St. Paul – Anthony Prato isn’t going to be playing card games in the clubhouse for a long time. Last Monday, the Minnesota Twins traded Prato’s longtime partner in games, Randy Dobnak, along with Chris Paddack, to the Detroit Tigers.
The move caused shellshock in the Saints’ clubhouse. No one had been with the team longer than Dobnak. He had been there since the team became a Triple-A affiliate in 2021, pitching at least four games every season.
His former Saints teammates still went out to dinner with him as planned when they arrived in Toledo on Monday, July 28. However, the dinner didn’t have the vibes they were expecting and hopeful for, and they didn’t go overboard mourning the last dinner with Dobnak.
“The dinner, it was just cool to see him again, but it was weird knowing he was going to be on the other side,” said Prato. “I mean, I’ve been with the Twins since 2019, and Randy is by far the best teammate and one of the best people I’ve ever met. I’m really going to miss him.”
“He was such a great guy,” said catcher Patrick Winkel, who also attended dinner with Dobnak. “One, he was a great pitcher, but two, he was a great guy in the clubhouse, whether he was pitching well or not pitching well. He always had a great attitude; he was always joking around with guys and making the game fun, right? So that was one that hurts to lose.”
Dobnak left the Saints as the all-time leader in nearly every pitching category, and they look to stand for a long time. 88 games pitched, 74 starts, 358 ⅓ innings, 323 strikeouts, 185 walks, 380 hits allowed, and a 5.04 ERA. The ERA will be a stat line beaten out by many pitchers at some point, but it will take a long while before another pitcher sees as much time at Triple-A as Dobnak had with the Saints these last five years.
Dobnak is a significant loss in the Saints’ clubhouse and for the community. His teammates noticed how frequently he and his wife, Ariel, committed their time to charity work in the community, most notably with St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital. He also had some of the most energetic interactions with fans and Saints employees alike, living up to the title of being the face of the franchise in the Triple-A era.
“I mean, Randy’s been here forever,” Saints manager Toby Gardenhire said. “He’s been here the entire time I’ve been here, basically. I’ve been with that guy since 2018, so seeing him leave is tough. He’s a really good guy, a really good friend, and I’ll always think the world of him. But that’s just the way baseball goes sometimes.”
“Everyone cheers the loudest when Randy goes out to pitch because he’s been here and they love him,” Winkel said. “So it’s definitely a tough one to lose, but on the other hand, it was fun to prepare to hit against him at the same time.”
As the mood was still cheery yet strange after seeing Dobank in the opposite dugout during the road trip in Toledo. Everyone’s competitive side came out on Sunday, though, when Dobnak made his first start in a Mud Hens uniform against his former teammates.
The batters in the lineup that day described it as the weirdest hitters’ meeting of the season. They had become used to Dobnak hopping into their meetings to throw in a joke or two throughout the season. Now they were instead preparing to hit off the jokester and end their road trip with a victory against him.
“Going in there for the hitters meeting and having to do the opposite of what I normally do when I’m preparing to catch him, but now I’m preparing to hit off him,” said Winkel. “Just joking around a little bit with the hitters and coaches, talking about his stuff and stuff like that. But it was cool. It was weird to look out at the field and see him on the mound when you’re in the box.”
“I’m sad he’s gone, but he threw well against us the other day,” Prato said, “so I was happy to see that even though we lost.”
Dobnak threw four innings of one-run ball, allowing just three hits and two walks against his old teammates while striking out seven. Between innings, he’d hear chirping trash talk from his old manager and teammates that was all in good fun.
Before Dobnak was traded, the Saints had put him on the Wall of Fame within their clubhouse that features the likes of former Indy Ball legends such as Kevin Millar, Darryl Strawberry, and Pat Borders, to name a few. Chris Williams was the first Saint from their Triple-A days to join the ranks. However, with Dobnak turning 30 in the off-season and being in his fifth season in St. Paul, the guys wanted to have some fun poking at his age.
Now with him gone, Prato will have to wait a long while to pick up a deck and get some pre-game card games in. The Saints will play the Mud Hens once more at the end of August; there’s an outside chance that the two teams could get another game in then and break the tie they currently have with each other.
“We’ve played 280 games this year and we tied 140-140,” Prato said, “so I think we’ll probably play one more game whenever we see each other again, and that’ll probably be it.”