Jason Wheeler receives a hug from manager Doug Mientkiewicz after the final out that clinched the Southern League Championship.
photo by Tim Evearitt
Jason Wheeler, who won Game 2 on the road, finished off Biloxi with four innings out of the bullpen as Double-A Chattanooga took the Southern League Championship Series with a 4-0 victory in Game 5 in Chattanooga. The Twins' No. 25 prospect was named the Most Valuable Player after limiting the Shuckers to a run on four hits over 11 innings in two finals appearances.
Wheeler had never made a relief appearance before in the Minor Leagues, but there he was being mobbed on the mound as the Chattanooga Lookouts began the celebration of their first Southern League title since 1988.
"Teammates for Life" appears in the November 27, 2015 edition of the New York Times. It is a beautiful story of how Wheeler met, and married, Madelyn (Maddie) Walters on November 6th.
"Then one day that summer, during a family get-together that included Ms. Butler, she noticed the couple’s body language and turned to Ms. Walters’s mother, Dr. Kimberely Mead-Walters, and Mr. Wheeler’s mother, Heather Wheeler (who had flown in from California), and asked “O.K., what’s going on between Jason and Maddie?”
“All the time that Jason and I spend apart is not really frustrating to us, because we both have goals that we are trying to achieve,” she said. “We are teammates who are going to do whatever we can to help each other achieve those goals and ultimately succeed.”
“We are dreaming the dream together,” she added.
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Wheeler shows off his Most Valuable Player Award.
photo by Tim Evearitt