By: Brian Frank
Casey Candaele’s ties to Buffalo run deep. Candaele played in 270 regular season games for the Herd from 1995 to 1997 and has now managed 570 games since becoming the Bisons skipper in 2021.
Candaele grew up in Lompoc, California. His mother, Helen Callaghan, played professional baseball for five seasons in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL), making her and Casey the only mother-son duo to play professional baseball. Callaghan was a left-handed hitting centerfielder for the Minneapolis Millerettes, Fort Wayne Daisies, and Kenosha Comets. She was dubbed “the feminine Ted Williams” and won a batting title in 1945 with Fort Wayne. She was also a major threat on the base paths, stealing 419 bases in 495 career games. A Vancouver native, she was inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 2021.
In a recent interview with The Herd Chronicles, Candaele said he and his four older brothers were unaware of how unique their mother’s experience was when he was growing up in California.
“I just thought all moms were throwing BP to their sons and hitting them ground balls,” Candaele said. “I mean, my dad was involved too, while he was around. You could tell that she was adept at swinging a bat and throwing and things like that. So, we’d be like, well, mom has played a little bit, you know, that's kind of cool. I just thought everybody's mom was doing it.”
“She never really talked about it much,” he continued. “We didn't really understand the magnitude of what she had done and where she had played. I mean, she used to say, ‘Yeah, I used to play baseball.’ And we would go ‘Baseball? Women didn’t play baseball. What are you talking about?’ We didn't understand it, because we were so young. Not until my brother started doing research on it when we were older, did we understand how unique and forward thinking it was at the time.”
Hellen Callaghan with the Fort Wayne Daisies. Photo from Wikipedia.
Helen’s sister, Casey’s Aunt Marge, also played in the AAGPBL. She was an infielder who played seven seasons of professional baseball. She stole 283 bases in her career.
“The story goes, as my mom would tell it, that my mom went down and made the team in the tryout,” Candaele said. “Her father sent her sister Marge down there to look after her, because my mom was pretty young... Then they both ended up playing on the same team. So that was worked out for her by her father, my grandfather. So, yeah, then they played together in the league.”
Casey’s brother, filmmaker Kelly Candaele, co-produced a documentary for PBS titled “A League of Their Own,” about the AAGPBL. He then co-wrote the story for the 1992 movie of the same name. The movie was directed by Penny Marshall and starred Geena Davis, Madonna, Tom Hanks, Rosie O’Donnell, and Lori Petty. A recent Amazon series is also based on the story.
“Once my brother did the documentary, my mom kind of opened up about it,” Candaele said. “I mean, she opened up as he was doing the A League of Their Own documentary, researching all the players and the trials and tribulations that they went through. She started talking about different things that occurred. It was interesting because it was similar to minor-league baseball. Once I got into it, I was like – Oh, this is what mom was talking about. But they traveled more, they played a lot of doubleheaders. And, obviously, they didn't have anybody looking out for them. They were playing for people that own the teams and were trying to make money. So, they were having as many games as they could.”
Looking on from the Bisons' dugout. Photo Credit: Brian Frank, The Herd Chronicles
After graduating from Lompoc High School, Candaele continued playing baseball at the University of Arizona, where he helped the Wildcats win the College World Series his freshman year.
“We lost the first game,” he said of the 1980 College World Series. “It was double elimination and we had to go through the losers’ bracket to get back to the final. So, it was a long struggle. We lost to St. John's University in the first game. We were like, how did we lose to St. John's? They’re in the Northeast. They played 30 games a year. We lost to pitcher who threw a complete game. I think we lost 4-1. His name was Frank Viola. He had a pretty good career." Candaele added with a laugh, “So, when you look back at it, it's like, yeah, okay, I understand now.”
“It was just a tremendous experience,” he continued. “I was a freshman and we had a really good team coming back. (Current Cincinnati Reds manager) Terry Francona won the Golden Spikes Award that year. He was our left fielder. We just had a lot of good players. Interestingly enough, a lot of the players on the team are still involved in professional baseball in some way. Johnny Moses played for a little while, Craig Lefferts, Ed Vosberg, Dwight Taylor, there were just numerous guys that continued coaching afterwards, a lot of them. But yeah, it was quite fun.”
Candaele played three seasons at Arizona before signing with the Montreal Expos as a free agent.
“After my freshman year, I only hit right handed,” he recalled. “I went to play summer baseball in Alaska and I said, you know what, I need to switch-hit if I'm going to get an opportunity to play pro ball. I just thought I need to switch hit to be able to be looked at. So, I went back my sophomore and junior seasons to U of A and switch-hit. I didn't do particularly well with an aluminum bat. I hit .286, I think, both years. Then, I went back to summer ball in Alaska, and something clicked. I played through the whole summer there. We ended up in the N.B.C. (National Baseball Congress) tournament in Wichita – and we ended up in the finals. We played the Santa Maria Indians, which is right by where I live. I think in the tournament I was something like 16-for-20. So, after the tournament, the Expos asked if I wanted to sign as a free agent – and I said, ‘Sure.’ I called my head coach at Arizona and told him I was going to sign. He said, ‘You're putting me in a tough position.’ I said, ‘Well, this will probably be my only opportunity because I wasn't drafted.’ So, I figured I'd go check it out.”
