The opponent went rounding second, and Jayce was looking for an out to steal.
Jayce Tingler roamed centerfield with a tenacity _ he played defense offensively _ and as he fielded the single that day, the guy on first went too far past second.
"He wanted to back-pick him," said Tony Vitello, who was Mizzou's second baseman in the early 2000s. "But I didn't cover _ and he absolutely went crazy."
Vitello is the son of the legendary _ and legendarily intimidating _ DeSmet coach Greg Vitello, "so it took a lot to scare me on the field," Tony said. "But I literally felt one centimeter tall when Jayce went nuts on me for not covering. The guy on the other team is a Big 12 opponent and probably like: 'What the hell?' To Jayce I was kind of like: 'My bad.' And then Jayce finished with: 'Now you know.' And that made it even worse. I feel like I didn't do my job, and I felt dumb when I got 'now you know' dropped on me. ...
"Jayce is cutthroat."
And now, Jayce in the manager of the hottest team in Major League Baseball. The former Mizzou standout is in his first year in charge of the San Diego Padres (18-12), who have won seven straight games. It's a pretty cool story. They've got Fernando Tatis Jr., Manny Machado and Tommy Pham. And the club plays ball with the passion and intellect of their manager. The 39-year-old Tingler wasn't a known name when he got the gig, but for those who knew him at Mizzou, they believed he was destined for a big league dugout.
"I knew he was going be a manager, but I didn't realize it would be this soon," said Tim Jamieson, the former longtime Mizzou baseball coach. "Super-high baseball IQ. Super-high feel for people _ from the first day I met him. ...
"This is just my coach's eyes watching, and I told Jayce this _ his hitters are much more disciplined than the Padres hitters have been in the past. That's a coaching influence. Whether that's him directly or the coaches that are there (on his staff). He's gotten them to buy in to what he wants them to do. And _ they're playing really hard. And that's a reflection of him as a person and as a player. And again, that's a coach's influence."
The Padres entered Monday tied for the National League lead in walks (115). And they're second in the NL in homers (55), slugging percentage (.468) and OPS (.799). With eight teams from each league making the playoffs, the Padres could return to the postseason for the first time since ... got a guess? ... 2006, when they lost to the eventual World Series champion Cardinals in the National League Division Series.
Tingler is from Smithville in the Kansas City area, and Jamieson remembers seeing him 20 times in high school. But he wasn't sold. The kid was small _ 5-7 and 135 pounds. But Jamieson watched an extra-inning game in a wooden bat tournament down in Arkansas. Neither team was getting anything done offensively. Game went to extras. Runner on third _ two outs, too _ and Tingler dropped the perfect bunt for a hit to drive in the winning run. Just a different kind of ballplayer.
"That was like: 'OK, I got to have this kid in my program,'" the coach said.
Vitello is currently the head coach of the baseball team at the University of Tennessee. A couple decades ago, when he first arrived in Columbia, "I'm memorizing these guys' stats from last year _ who do I have to beat out?" he said. "And this is my first day in Missouri and I'm nervous and all, and I come around the corner to the field. There are two guys there _ Jayce and his roommate, because Jayce has got to be the first guy there. And he was literally the first person I saw, and this dude's like 5-7, 135. And that was probably the highest my confidence ever was at Missouri as a player. I was like: 'I got to at least be ahead of him!' ...
"But he was the most intense player I've ever played with, and I don't say that lightly. And I'm also including guys I've coached.'
Tingler became a standout at Mizzou, earning all-conference accolades. He was drafted in the 10th round by Toronto, later picked up by Texas. He made it to Class AA, and soon after he retired, he became a coach in the Rangers organization. Both Vitello and Jamieson pointed out how shrewd it was for Tingler to learn Spanish, which helped Tingler in his coaching and relationship-building.
"So he went to went to the Dominican and he did such a good job there, the Rangers end up giving him the whole program," Vitello said. "He was in charge of the whole Rangers Dominican program. So he got practice at running something, which he proved that he's great at. ...
"A lot of the things that we do (at Tennessee), either with our hitters or just our team, are things that have come out of conversations that he and I would have when he was with the Rangers."
In 2020, the unique MLB scheduling pits teams only against opponents from their division (or the American League counterpart). This works out quite nicely for Jamieson. He's a Cardinals fan, so he'll watch the Birds, except when his former players are pitching, such as Max Scherzer (Washington) or Kyle Gibson (Texas). And then, once their games are over, he switches over to a West Coast game _ his San Diego Padres.
"For a baseball junkie," he said, "that's a pretty good night."
And the proud coach watches his former protege manage a Major League club with the same intelligence and attitude of that hungry, angry center fielder who wanted to back-pick the guy at second.
