CHATHAM, Mass. — John Schiffner taught Blake Butera to be the same person every single day, so Blake Butera began every single day the same way: with a Dunkin’ Donuts run.

“Big fan of coffee,” Butera told the Chatham Anglers. “I'd make sure we got our coffee in us, and all the guys were caffeinated to be ready to play.”

Back in 2013, when he was Chatham’s second baseman, Butera brought pregame coffee orders to Veterans Field for his teammates. Landon Lassiter, a North Carolina shortstop who became one of Butera’s closest friends, always requested an iced latte.

As the story goes, Red Sox legend Dustin Pedroia always got one before games — his 2009 Dunkin’ Donuts ad campaign serves as proof — so Lassiter and Butera thought that, if they followed that tradition, they’d be like Pedroia.

“That clearly did not work out,” Lassiter said.

Three years after Butera’s final game in Chatham, his big league dreams ended unceremoniously with a release from the Hudson Valley Renegades, then the Tampa Bay Rays’ Single-A affiliate. But he was offered a coaching job instead, so a second dream was born the day his first dream died. In less than a decade, it took him to the Washington Nationals, where the 33-year-old is now the youngest manager in Major League Baseball.

But, before his rapid ascension through the coaching ranks, Butera furthered his playing career in the Cape, spending two summers with the Chatham Anglers.

“When you're gonna go spend the summer somewhere, you wanna be somewhere you like and you're with good people,” Butera said. “And that's how I felt in Chatham.”

Coming off of his sophomore year at Boston College, Chatham was a no-brainer for Butera. His father, Barry Sr., was a Cotuit shortstop in 1975. He’d tell Blake stories about his experience on the Cape — probably too many stories, if he’s being honest.

He’d tell him about how he was a freshman on the Cape, starting at a time when few freshmen were. He’d tell him about how he led the league in home runs, triples, doubles and runs batted in — and about how nice of a town Chatham was.

“As much as I love Cotuit, I'd tell Blake, ‘By far and away, you know how lucky you are to be going to Chatham?’” Barry Sr. said. 


It was a similarly easy decision for Schiffner. The former A’s manager established a BC-to-Chatham pipeline dating back to current Kansas State head coach Pete Hughes, who coached the Eagles from 1999 to 2006. It continued with Mik Aoki — who led the program from 2007 to 2010 — and persisted through Mike Gambino’s tenure at BC, which began in 2011.

There was Chris Lambert, a former Detroit Tigers pitcher who spent the 2003 summer in Chatham and was a first-round pick the following year. Or Mike Dennhardt, a fixture in the A’s rotation in 2010, making eight starts with a 1.80 earned run average. Schiffner kept getting BC guys, and he kept sending them home better than when they arrived.

“The kids came back saying, ‘I had a great time. The coaching staff is great. I got better because they worked us hard, and it's a great town,’” Schiffner said. “That's the easy part.”

Because of that pipeline, Schiffner didn’t hesitate when Gambino recommended Butera. For some schools, Schiffner says, he preferred to do a background check on players he was given, just to make sure they were a good fit.
But Gambino trusted him, so he trusted Gambino.

“If Mike told me, ‘Take a player,’ I would take a player and I wouldn't even hesitate,” Schiffner said. “And Blake was one of those guys.”

“It was just like, ‘Look man, he's a baseball player. He's gonna work his ass off. He's the type of guy that just helps you win,’” Gambino added, describing his recommendation to Schiffner.

That’s how Butera ended up in Chatham for the 2013 summer, sharing a host family with his Eagle teammate, Andrew Chin. BC missed the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament that spring, so Butera returned home to Louisiana for two weeks before heading to Chatham.

Upon his Veterans Field arrival, he didn’t make a particularly outsized impression.

“I put on the roster that I was like 6-foot, but I'm definitely only, like, 5-foot-8,” former A’s pitcher Tommy Lawrence said. “And I'm pretty sure (Butera) and I were close in height. And everyone towered over us.”