Over the next three-and-a-half seasons, Candaele worked his way up through the Expos minor-league system. He was called up to the major leagues for the first time in early June 1986, when Expos outfielder Andre Dawson injured his hamstring and had to go on the disabled list.
Candaele’s major-league debut came on June 5, 1986, in a game against the Philadelphia Phillies at Montreal’s Olympic Stadium. He pinch-hit for pitcher Dan Schatzeder in the seventh inning against left-handed hurler Don Carman and struck out.
“I went back into the dugout and I sat down,” Candaele remembered. “(Expos infielder) Tim Wallach came over by me, sat down, and he goes, ‘Hey, you know what, Casey? You're not good.’ And I just started laughing. And I was like – well, that kind of broke the ice. So, I felt like, okay, that made me feel better for some reason.”
Candaele's rookie card with the Expos.
“I stayed there for a couple weeks,” he continued. “I think until Andre Dawson got better. I collected my first hit. It was off Dave Rucker. It was a little bloop shot over the second baseman’s head. Then I went back to Triple-A and we ended up winning a Triple-A championship with Indianapolis in a seven-game series that was unbelievable. We won it with a walk off against (future Cincinnati Reds closer) Rob Dibble, who was pitching for Denver at the time. I mean, that was spectacular. Then I got called up at the end of that season.”
He ended up playing in 204 games over three seasons with the Expos.
“I loved Montreal,” he said. “The city was tremendous. It was safe. It was metropolitan. It was very progressive. And it was really good for me. I mean, I loved it there. I really enjoyed it. I was sad when I had to go, but I did enjoy my time there. And I loved the Expos organization, because they gave me an opportunity to play.”
In July 1988, Candaele was traded to the Houston Astros for catcher Mark Bailey.
“They (the Astros) had come off ‘86 when they had a good year,” Candaele said. “They had a veteran team. I went over there in ‘88 and they were still basically that same team (as ’86) – Billy Doran and (Bob) Knepper and Nolan Ryan, Mike Scott, and Dave Smith. I mean, it was a veteran team that had been around. I was not having a good year in ’88, went back in ’89 and I didn't make the team. Then I got called up in ‘90 and I was there until ’93.”
“It was a great time, because we went from being a really veteran team to probably the youngest team in baseball,” he continued. “Oddly enough, in ‘92 or ’93, I might have been the longest tenured big leaguer there, or close to it, because I think we had like 17 rookies. Then we added guys like (Doug) Drabek and (Greg) Swindell and Pete Incaviglia. We added a bunch of pieces, but we were young – (Jeff) Bagwell, (Ken) Caminiti, (Craig) Biggio, Steve Finley, Luis Gonzalez. I mean, we had the core of a pretty good team that was going to be good in the future.” He added with a chuckle, “They just didn’t keep me there long enough to be there for it.”
Candaele spent the 1994 season playing for the Cincinnati Reds Triple-A affiliate in Indianapolis. After beginning the 1995 season in the Dodgers’ organization, Candaele signed with Cleveland – which led him to his first season in Buffalo, who were Cleveland’s Triple-A affiliate at the time.
Turning two for the Herd. Photo Courtesy of the Buffalo Bisons Baseball Club.
“I came in to a veteran team,” he said of his first season with the Bisons. “Torey Lovullo played third, Billy Ripken played short, I played second. Jeromy Burnitz and Brian Giles were there – they were young players. We had a lot of veterans – Lloyd McClendon, Les Lancaster, Joe Klink. We had guys that had been in the big leagues and had some pretty good time. Then we had a few prospects that ended up having pretty good careers. It was a great team. We had a lot of fun and we were pretty good.”
Candaele loved playing for Bisons manager Brian Graham, a manager who had a lasting influence on him.
“He was great,” he said of Graham. “It's interesting, I think maybe I took some of his managing techniques and kind of use them still. I expect the guys to be men, show up on time, and play the game right. And when you need to have a stern talk with somebody, you call them in and talk to them and just make sure they understand where you're coming from. I think I learned that from him.”
“It's interesting,” he continued, “because when I mentioned his name and you said, ‘What was it like playing for him?,’ it just popped into my head. I had never even really thought about it before, but thinking about it just briefly, I was like – man, you know what? I think I manage a lot like him. Yeah, he was really good to play for.”
