*This article was originally published on Saskatchewan Dugout Stories on February 7. You can read it here.

February 11, 2025

By Ian Wilson

Saskatchewan Dugout Stories

John Axford was money on the mound.

And it was a summer in Saskatchewan that made him a millionaire, in more ways than one.

The pride of Port Dover, Ontario caught the attention of the Seattle Mariners when he pitched for the Canadian Junior National Team and Brantford’s Assumption College. The M’s selected him in the seventh round of the 2001 Major League Baseball (MLB) Draft, but instead of turning pro, Axford pursued a scholarship at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.

The righthander pitched well for the Fighting Irish – going 14-5 with 133 strikeouts over 141 2/3 innings in his freshman and sophomore years, working mostly as a starter – until an injury led to Tommy John surgery in the fall of 2003. The setback caused Axford to miss all of 2004 and most of his junior year with the NCAA Division 1 team in 2005.

Undaunted, he transferred to Canisius College for his senior year, a move that would prove critical to his future in baseball.

“It was a rough go of it,” Axford admitted to Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Tom Haudricourt during a 2010 interview.

“We weren’t very good. Two years before I got there, they won only four games. The year before I got there, they won only nine. The year I was there, we won 18 games. I didn’t have a very good year. I had just as many walks as strikeouts. I was up and down because I was still trying to figure out my arm slot.”

That summer, Axford looked to add to the 70 innings he threw for the Golden Griffins by signing on with the Melville Millionaires of the Western Major Baseball League (WMBL), the circuit that later became the Western Canadian Baseball League (WCBL).

By this point of 2006, Axford was regaining the form he had in his early years at Notre Dame and pitching at the top of his game.

During the WMBL regular season, the 6-foot-5 hill topper registered a 2.27 earned run average (ERA) and 66 strikeouts over 35 2/3 innings. He also limited opposing hitters to a .139 batting average and just 25 walks. His standout performances included a 19-strikeout effort against the Weyburn Beavers and a 17 K outing during a seven-inning game. The 19 strikeouts established a league record for most Ks in a single game.

In the WMBL playoffs, Axford continued to persevere and often dominate his WMBL competition. He won the opener of the East Division semifinal, a 13-8 Melville victory over the Regina Red Sox, even though he issued 12 walks. His final start in the best-of-five series was a 4-1 loss, but Axford went eight innings, and allowed two runs on seven hits while striking out 14 batters.

“You’ve just got to keep plugging away. These games just end up that way sometimes and there’s nothing you can do about it,” he told the Regina Leader-Post newspaper following the Game 5 loss.

PINSTRIPED PURSUIT

Axford’s strong play was noticed by Mike Havelis, a friend from Canisius College who was interning at International Management Group (IMG), a global sports, fashion and media company.

“He wondered what I was doing,” Axford told the Brantford Expositor newspaper in August of 2006.

“He thought I should be elsewhere so he called all the major league teams.”

The Pittsburgh Pirates, New York Mets and New York Yankees showed interest. The Yankees granted him a tryout with their Single-A club in Staten Island and from there he was sent to their spring training complex in Tampa, Florida for further assessment.

“What I didn’t know was that I was going to throw to hitters, which made me a little nervous,” confessed Axford to Expositor reporter Brian Smiley.

“The first pitch to the first batter was 93 or 94 miles per hour, and right at his head.”

The next 30 pitches were more controlled and the Yankees liked what they saw, enough to sign him to a professional contract.

Axford suited up for four different minor-league teams with the Yankees in 2007, moving from Staten Island to Charleston to Tampa to the Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees.

Despite showing promise that year, Axford was cut by the Yankees in December.

SOMETHING BREWING

Havelis worked the phones again in 2008 and convinced Jay Lapp, an amateur scout with the Milwaukee Brewers, to attend an Axford bullpen session in the Toronto area. The event was supposed to be witnessed by a handful of scouts but only Lapp made the drive across snow-covered roads.

“He’s the one who actually came,” Axford recalled.

“If it wasn’t for that, all the other things that came after, I don’t know if they’d be there.”

What came after that checkpoint was a minor-league contract with the Brewers and another shot at chasing his dream of playing in the majors.

By 2009, “Ax Man” worked his way through the minors and made his MLB debut in mid-September. He appeared in seven games that season and picked up his first save. As it turned out, it was the first of many saves for the Brewers.

Baseball America named Axford to their 2010 All-Rookie team after he collected 24 saves in 27 attempts.

The following season was even better. Axford led the National League (NL) with 46 saves – a single-season record for the Brewers – and claimed several awards, including NL Rolaids Relief Man of the Year, given to the top closer in the league, and the Tip O’Neill Award, which he shared with Joey Votto as the best Canadian player in baseball. In addition, he picked up votes for the NL Cy Young and MVP awards.

Perhaps his most impressive achievement came when Axford claimed the 2011 Robert Goulet Memorial Mustached American of the Year honours from the American Mustache Institute.

“Being with the Brewers, people saw the handlebar mustache, and it immediately brought Rollie Fingers into people’s minds. I wasn’t trying to be like Rollie Fingers by any means, and I’ve mixed it up many times since. I don’t want people to think I’m trying to do what he did here,” said Axford.

The popular pitcher closed out another 35 games for the Brew Crew in 2012, before being dealt to the St. Louis Cardinals in 2013.

Axford continued pitching in the majors – suiting up for a total of eight different teams over 11 MLB seasons – and bounced back from a number of different injuries.

When he worked his way back to the Brewers in 2021, Axford suffered a gut-wrenching injury after pitching just one-third of an inning for Milwaukee. It seemed to signal the end of his playing career, but a conversation with baseball personality Bob Uecker helped change his mind.

“He was still a player at heart. Every day. He loved the game and the players in it. When he spoke to you on this level he was your teammate. His emotion, passion, and words that day resonated with me more than anyone or anything else. It led me to surgery and an 18 month journey just to get out there and pitch one last time,” wrote Axford on social media after Uecker passed away in January of 2025.

“Bob was an absolute treasure to the game. I’m so grateful for that conversation in 2021. I’m grateful for the time I got to spend with him in my playing career. Even when I wasn’t playing for Milwaukee he would take the time to catch up on the field before games. I feel lucky to have had such a legendary voice call so many of my moments on the mound. Hearing him say ‘heeee struck him out!’ in those late innings to end a close game felt exhilarating. His excitement during those calls always made me feel larger than life on the mound when I heard them after.”

Axford did make one final comeback to represent Canada at the 2023 World Baseball Classic.

Despite all his travels through the minors and the big leagues, Milwaukee will always hold a special place in his heart. The admiration is mutual, as the Brewers recently announced that Axford has been selected to join the club’s Wall of Honor, which recognizes players, coaches, executives and broadcasters who have made significant contributions to the organization.

Another meaningful stop in his journey occurred in Saskatchewan, and he’ll return to the province on March 15, 2025 for a sports dinner that’s being hosted by the Weyburn Beavers of the Western Canadian Baseball League.

Axford – who registered 144 saves and 589 strikeouts over 525-plus innings and 544 MLB games – will be joined at the event by Blue Jays Central host Jamie Campbell, who attended several WCBL games in Alberta last summer.

Axford gained the respect of baseball fans in Milwaukee, and he also earned over $25 million during his playing career, but he was a Millionaire first in Melville.