THE CODY JOHNSON STORY

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It’s roughly 45 minutes prior to his first official postseason game as the manager of the Owatonna Aces amateur baseball team and Cody Johnson sits alone on a picnic table wedged between the home dugout and a large storage shed at Dartts Park, his forehead resting in the palm of his left hand .

With a deep roster chock full of college-level ballplayers, it would be easy to assume that Johnson’s current task of filling out his lineup for the first of a do-or-die three-game set against the Rochester Roadrunners would be a relatively simple endeavor.

The truth, though, is far more complicated.

The sheer volume of blue-chip talent at Johnson’s fingertips is undeniable. As he scans the list of names in front of him, he can identify at least 10 players that are either presently competing at the next level or recently conlcuded multi-year college careers within the last two years.

The first three names he scribbles on the top page of small 8.5-inch by 5.5-inch stack of multi-colored carbon paper are Payton Beyer (Winona State), Theo Gield (Southwest Minnesota State) and Matt Seykora (Southwest Minnesota State) — each of which currently compete at the NCAA Division II level. Below the trio, Johnson then pens Kodey Kiel into the cleanup position before filling out the remaining spots with Mitch Seykora, A.J. Vandereide, Andrew Phillips, Jack Helget and Caleb Vereide.

Kiel recently completed a stellar four-year career at D-III Saint Mary’s University in Winona and is one of the program’s top two-way players in recent SMU history. Directly below him on the card is the name Mitch Seykora, the youngest player on the roster. The incoming Owatonna High School senior has already drawn interest from a few D-I programs — including the Minnesota Gophers — and has torched the Big Nine Conference over the last two years.

Having graduated from Medford and NRHEG, respectively, Vandereide and Phillips are the only two non-OHS alumni in the starting lineup and both possess next-level skills and experience. Vandereide currently plays at D-III Gustavus Adolphus while Phillips recently became the first NRHEG baseball player to accept a Division I scholarship after signing with South Dakota State University last spring. Rounding out the impressive lineup is Vereide, who recently finished his freshman season at D-III Northwestern College in St. Paul.

When Johnson finally made his way to the field and submitted his score card to the umpire, seven of the nine players in his starting lineup have either signed, or played a minimum of one year in college.

“I fully believe it, and honestly mean it, when I say we are maybe one stud arm away from legitimately competing for a state title,” Johnson said on Wednesday night. “We have that type of talent on this team.”

Growing up around the game in Owatonna and accumulating nearly three decades of experience as a player, coach, umpire and field manager, there are few, if any, angles Johnson hasn’t experienced when it comes to his favorite sport. Baseball has played a huge part in shaping his path as an adult and provided an avenue to cultivate his innate leadership qualities.

When it comes to hardball, Johnson simply gets it.

“I am an Owatonna lifer,” Johnson said. “I’ve been around baseball my whole life. When I was considering taking over as manager (of the Aces) it was my wife who said: ‘Don’t you want your daughter to be raised around the game? That was it. I made my decision right then.”

The 32-year-old skipper fully-grasps the inexorable tenets of his chosen sport that is routinely erratic, yet wholly rewarding. He also fully-appreciates the fact that raw skill and blind luck are uniformly stitched into the very fabric of the game.

As for managing a team with such a diverse assortment of personalities like the Aces, success often requires wearing the hat of amateur psychologist rather than professional tactician. For Johnson, the summer of 2023 has been a case study into this very concept.

“It’s been a work in progress,” he admitted on Thursday evening. “There’s a lot that has gone into this first year, and it hasn’t always been easy.”

Case in point: Wednesday’s roller-coaster contest against Rochester.

With temperatures hovering in the low-90s for much of the game, the Aces’ bats, ironically, started the contest just as cold. Struggling to square-up Rochester’s crafty veteran righty, Jose Rosario, Owatonna mustered just three hits and went scoreless in the first six frames.

But then came the seventh.

Trailing 4-0 and barely showing a pulse for the first two-thirds of the contest, the Aces exploded for five runs in the bottom of the seventh, smashing five — yes, five — doubles during an electric seven at-bat stretch in the middle of the rally. Vandereide, Beyer, Helget and both Seykora’s peppered the fences and drilled an assortment of Rosario offerings through both outfield gaps.

It was fun, but it was also fleeting.

The Aces immediately proceeded the go-ahead rally by surrendered five runs in the top of the eighth and ultimately fell, 11-7.

Aside from the helter-skelter offense, Owatonna’s defense was similarly erratic. However, scattered amongst the team’s six errors were several highlight-reel plays, including a pair of slick catches by Beyer in centerfield and a smooth double-play twisted by the middle infield in the sixth inning.

“(Wednesday’s) game pretty much summed up our team,” Johnson said.

Objectively, the roster Johnson inherited this season boasts more raw talent than the organization has sustained in a long, long time — perhaps more than a dozen years — but finding suitable roles for each of the 20-something ballplayers hasn’t always been easy. In fact, it’s been extremely challenging.

“For me, we have a group of super talented guys and athletic ballplayers, but they have to find their identity as a team,” Johnson said. “They have to decide who is going to step up and take charge. It’s playoff time and, honestly, we are still working through some of those things.”

Taking over chief managerial duties after Brian Simon elected to step down after helming the club for the better part of the previous two decades, Johnson spent much of the regular season wrestling with how to nourish the culture established by the previous regime while simultaneously ushering in a new era of amateur baseball in the city of Owatonna.

“Last year was tough,” Johnson admitted. “I mean, I love Brian Simon, but he has three young kids and he wasn’t able to go to as many games as the team maybe needed last summer. We (as an organization) kind of felt like it was the right time for a change and wanted to just let Brian show up and play baseball. Brian is 38 and I am 32 and there is a different philosophy between us, and that’s taken some adjustment as well.”

Despite enduring a few growing pains along the way, Johnson has already left an indelible mark on the program in three short months at the helm. His first duty as manager included gathering the team together just prior to the start of the regular season and engaging in an open dialogue while also setting the tone and establishing a clear message for the forthcoming season.

“I sat everyone down and flat out said: ‘We have enough talent on this team that there are going to be really good ballplayers who will sit on the bench,” Johnson said. “And I told them: ‘If that’s a problem, we can talk — the door is always open. You know my number.’”

Owatonna took its lumps early — crashing to 1-3 overall following a 15-0 drubbing courtesy of  the Pine Island Pioneers on May 26 — but also flashed enticing potential for sustained periods, highlighted by the 5-1 record they posted in a six-game stretch in the immediate wake of the ugly loss to the Pioneers.

“I have seen guys take strides (this summer),” Johnson said. “It’s cool to be a part of this and give my two cents and help these guys develop as ballplayers. I’ve enjoyed helping any way that I can.”

Johnson is in a unique position to carry the ballclub into its next phase. Having suited up for the Huskies in the late-2010s, and later for the University of Wisconsin-Superior, Johnson isn’t too far removed from his own playing days in high school, yet is more than 10 years older than the bulk of the players on his roster.

Though he admits the team is free of “bad egos” and has been pleased with how well they have meshed off the field, bridging the generational gaps between himself, the veterans and the younger ballplayers has been a steeper learning curve than perhaps he originally expected.

“I have always stuck up for younger generations, but things have changed in the last five or six years,” Johnson said. “It’s not like the old days. When I was younger, I’d go home and my dad would tell me exactly what I did wrong — there was no sugar-coating anything. I’m not sure the younger guys respond to that type of feedback, and managing how to hold our guys accountable while not coddling them has been a work in progress.”