Double Play

From one nation’s pastime to another,
Koskie’s played them both.

Minnesota Twins third baseman Corey Koskie grew up playing hockey north of the border where, much like baseball is considered America’s national pastime, hockey is the game of choice. More than 3,000 indoor rinks dot the Canadian landscape providing plenty of opportunities for kids to dream of one day making it to the NHL.

Koskie was one of those hopeful youth hockey players and worked hard to get a shot at playing the national pastime. He succeeded, only in a different sport and in another country; an outcome that, growing up, really never entered his mind.

With the help of his father Koskie built a rink in his backyard and skated nearly every day as a youth. He played in the same rinks with many current professional players including Marty Murray, Lonny Bohonos and Trevor Kidd. He played Junior A hockey in Manitoba and as a goalie, saw enough vulcanized rubber to . . . to make a diving stop on a major league slugger’s line drive look easy.

Not making the connection? Neither did Koskie.

But landing a starting job at third base on Major League Baseball team came as a result of Koskie’s well-rounded background, not after playing baseball five days a week as a youth. In fact, his path to the Major Leagues came about after playing junior A hockey, volleyball in college where he earned MVP honors at a national tournament, and finally – and almost as an afterthought - baseball in Des Moines, Iowa.

“Volleyball was always my best sport,” said Koskie. “And the sport I played the most growing up was hockey. I never played much baseball. I didn’t play anything close to as much as the kids play now. It was more of a once a week kind of thing and that’s about it. Baseball wasn’t really in the picture.”
Like many kids, the backyard was where Koskie developed the skills that would one day help him make a living playing a professional sport.

“We were playing hockey pretty much everyday in the winter. I was always on the ice just hacking around in the backyard,” said the former goaltender. “And when we got together for an organized practice or game I never really skated forward too much. You know at six or seven years old when the coaches have players switch up so everyone gets to play different positions, I used to take my turn in goal and I always liked it. When other kids didn’t want to play I’d go and play. I tried to get in there as much as possible.”

While at Springfield Collegiate High School in Oakbank, Manitoba, Koskie was a standout baseball and volleyball player, and also played junior hockey. Although volleyball was his best sport, he followed his love of the game of hockey as far as he could.

“I never had to leave home to play Junior A hockey because the team I played for with was north of my home only about 40-45 minutes. There are a lot of guys who currently play professionally from the area where I grew up. I’ve got a lot of friends playing in the AHL, East Coast League, and the Western League.

“But I realized when I was 20 that a lot of the guys coming up in the NHL were young and that I probably wasn’t going to get any farther so I decided to move on. I went to play volleyball up in Manitoba and then for some reason, I went down to play baseball in Des Moines, Iowa.”

Koskie spent the 1992-93 baseball season at a community college in Boone, Iowa which led to his enrollment in the National Baseball Institute in Surrey, British Columbia for the 1993-’94 season. He was drafted by the Twins in the 26th round of the 1994 free agent draft and after developing in the minors for a few years, made his Major League debut on September 9th, 1998, only five seasons after deciding to lace up cleats rather than tennis shoes or hockey skates.

“Being a goalie helped out a lot with my current job,” said Koskie. “One of the big things when I started playing baseball was that I struggled with my defense. [Twins manager Ron Gardenhire] said to go with my natural ability and to not try and mimic other guys, to just let my natural athleticism and instincts take over. In the minors I was trying to do everything that people told me –do it this way, do it that way- that was the basis of my defense. Then Gardy took it to the next level and said react, make the play and kind of install your own athleticism into your defense.”

How similar is reeling in a ground ball to stopping a point-blank slap shot in hockey?

“The one-timer in hockey is much harder to stop because in baseball you get a free sightline on the balls coming at you. In hockey the puck is coming at you through a maze of people, so it’s more difficult.”

Koskie’s fielding has improved steadily since getting back into baseball, so much so that this goaltender turned third basemen is a legitimate contender for a Gold Glove. Koskie’s among league-leaders in fielding percentage with a personal career-high of .969 and was rewarded this year with a four year, multi-million dollar contract.

“Gardy said I don’t really care how you look, just catch the ball, that’s the bottom line,” said Koskie. “Kind of like in hockey, just make the save.”
During baseball’s off-season Koskie spends time at the rink, both on the ice and in the bleachers.

“I’ve been to a couple Wild and Gopher hockey games and I try and follow both teams a bit. I do find myself watching the goalies more [than other players] at the games. What I see is that the really good goalies usually have quick feet -the Brodure’s, the Hasek’s , the Joseph’s - I watch how quick their feet are, it’s amazing and is really noticeable. Now looking back and knowing how I played – and never really knowing what separates a really good goalie from the rest - there is a basic hand-eye coordination, but the really good goalies have extremely quick feet.”

After multiple highlight-reel stops at third base this season, Twins fans are wondering how much quicker feet could possibly move, and, that a hockey scout somewhere along the lines north of the border missed a great hockey prospect, eh?

“Given the chance, I probably would have stayed with hockey,” said Koskie. “That was the one sport I played my whole life, it just didn’t work out that way.”

What the heck though, it didn’t turn all that bad.