It wasn’t a big deal, though. Butera wasn’t recruited for his size. He just needed to be reminded of that. Initially, Butera began his Chatham career trying to swing for the fences.

“Like they all do,” Schiffner said.



Schiffner didn’t know how many home runs Butera hit at BC — the answer, for those wondering, is six in four seasons — but with aluminum bats, he knew Butera might be able to hit a ball out of the park every once in a while if someone left a pitch up in the zone.

That wasn’t happening with a wooden bat on the Cape, so Butera had to adjust. Schiffner had him shorten his swing to focus on making contact, hitting ground balls into the gaps and using his speed to turn singles into extra base hits.

Statistically, it was far Butera’s best summer — he hit just .196 with a .546 OPS across 34 games that year — but he settled in as the season went on, and finished 2013 with the fifth-most plate appearances on the team.

He returned to Chatham in 2014, and with a summer of experience under his belt, began the season on a hot streak. Butera only got to take 52 at bats, forced to depart Chatham early due to a pulled hamstring, but he hit for a .326 average and an .838 OPS in that span.

“I kind of knew what to expect, and I knew what would help me have success there,” Butera said. “Sometimes, failing a little bit is a good thing, because it teaches you how to deal with some adversity, and I thought the Cape was perfect for that.”

Chin had to learn the same lesson. Butera’s roommate started seven of his nine appearances for the Anglers in 2013, putting up a lackluster 6.46 earned run average in those outings. He had a particularly rough go of it after July 4. His stuff just wasn’t there. He doesn’t know if he had thrown too many innings or if he was tired. All he knew was that he was going through the motions, heading out to the mound and getting smacked around.

During one outing against Wareham, he gave up an absolute rocket to Kyle Schwarber. It was squared up so well, Chin recalls, that it didn’t have enough arc to get over the right-center field fence. To this day, it’s the hardest-hit ball he ever gave up.

“How (Schwarber) is now, he was that same size when we were 20,” Chin said. “He's just an absolute monster. He's like a lumberjack.”

Seven runs later, Chin came out of the game. It was the kind of outing that leaves a pitcher stuck in their head, reconsidering every decision that led them to this very moment. He hated baseball. This sucks, he thought to himself.

For whatever reason, Butera had the night off. He leaned atop the dugout steps when Chin got pulled, observant as always. He liked to stay engaged, often asking strategic questions to Schiffner and the rest of the A’s coaching staff.


“He has a great eye for baseball, which is why he's a manager,” Chin said.

Chin sidled up to Butera, turned to him and, very quietly, began the conversation. He asked Butera for something, any words he had for him. Butera gave him a side-eyed glance, and offered the only piece of advice he could give.

“Chin,” Butera began, “when it rains, it pours.”

Those were the only words they spoke to each other that night. It’s all Chin needed. There was the Nationals’ manager, 12 years before he knew it, giving a player just the right amount of coaching. It’s these kinds of qualities — the professionalism he carries himself with, that ever-present levelheadedness, his preternatural understanding of players’ needs — that had Gambino convinced Butera would eventually coach in the majors.

“Years ago, (Gambino) said, ‘This kid's gonna manage in the big leagues one day,’” Barry Sr. said.

Chin picked up one final start that summer, away at Cotuit’s Lowell Park. It began the same way as his previous outings — he got rocked for three runs to open the game. Chin returned to the dugout, hating his life as he had before, feeling as if he was at the bottom of the world.

But then a switch flipped. Chin returned to the mound the next inning, shut down the Kettleers, and continued to do it for the next three frames. He allowed just two baserunners in that span, and struck out “six or seven” Kettleers. Chatham lost the game, but it was a positive for Chin. It felt like the baseball gods were finally smiling on him. His personal hell was over.

The two drove home after the game. Butera, giving Chin that same side-eyed glance, broke the silence. Chin earned some approval, and this time, his newest coach was ready to give it.

“Eh,” Butera chirped. “Finally letting that backside catch up for once.”

Sitting in the car, Chin let out a light chuckle. Then he offered his response.

“You wait until this time to give me a little bit of encouragement?”