as head coach when the Dawgs’ initially shared the title with the Melville Millionaires after rain halted the series at 2-2 and players having to return to school in 2009.
The Dawgs would later be named outright champions when it was learned the Millionaires had a roster infraction.
Fystro stepped down as head coach the following year to commit to his growing family.
The Fystros and the Dawgs are family.
A.J.’s dad Clint, who is a director on the Dawgs’ organization, was inducted into its Hall of Fame in 2017.
“That was probably one of the biggest highlights for me,” Fystro said. “We, three (Fystro) boys who played college baseball had our opportunities through the connections that he knew. For him to be recognized by the Dawgs was something that we cherish to this day.”
If you don’t think baseball is important to the Fystros, you should take it up with A.J.’s three year-old son, Ripken.
”Cal Ripken was my favourite player – his workhorse mentality, he grew up as my idol,” Fystro said. “I threw the idea out there to my wife and after we had Hudson, we kind of thought, hey Ripken, isn’t too bad.
“I let her choose Hudson, she gave me the reins for number two and we went for Ripken.”
That 2009 season wasn’t the last time A.J. was the Dawgs’ skipper. He was the headman for the Dawgs for their first games in June until coach Tyler Graham and his bench boss, David Robb, finished their college commitments.
“That was very special for my family,” AJ said. “To have my parents see me out in the field again is one of the reasons I accepted.
“It was another opportunity that John Ircandia gave me.”
