Jon Lester has been a world class pitcher for more than half a decade, his consistent pitching prowess landing him the opening start between the Cleveland Indians and the Chicago Cubs. The first game of the World Series didn’t go Lester’s way, yet if you know the man and his “never-give-up spirit,” you can bet his next trip to the bump will have a different ending. I had the pleasure to hunt with the then Boston Red Sox ace back in 2010 and captured the excitement, adventure, and character of this incredible athlete.
At age 26, this talented Red Sox Southpaw had won a World Series Game, pitched a no-hitter, and beaten the toughest opponent of all(cancer). Hurling in Boston on a thirty million dollar contract, you might think he’s all about the big city…yet he’s a country boy at heart.
As an avid Boston Red Sox fan, Ken Byers was delighted to meet Jon Lester and show him the ropes of hunting whitetail deer in South Dakota. As a Pro-Staff member for Mossy Oak Camouflage Lester was comfortable in the outdoors, but was he a hunter? Could he handle hunting in the open plains where shots were long and deer often on the run?
Byers conducts an annual hunting camp in central South Dakota and welcomed Lester to his cozy but comfortable four-bed hunting cabin. The first night in camp was a get-to-know session where Byers learned that Lester was more than just an extremely proficient athlete. He loved the outdoors as well. Born in Washington State, Lester played a variety of sports growing up- soccer, basketball, baseball until high school, football his freshman and beginning of the sophomore year, then basketball, and mainly baseball from there on. “I was always outside doing something,” Lester said casually. “I love being outside and not being indoors. I never liked video games or things like that so sports kept me out of trouble and my parents probably sane from me.”
Lester joined the Boston Red Sox Organization right out of high school. He was drafted, worked out a signing bonus and went to The Gulf Coast League for about two weeks, followed by a three week stint in the Instructional League. “That was my first taste of pro ball and playing every day,” Lester said. “It was more like spring training getting up early and doing the drills and the repetition.” The following year he came into spring training and surprised people physically and development wise and got to start out in Class A ball. Entry level pitchers didn’t get much developmental training, especially those just out of high school.
“I got paired up with a kid from Augusta Georgia and that’s where my interest in hunting started,” he said. “My roommate and I hit it off and he ended up being the best man at my wedding. He got me involved in the outdoors during the off-season and I’d spend a week at his place and go hunting. He was the one who got me enjoying it.”
Lester grew up in a fishing family. His parents hunted when they were younger and really enjoyed upland birds, but never got into elk, deer, or other big game. “My dad is a cop so I have been around guns my whole life,” he said. “With our schedule in baseball, fishing isn’t in season when I got home. Hunting fit my schedule a lot better and is similar to hunting. That is, it’s a lot more time on the river than catching or harvesting anything, a good fit for me.”
First Day Afield
The smell of wood smoke lightly scented the cabin as Byers fired up a wood-burning stove well before dawn of the first full day of the hunt. The sizzle of bacon, the subtle flip of pancakes and the aroma of perking coffee offer a calming affect for anxious hunters. The whitetail rut was in full swing and Byers and Lester planned to spend lots of time glassing from ridges and other high places to spot moving deer.
Leaving the cabin at dawn, they saw a flock of Merriam’s turkeys pitching from the roost and excitement built about the coming adventure. Lester wasn’t new to deer hunting, yet his experiences were mainly in Georgia, hunting from tree stands. Ironically, on the prairie, you could look a mile and not see a tree.
Since this was a Major League athlete, Byers wanted a major league deer for his new friend. As the morning progressed, the duo saw numerous bucks, often with does, yet no animals more than 2.5 years old. Mule deer lived in the open plains while whitetails thrived in the dense creek bottoms and Byers and Lester sneaked and glassed, hoping to catch a monster buck tending a doe.
With no action until noon, the duo took a breather and Byers asked Lester about his professional career. “I got drafted as the 57th overall pick in the 2002 draft which was the first pick for the Red Sox,” Lester said. “I made my Major League debut in 2006, but was diagnosed with Lymphoma at the end of the year. I came back to spring training in February of 2007, ready to go and got put on a rehab assignment in Greenville with a Class A team where I met my future wife. I had some ups and downs that year but was called up in the middle of July, won a world series that year and the rest is history,” he said modestly.
Byers, a very spiritual man, asked Lester his approach to beating cancer.
“I tried to stay normal,” he said somberly. “I went fishing and did a little bit of hunting for ducks. The biggest thing was to do the fishing and hunting and staying outdoors and working out and trying to treat it as a normal off-season as best I could. I think that kept me from sitting in a bed feeling sorry for myself and saying, ‘Why me?’ Am I getting better? Am I not? I feel like crap, today. It was a struggle, but getting out on that river, going hunting kind of relaxes your mind and everything gets better from there.”
Switching to a more positive note, Byers asked about the World Series, every kid’s dream. “Actually I wasn’t supposed to start in the playoffs that year,” Lester said with an upbeat attitude. “I was a young guy coming in and they had three or four guys that were their guys. The first round, I was fortunate enough to make the playoff roster. I didn’t pitch because we swept the Angels in three games. Next we went onto Cleveland where once again I made the playoff roster as the long man out of the bull pen. It was a tough job because if you are pitching, it’s not a good situation; you are in the game in the third or fourth inning where the starter couldn’t make it, got hurt or whatever. It’s one of those deals that you want to pitch but if you don’t it’s a good thing. So I got into an extra inning game, my first playoff experience, and didn’t do too well. In Cleveland, Wakefield didn’t pitch too well, but I went in there and threw well and after that, Wakefield’s shoulder hurt him and they slid me into that fourth game in the World Series. We were fortune enough to get off to a good start. It was nice that we had such a strong pitching staff. That took a lot of pressure off. I felt if something doesn’t go right tonight, I had such strong arms on our team that we should win this. It ended by us winning that game 3-2.”
Tomorrow, check out part two of this South Dakota adventure for success on deer and wild turkey.
