The Mansfield baseball team is among the Ozone’s top-picks in the power-rankings, and the Lions are dedicating this season to the state’s all-time leader in career victories who’s no longer with the team.
It is only fitting that Doug Jones is buried in a cemetery that overlooks Mansfield’s baseball field. Because Doug Jones was Mansfield baseball. The 2016 inductee into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame compiled 741 victories, a state record. 22 district titles, six final fours, and back-to-back state championships in 1995 and 96.
But in January of 2016, a brain tumor was discovered, and Jones spent the next year teaching the world not only how to live, but how to face death with bravery, determination, and thankfulness.
“How important it is to be blessed and live every day as a gift from God,” Jones said in an interview in April of 2016.
“We call it ‘fight like a lion’,” said Dr. Nathan Moore, the school’s superintendent who’s serving as a co-head coach this season. “There were days when he came to practice and was battling this brain cancer and he showed up and was coaching to the very end.”
“He never complained,” co-head coach Dr. Gary Greene, the middle school principal, said. “He was just an example of how to fight cancer. I mean he fought it with a tenacity unlike anything I’ve ever seen.”
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“He showed us how to fight and persevere through adversity,” Mansfield senior Jonah Williamson said. “And how to treat others too.”
“I think these boys appreciated how much effort he was putting in,” Moore added. “But it showed just how much he loved them.”
“He said ‘no matter what happens with me boys, it will all be O.K’,” Williamson recalled. “I think he was talking about his walk with Christ and going to heaven and how he lived his life.”
This week Jones’ jersey was retired before a game against Summit League rival Hartville. And the bat, awarded annually to the winner of the battle between the two schools, was presented to the Jones family as a keepsake by Hartville head coach Joe Garrison, who played at Mansfield.
“On that bat if you’ll look there’s a black stripe,” Garrison explained. “When we bought it the bat came with a black stripe but in my mind that black stripe represents the battle he had with cancer. And it’s there for a reason. There will never be another Doug Jones.”
Jones’ life lessons about never giving up were evident during the game as Mansfield fell behind Hartville 3-0 only to rally for a 6-3 victory. But considering it was only their second home game since Jones’ passing just over two months ago, it’s still strange not to have him in the dug-out after almost three decades there. And the true emotional brunt of the loss is only now starting to hit the team in the small things they notice are missing.
“The hardest for us was the first day we pulled up to this field and we’re so accustomed to seeing the little blue Ford setting down here that has been here since I was a senior here,” recalled Moore. “That’s when he bought that truck. So not seeing it here was odd. And to not hear his voice ring out across this field has been different.”
“Practice,” Mansfield senior Sean Neal answers when asked when it hits the team the most. “If you bobble a ground ball or drop a fly ball that should be caught we all automatically look over for him to jump on us about how that should be caught.”
But while the coach is no longer there, his influence always will be.
“It’s been difficult,” Williamson said. “But we’ve go so much more to play for than we ever have before.”