The 1995 Bisons defeated Omaha three games to one in the first round of the American Association playoffs. Then, they battled their way to a decisive fifth game of the league finals, before falling to Louisville by a score of 8-2.
“That was a bummer,” Candaele said. “We were good. We wanted to win the first championship here (of the Bisons' modern era). We fell a little short. But it was a good series, and they were a good team. It was a pretty good battle. We probably didn't play up to our potential, but that happens in the playoffs sometimes.”
Candaele returned to Buffalo in 1996 and was named an American Association mid-season and post-season All-Star, while hitting .311. The Herd finished that season with the best record in the entire American Association with an 84-60 record, but lost their first-round, best-of-five playoff series to Indianapolis in five games.
“Just again, a good, competitive team,” he said. “We played hard. We were not as old as we (had been). We were getting more younger guys. We had some good younger players that ended up having good major-league careers, so we were competitive. But when you get into the playoffs, you’ve got to do a lot of things right. Everything just didn't work out.”
Candaele played in 270 games for Buffalo. Photo Courtesy of the Buffalo Bisons Baseball Club.
The Bisons finally broke through in 1997 to win the first championship of the team’s modern era. Candaele, who won the team’s Joe DeSa Most Inspirational Player Award, was a major contributor to a squad that once again finished with the best record in the American Association at 87-57. They then beat Indianapolis in five games in the semifinals to earn a spot in the championship series against Iowa.
Unfortunately, Candaele injured his right knee in Game Four of the semifinal series against Indianapolis, when he stumbled over first base legging out an infield single. He was unable to play in the championship series due to the injury. Buffalo swept Iowa in three games, winning the final game 5-4 on a solo home run by Sean Casey in the top of the 10th inning. It was the Bisons first league championship of the team's modern era (since 1985).
“The Riches (owners Bob and Mindy) actually flew to Iowa for the final game,” Candaele said. “They took their jet and I got to fly with them. So, it was really cool. That was the one good thing about being injured, I got to share a flight with them. (Former Cleveland farm director and current Blue Jays president and CEO) Mark (Shapiro) was on it too. Going there and winning, that was tremendous. That was another quality team that put everything together and played together as a team. We had a lot of fun.”
Candaele also played in 38 games for Cleveland in 1996 and 1997. In 1998, he helped the New Orleans Zephyrs defeat the Bisons in the inaugural Triple-A World Series in Las Vegas. He continued playing in the minor leagues through the 2000 season, before retiring to his home in California.
Candaele retired as a player after the 2000 season. Photo courtesy of the Buffalo Bisons Baseball Club.
“When I retired in 2000, I was done,” he said. “I wanted to go home. My kids were young and I wanted to be there for them. Then I coached high school football and baseball back home. The passion for the game and the love for the game never left, especially the pro game. My son had graduated from high school and one daughter was in high school and one daughter was in junior high. One day, my wife said, ‘You know, if you want to get back into pro ball, you can go ahead.’” He continued with a chuckle, “She said, ‘Our son turned out okay, I don't need you anymore. I can take care of the girls.’ I said, ‘Okay, well, let me see.’”
“That's when I just started making some calls. I was 10 years out of the game, so it’s kind of hard sometimes to get back in after you're out that long. But fortunately, I had a lot of people that were kind of around the same age as I was that were in positions of power in the game and had the ability to make decisions and hire. So, I had a few offers. Scott Servais was with the Rangers. I played with him in Houston. He was the (Rangers’) farm director. He made up a job for me to get back into the game, where I could travel, kind of a roving thing. But it didn't have a particular, official name. I was just a rover and went to all the different affiliates, meeting everybody and talking to everybody, and that was kind of how it happened. I went to spring training there and then stayed there until 2015.”
He became the Ranger organization’s infield and baserunning coordinator, and added the title of field coordinator in 2015. Following the 2015 season, he moved to the Seattle Mariners’ organization to be the major-league team’s first-base coach under new manager Scott Servais. He worked for the Mariners for two seasons, before parting ways. Leaving Seattle is what led him to the Blue Jays organization.
“I moved on and called around,” he explained. “I know Mark (Shapiro). It's funny, because I really didn't have any phone numbers, because I'd been out of the game for so long. So, I decided, you know what, I'm going to LinkedIn Mark and just send him a message. I did it, and he goes, ‘Here's our farm director’ – and it was Gil Kim, who I had known in Texas. I called him and said, ‘Have you got anything going on?’ He said, ‘No, not really, just wait a little bit.’ Then he called back later in the winter, and said, ‘You know, the only thing we have is a short season managing job in Vancouver, or a High-A ball managing job in Dunedin. But you probably wouldn't want to do that.’ I go, ‘I'll do that in a second. I’ll do either one, whatever.’ He said, ‘Oh, I just thought, you know, you were in the big leagues.’ I said, ‘I don't care. I just want to help players and be there. It doesn't matter what level I'm at, I just feel that maybe I could help your younger players and teach them the game and do whatever I can.’ That's when I came here (to the Blue Jays organization), which was great because I've loved being here.”
