Unity Cardinals of all ages made some noise this year when it came to baseball in Saskatchewan. The 18U team won Tier 1 provincials as hosts, the 21U Jr. Cardinals were the only team their age in the province to enter their provincials and provided an impressive performance at senior provincials, and the Sr. Cardinals chose not to enter NSRBL play this season, but still had players on their roster play successful seasons outside of town.

More: Cardinals Baseball Enjoys Great Year in Unity

When specifically looking at the U21 Jr. Cardinals they knew they had a worthy squad, but still felt like calling up a secret weapon for their foray into U21 provincials this year.

“We picked up Jaydon Garter from the Twins, the league MVP and Top Pitcher. He was already going to play provincials with us,” said coach Dan Feser, “We needed to add another arm, and we reached out to Jaydon and he said ya let’s do it. He wanted to win a junior title and did*, then he stayed with us for senior provincials so that’s obviously a pretty big get.”

This practice is often known as “using a ringer”, but the Cardinals did not have the chance to unleash the NSRBL MVP on the opposing young baseball teams this summer with the cancelled provincial tournament. Gartner has connections to the area, and the coach, if people wanted to get technical on the legitimacy of bringing in a top arm like they did.

“A lot of the guys he would have played Team Sask with would have been playing, so we figured we would go out and get the nuke.”

Gartner had fun playing the field for Unity as well as closing out a game in senior provincials. His appearance starting in the finals against Macklin was unfortunately cut short due to some arm problems. Gartner is committed to a school in the states and will be playing his ball there this season, and Feser shared a bit more about the west central born player.

“He’s going to Mount Olive University next year down in North Carolina. I think he’ll do really well there,” said Feser, “He was born in Macklin and moved to Lloyd when he was young. He’s been in Lloyd most his life. He played provincials with Macklin a couple of years, but I got to know him through bantam selects. That was actually his coming out party, he went from there to Team Sask, and never looked back.”

He made a quite an impression for Feser just a few years back at selects, where coach shared some high praise for the player.

“In that selects tournament we told the team that if he’s not your best player at a position, he will be your second best.”

(Picture via @JaydonGartner on Twitter)

It only took about 10 pitches for the coach to notice something was up with Gartner’s velocity in the finals against Macklin. Feser said he came up lame on the team, but knows Gartner tried his best and gave the coach what he could. He would end up giving up 6 runs and the game wasn’t close with a 9-3 decision. The team planned all weekend to get their ace the start on championship Sunday, but the plan just couldn’t come to fruition.

It was a tough loss on either end with it ending the Cardinals season, and Gartner knowing his role only to lose to his hometown team. This quote from Feser summed the feelings up nicely.

“You hate losing to someone you hate, but you hate losing to someone you love even more right? It’s worse losing to a buddy.”

Gartner was willing to remain committed to the Cardinals even after they entered senior provincials, though he was unable to help them complete the storybook ending to their season. When looking deeper at the recent tournament for the Jr. Cardinals they coasted to the championship final, only to be done-in by Gartner’s arm when they needed it most.

Maybe that’s the kind of karma you get for bringing in extra weapons.

“You know what it’s funny. I’ve wanted to bring up ringers like 2-3 times over the years, because you can always be short pitching right? But I have always said I don’t want to leave the last game to an import kid. Because you know the situation right, if the kid loses, everyone blames the kid they are never going to see again,” recalled Feser, “Obviously no one’s gonna blame Jaydon, but I just don’t like the situation it puts a kid in.”

Feser knows this scenario as a coach, but also as a father. His son Rhett played for him growing up, as well as being the ringer for certain teams to call up and use as a special weapon.

“In all the years that Rhett got picked up, they put him in the biggest moment. My wife and I said, well, I guess that’s what he’s there for he’s a hired gun. Maybe that changed my philosophy with Jaydon. Like when Rhett got picked up 4-5 straight years, they would give him the ball for elimination games all the time. Here you go, here’s the ball, see you in 100 pitches or whatever it was.”

Nobody blamed Jaydon for his lame-duck performance in the finals, because Gartner himself was likely the most disappointed one out of the group. The loss likely came a bit more personal losing to his hometown. Feser knows his team has gotten over the tough loss in the finals by now, and that a player like Gartner has already cleared it from his mind.

As Feser put it, the NSRBL MVP has bigger fish to fry with his journey down south.