Jamie Romak, winner of 2020 Tip O’Neill Award as top Canadian baseball player, reunited with family in Korea

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This article was published 30/06/2021 (1602 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It was only when Jamie Romak was buckled in to his seat for the flight home to London, Ont., from South Korea last November that he had a chance to reflect on a wild, overwhelming, and ultimately award-winning, year.

“I couldn’t believe what had just happened,” Romak recalled this week. “It was that sort of feeling.”

Romak left his wife, Kristin, and the couple’s two sons, Nash and Pierce, to travel to Incheon, South Korea last March to begin his fourth season with SK Wyverns, recently rebranded as the SSG Landers, of the Korean Baseball Organization League.

Pierce was just a week old, but the family didn’t expect the separation to be all that long. Being apart is part of the equation for many families living with a professional baseball player. Romak’s family had always joined him for at least a part of his seasons in South Korea.

“At that time I think we were just naive to what could come in the world and we just thought, ‘In a couple months as this passes over, we’ll be reunited,’ ” Romak said.

Romak was of course referring to the global COVID-19 pandemic, which ground the world to a halt shortly after he returned to South Korea. Professional sports leagues, including the KBO, shut down indefinitely as the world grappled with controlling the virus.

Unlike in North America, South Korea returned to relative normalcy within a couple of months. The KBO resumed play in early May, drawing more attention than ever as it became one of the only leagues in action. Still, Romak and his family couldn’t reunite. Obstacle after obstacle got in the way of their hopes, Romak said, and by late July and early August, he realized a reunion in South Korea wasn’t in the cards.

“That was an enormous challenge,” Romak said.

It was a “really, really long haul” for Romak, between the emotional torment of being away from family, playing games without the KBO’s usually electric crowds and the pressure of being an ambassador for the league as it got more global media exposure.

Still, the 35-year-old first baseman shone on the field, batting .282 with 32 home runs in 139 games.

It was enough to earn the London, Ont. native — a one-time minor-league journeyman who was drafted by the Atlanta Braves in 2003 and earned short stints with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2014 and the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2015 — the Tip O’Neill Award.

It’s the annual honour from the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum given to the Canadian judged to have excelled in individual achievement and team contribution while adhering to baseball’s highest ideals.

Romak staved off competition from major-leaguers like Blue Jays’ closer Jordan Romano, Cincinnati Reds’ Joey Votto and Cleveland Indians’ Cal Quantrill, among others, to earn the award for the first time.

“With no (Major League Baseball) season other than those 60 games in 2020, there was an opportunity among the voters to look at things a little bit differently for the first time,” said Jeremy Diamond, chair of the baseball hall and museum’s board of directors.

Romak was working out at Centrefield Sports Inc. at home in London last December when he learned he won the award.

It was particularly touching given everything he and his family went through off the field in 2020.

“At times when you’re over here you feel a little like a forgotten man but in this case the fact that it was recognizing what I was able to do, it really means a lot,” Romak said.

The Tip O’Neill Award is usually presented at the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in St. Marys, Ont., the third weekend of June. The ceremony was postponed this year because of the pandemic, but Diamond felt Romak deserve a celebration bigger than an award presentation over a video call. The hall reached out to the Canadian consulate in Seoul.

On Thursday, Canada Day, Michael Danagher, the Canadian ambassador to Korea, will present Romak with the award, prior to his team’s game against the Samsung Lions at SSG Landers Field in Incheon.

Romak didn’t know much about the ceremony on a call earlier this week from South Korea, but he knew he would be thinking of the many people who helped his career along the way.

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“My teammates are good friends and we’ve been through a lot together,” Romak said. “It certainly feels like a family environment. They were great with me last year, they really were. They knew I was struggling mentally and emotionally away from the field and all that. So it did make it easier to have some people to fall back on.”

Most importantly, Romak’s wife and sons, who were able to join him in South Korea this season, will be there. Romak doesn’t want his story to come off as a sob story; he knows they are lucky. But it was tough all the same. His sons are too young tor emember his months-long absence and hold it against him, but Romak does.

It will make their presence all the sweeter at Thursday’s award ceremony, Romak said.

“It makes it all worth it, for sure, to have them with me.” 　　

Laura Armstrong is a Star sports reporter based in Toronto. Follow her on Twitter: @lauraarmy