Candaele managed at High-A Dunedin in 2018, Low-A Vancouver in 2019, and then helped out at the Blue Jays’ alternate training sight throughout the truncated 2020 major-league season. Then, in 2021, he became the fourth former Bisons player in the team’s modern era to become their manager, joining Joel Skinner, Torey Lovullo, and Bobby Meacham.
However, in 2021, the Bisons didn’t start the season in Buffalo. The team had to temporarily relocate to Trenton, New Jersey, for home games while the Blue Jays used Sahlen Field due to the closure of the U.S.-Canada border.
“It was just interesting,” Candaele said. “Unbelievably, we had probably the perfect makeup of a team for that. I mean, in Triple-A, there's always some disgruntled guys, but they handled it so well. We went to Trenton, which was probably not the nicest field-wise place to go to for a Triple-A team, but the people there were so inviting, and they welcomed us with open arms and treated us so well. The players we had just said – you know what, we're here and we're playing, and this is great. In Trenton, we had the best home record in Triple- A for the time period we were there.”
The day the Bisons returned to Buffalo. Photo Credit: Brian Frank, The Herd Chronicles
The Bisons were able to return to Buffalo on August 10, 2021, after the Blue Jays returned to Rogers Centre. The Bisons returned to a new-look Sahlen Field with renovated clubhouses and brand new batting cages and bullpens from the Blue Jays stay.
“Coming here was like a rebirth for the season,” he said. “It kind of reenergized everybody. Coming in after the major league team was here, so all the stuff they did here to make it so big league. We tore it up the rest of the year.”
The Herd would go on to win the 10th division title of the team’s modern era, and their first since 2005, finishing atop the Triple-A East Northeast Division with a 71-46 record. Candaele was named co-Manager of the Year by the league.
“That team was pretty special with how they went about their business. If we had a lead after the fifth inning, we did not give it up. Our bullpen, I think it was about 15 strong. We shut people down, and we played really well. We had a good core of players and guys that played hard and wanted to win, and some of them were veterans, and some were young, but they all came to play every day.”
However, the Southeast Division Durham Bulls finished with a higher winning percentage than Buffalo. Since there were no traditional playoffs in 2021, but instead a two-week tournament for all Triple-A teams called the Final Stretch, the Bulls were crowned league champions. That left Bisons players and fans pondering what could have been if there were traditional playoffs that season.
“Me and Nathan Lucas have arguments about it all the time,” Candaele said of the Bisons outfielder who played for Durham that season. “‘Oh, we would have smoked you guys. We were really good.’ ‘Yeah, I don't know about that.’ It would have been a good one. I think that would have been a good playoff series.”
Candaele was promoted to Toronto in mid-July 2022 until the end of the season to be Blue Jays manager John Schneider’s interim bench coach, but then returned to the helm of the Bisons to begin the 2023 season.
He's done a tremendous job of balancing winning and development. He’s amassed a 261-241 record in three-and-a-half seasons with the Herd, while sending a large number of players to Toronto, including Davis Schneider, Spencer Horwitz, Ernie Clement, Bowden Francis, Addison Barger, Nathan Lukes, Leo Jiménez, and Steward Berroa.
“In the organization, we kind of made a commitment to really talk about winning along with development,” Candaele explained. “We have a major-league team that's trying to get in the playoffs every year and go deep into the playoffs and win a World Series. That being said, we need to focus on that a lot at the Double-A and Triple-A level. It didn't happen this year. It has in the past here in Triple-A. So, we want to make sure our players are aware that development is very important and the most important thing for you guys is to develop and be major-league players, but also develop a winning attitude and expect to go out and be successful and win games every day. I think that once you get to the big leagues here, this is not a rebuilding team, it's a team that's trying to win every year. So, these guys have to understand that. Your attitude when you go there is that you need to be ready to play, you need to know how to play, and you need to be ready to contribute to a winning environment.”
Candaele is happy to be back in the Queen City, a place he’s now spent parts of seven seasons between playing and managing.
“The enjoyment that I have here – and embracing the city, and the people, and the fans – it's just been great,” he said. “I love coming here. I love managing here. I love being a part of this organization with the guys that have been around and the new ones here. I just couldn't be happier. I really enjoy it. I mean, every year when we get into this part of the season, I just go, man, you know, I hope I can come back. Obviously, there's some aspiration to be in the big leagues, but I'd kind of like to do it here with this organization, because I know so many people, and I've built so many relationships. So, if it doesn't happen, and that's their decision, and they want me to stay here and do what I can do to help develop players, I would be happy to do it. If they want me to do something else, I'd do that too. I have no complaints. I enjoy the city and I love coming here.”
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