Emry plugs linebacking corps hole
Red Sox player raised by an umpire
With the Saskatchewan Roughriders’ training camp fast approaching, the Leader-Post’s Ian Hamilton is previewing each of the CFL team’s positional groups. Our eight-part series began May 19 with a look at the special teams. The running backs (Wednesday), offensive line (Thursday), quarterbacks (Friday), receivers (Saturday) and defensive line (Monday) followed. Today, we focus on the linebackers. The series is to conclude Wednesday when the defensive backs are highlighted.
There wasn’t much doubt that Gabby Montero would play baseball.
One of the game’s authority figures saw to that.
“My dad was an umpire and he got me into it,” Montero recalled Monday before the Regina Red Sox practised at Currie Field. “I went to all the games when he was umpiring. “I love this sport.” That feeling also was nurtured by Montero’s homeland. The 19-year-old shortstop hails from Patillas, Puerto Rico, where baseball is king.
“It’s the first sport in Puerto Rico,” Montero said. “If you have a kid, he goes to play baseball. If he doesn’t like it, he goes to play other sports.
“They play basketball and volleyball in Puerto Rico, but baseball is No. 1.”
Montero started playing the game when he was five and it has taken him places since then. His previous stop before Regina was West Burlington, Iowa, where he attends Southeastern Community College.
He just completed his freshman season with the Blackhawks, for whom he hit .342 with six home runs, 32 runs batted in, 58 runs scored and 19 stolen bases in 60 games.
After Montero informed the coaches at Southeastern that he wanted to play in a summer league, one of them knew just which loop to suggest.
Blackhawks assistant coach John McVey guided the Western Major Baseball League’s Yorkton Cardinals in 2013 and ’14, so he aimed Montero — and a few other Southeastern players — at the WMBL.
“He told me it’s a good league,” Montero said. “The baseball here is really hard, so I said, ‘Yes, I want to play in Regina.’ ’’
Red Sox head coach Scott Douglas was looking for a good defensive shortstop as well as a player who could bat at the top of the order and get on base. Montero reportedly fits the bill.
Knowing McVey made it simpler for Douglas to bring in a player sight unseen.
“When someone doesn’t know about this league, it’s a bigger concern,” Douglas said. “When someone does know about the league and the quality that’s needed, it’s easier.
“The concerns for me are off the field, so I go right to the character-type questions: ‘Is this guy a good teammate? What am I getting here?’
“(Coaches) know that when they stick their name out there for a guy, they’re going to tell him, ‘Hey, this coach just grilled me about you.’ They expect the guy to come up here and act accordingly.”
After hearing nothing but good things about Montero, Douglas brought him aboard. Montero arrived Saturday and started the process of getting acclimated.
He had never before been to Canada, so that will take some getting used to. So will the idea of playing professionally.
“I wanted to move out of Puerto Rico to play baseball, because baseball in Puerto Rico is not the same,” Montero said. “I want to get more experience in this sport ...
“I came here because it’s a dream for me. All baseball players want to play pro baseball, so I want to grow as a player.”
Getting on the diamond every day through the summer will help in that area.
So will the motto Montero has adopted — “Play hard always,” he said — to inspire himself.
Douglas has had just a couple of days to see what Montero can do, but the coach has been impressed.
“You see the typical thing you’re going to see with a kid who’s an infielder from Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic or any of those areas: Good feet, good hands, likes baseball,” Douglas said. “It’s in the blood.”
The Red Sox are to open the regular season Friday against the visiting Weyburn Beavers. Game time at Currie Field is 7 p.m.