Because on that day — on the field where the Dayton Dragons play baseball — Harrison Jr. got to be a good big brother once again, picking Josh Harrison up off the ground after a heartbreaking loss in the Division I state semifinals. The older brother by seven years told his little brother he had bigger things ahead like graduation that evening at the Cintas Center and a roster spot on the University of Cincinnati baseball team after signing his letter of intent that morning.
But Josh Harrison, the 13-year big-league veteran and two-time all-star who just signed a minor-league deal with the Reds, and his teammates still cried. The loss to Toledo Start was a heartbreaker. The Vikings led 4-2 entering the top of the seventh inning but gave up four runs to fall behind 6-4. In the bottom of the seventh, the Vikings were down to their final out when they loaded the bases with a single and two walks. But the championship dream died on a strikeout swinging with the count full.
“This place will always be sentimental to me,” Harrison Jr. said. “As I watched my brother cry on the field, I too wanted to cry on the field. I had to pick him off the ground, and if I had known I could have told him, ‘You’re going to be a big-leaguer. Don’t worry about it.’ But I had to dry his tears, hold mine back and then drive him down to graduation.”
Last week the brothers were together again at Day Air Ballpark when the older brother was introduced as the next Dragons manager. Last year, in his first year with the Reds, Harrison Jr. was a coach at AAA Louisville.
“When I heard Dayton, I’m like,’Oh, man, they get good crowds,’” Harrison Jr. said. “Then my first thought was, ‘Yeah, that’s probably the last time I cried on a baseball field.’”
Harrison Jr. said that spring was a blessing in disguise. He met his wife Ericka, who is also a Princeton graduate, and discovered he liked coaching even if he didn’t realize it at the time. Ericka began attending Princeton games near the end of the season and saw something in the man she was just getting to know.
“I can recall a day before a tournament game she looked at me and says, ‘Don’t be mad. But I think you’re meant to coach,’” Harrison Jr. said.
Harrison Jr. still had big-league dreams, but after nine years in the minors and no call up to the majors, he fulfilled the notion his wife had in 2005 and began coaching baseball. And being a manager for the fourth time in five seasons is no surprise to Josh Harrison. He said when his brother stepped in to help as a Princeton volunteer, every practice and game prep began to run through his 25-year-old who brother. He had professional experience and understood a higher-level mindset was necessary for success. The Vikings didn’t win a tournament game the previous two years.
“He was able to clean up some of the smaller things that most high schoolers don’t get,” Harrison said. “It’s my brother – I get it all the time. But to have my friends also get the miniscule things that people tend to forget, just that little bit more focus, made us go to state. We weren’t that much physically better than we were the years prior. We just played together, and my brother was able to help us focus.”
Harrison Jr.’s training to be a coach and manager didn’t begin in 2005. He was a three-sport leader at Princeton as the quarterback, point guard and shortstop. And, most importantly for the Harrison family, he was a role model to his brothers.
“I may have a little bit of bias,” Josh Harrison said. “But he’s the best three-sport athlete in my eyes ever to come out of Cincinnati.”
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
And those eyes of Josh Harrison were always on Vince Jr. and middle brother Shaun. Josh was always the ball boy, annoying his older brothers at their games and learning.
“They never took it easy on me, but there was nothing my peers would do to me that my brothers hadn’t,” Josh Harrison said. “There’s no coincidence as to why I made it to where I am. I know I’m physically gifted and blessed to do it. But a lot of it came from just me wanting to do whatever they did. And I was ready for a lot of challenges that came my way because I was always challenged being the younger brother.”
Josh Harrison is 36 and his big-league memories are surely many. But his senior season as a Viking means as much to him as anything.
“My brother was able to live my senior year with me when he should have been gone playing,” he said. “But God has a funny way of bringing things full circle, and he was able to help me make my transition from my senior to my freshman year of college by just being a coach. He was big bro to me, but he didn’t take it easy on me.”
Not until it was over and the tears came on that day in Dayton.
“He obviously poured a lot into us and we accepted that and received it and believed we could win,” Josh Harrison said. “You don’t win every game, but we were so heartbroken. I know he shed a tear. He might not have showed us, but I know him.”
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