If you’ve been following the Thunderbird Baseball team, a name you will hear constantly is Bruce Yari. But few really know about him.
He is a first baseman and right-fielder who averaged about .400 for the entirety of last season, and with teammate Tyler Enns gained the Gold Gloves defensive award. His walk-up music as he heads to the plate is a rock song from the 70s. He is currently jamming to Pawn Shop, the new Brothers Osborne album. His biggest baseball inspiration is Bryce Harper because he is, “a pretty greedy player” and “ plays the game hard.”
The Waterloo, Ontario native has been playing baseball for as long as he can remember. His father played for the Medicine Hat Blue Jays, one of the Toronto Blue Jays' Single A affiliates, and coaches for Laurier University in Ontario.
“He coached me as a small child growing up, and he’s always been someone that I have always been able to turn to for advice, like with my swing,” said Yari during a phone interview. It was only obvious that Yari would go down that path as well.
"It’s been a sport that I’ve always loved. What I really like about it is that everyone gets their fair chance, you know there’s no running out the clock in it,” said Yari. “You have to play 27 outs on defense, 27 outs on offense, so you’re going to get your chance to win a game.”
Considering that Ontario has a thriving minor baseball scene, it is puzzling to see Yari so far away from home. He played for the Waterloo Tigers as a kid and the Kitcheners Panthers play in the city next to his own. There is also a junior baseball league in the province. But Yari chose to go to UBC for good reasons.
"So I was looking at colleges, it was kind of between UBC and there was a few colleges in the states that I was talking to. But basically I wanted to be able to stay at home in Canada and get an education here versus maybe a smaller school in the states,” said the fourth-year sociology student.
“It’s not really as transferrable, and then with the UBC baseball program, it’s kind of a premier baseball program in Canada, so it’s pretty prestigious actually. It’s kind of what made the decision,” Yari continued. “Academics and athletics for sure."
The program has also grown quite a lot since he arrived. Last winter, UBC unveiled a new training facility with four large batting cages as opposed to their previous centre — a small little bubble that had two really small batting cages. Yari also mentions a baseball stadium that is in the works, to be finished in 2018. In short, the future of the program looks promising.
Obviously, like every other student-athlete playing at such a high level of competition, there are difficulties to be faced. The presence of very good players on the opposing team does not make things easier
"I guess it’s just you’ve got a bunch of talented athletes heading out and when you’re facing the opposition, they’re trying to stop you from doing what you want to do and we're trying to accomplish something,” said Yari. “ So the difficulty is just that there’s a lot of pretty gifted athletes out there and we have to face off against them, we have to put our best up against their best.”
But like every other player, the game is also the most beautiful thing, and Yari is frank about what he enjoys most.
“Honestly the best part of baseball is winning the game. So when that final out is made in the bottom of the ninth and you’re on the winning end, it's a pretty special feeling,” said Yari.