Major League Baseball rooting interests in Hamilton are mainly divided between the Phillies, Mets and Yankees. Hamiltonians, however, may want to adopt the Pirates as their second favorite team, or even favorite team 1A.
Within the Buccos minor league system are two brothers who grew up in the township. Jonathan Johnston is now the Pirates minor league hitting development coordinator, while Shawn Johnston is assistant director of coaching and player development. Their father, Tinker Johnston, is a former Hamilton West football and baseball standout and long-time coach/manager for Broad Street Park Post 313.
The Pirates’ situation is a pleasant surprise for the family.
“I went all my life trying to play ball and as a dad you’re telling them ‘You gotta work, you aren’t gonna do anything with baseball,’ and you’re trying to get them to grow up with that mentality,” Tinker said. “Seeing these guys doing exactly what they love and getting paid for it, we couldn’t be happier or prouder of them.”
The added bonus of working in the same organization was not exactly the game plan.
“Definitely not,” Jonathan said with a laugh. “It’s certainly a special thing to be able to work with your brother. Not every combination of brothers is the same, but our family is very tight and has very good relationships. Shawn is really good at his job. He’s really good at everything he does. Being able to work with him and see him every day is a blessing.”
Shawn added that “It’s definitely a blessing and not something that you can really draw up or expect. Our paths just kind of merged within coaching and me getting involved with the Pirates. It’s definitely a cool experience to be able to work toward something with him and the rest of the group here.”
At 37, Shawn is three years younger than Jonathan. Their lives have had similar tracks in some respects. Both are Florida residents and fathers of young children. Both played baseball for Sunnybrae Little League, Hamilton Babe Ruth, BSP Post 313 and the Peddie School. Both played in college — Jonathan at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, and Shawn with Union College in New York. Both joined the Navy and reached the rank of lieutenant.
From there, they each temporarily veered into separate directions before landing with the Pirates. While on a ship during one of his three deployments, Jonathan was drafted by the A’s (an organization in which Hamilton product Chris Pittaro is an assistant to the general manager). Oakland was impressed after watching him play for the Naval team in San Diego.
He gained a release from the ship and began playing in their farm system on Memorial Day 2008. When a feature appeared on Johnston serving two uniforms, a higher up in the Navy saw the story and wasn’t happy. By Fathers Day, Jonathan was back at sea.
Once his hitch was up, he tried playing again, but “I think the days passed me by by then. I really enjoyed baseball. And I decided to get into coaching right after that,” he said.
He coached college ball at UC San Diego and UNC Asheville with the goal of becoming a head coach. While that was transpiring, Shawn earned a law school degree and passed the New York bar to become a lawyer. But during school he still had a yearning for baseball over barrister work and, through connections Jonathan had with Pittsburgh, Shawn gained an internship the summer of 2016 at Pirate City in Bradenton.
He returned to school, then interned for baseball operations in Pittsburgh in 2017. A year later, he graduated and became a permanent fixture for the Pirates; getting fully into Player Development in 2019.
Soon after, the club was looking for minor league managers and remembered Jonathan — “Probably because another Johnston was right in front of them there,” he said — and reached out.
Unable to get a head job in college, Jonathan accepted the position of manager for Single A Bradenton and guided the Marauders to a league championship his first year. After three seasons, Jonathan was promoted to his current position.
“It’s definitely a big jump in responsibility,” he said. “It’s an opportunity to work with a good group of hitting coaches and lead a department. It’s exciting as far as the scope of the job and the impact that we can have on the organization.”
He feels being a manager helped prepare him for the role of overseeing hitting development.
“I learned a lot about how professional baseball works and how we do things to help players develop,” Jonathan said. “It was a little bit of a smaller scale running the Bradenton affiliate, and all the ins and outs of that have given me a lot of experience I can take to a larger scale now.”
Jonhnston will not be a hands-on hitting instructor. His duties are to oversee the development of the organizational offensive philosophy and the implementation of the Pirates development philosophy and programs.
“I’m in charge of giving the hitting coaches and coaches on the ground the support they need to help our players move forward and develop in our system and ultimately to help our team win in Pittsburgh,” Jonathan said. “I’m also part of our leadership development program. We have several tracts for coaches, one of them is leadership.”
He feels the leadership responsibility is a result of his naval experience.
“I always gravitated towards going into the Naval Academy because I enjoy leading teams,” Jonathan said. “That’s probably my greatest passion aside from baseball. It’s good to know I’m doing something that gets people to be confident in my ability.”
Shawn, who served as a surface warfare officer during his six-year Navy hitch, gained the Pirates’ confidence pretty quickly. After his internships, he became coordinator of project management. Last year, he gained his current position of assisting coaching and player development.
In his previous position, Johnston worked on initiatives to improve the minor league system’s infrastructure and technology. He was also involved in advancements made to support the staff and players. That job morphed into his latest duties, as he has been given more formal budget responsibilities and has instituted the coaching development program.
“It’s a program we put all our uniformed staff through to try and continue to grow them,” Shawn said. “It’s a big project. Ultimately it comes down to aligning with the major leagues and the philosophies that are being implemented at that level; and then working to systematize it specifically with the coaching development program.”
And just how does one “coach” the coaching staff? They start by asking coaches to focus on five areas of training every day. “We put them through courses on leadership, tactical baseball, a mental performance course, a data and information center course and a transformational coaching course, which is rooted toward understanding the most effective coaching techniques in the industry. We also put a lot of resources into developing their understanding of skill acquisition and motor learning, which has become pretty prevalent in the sports industry the past couple years,” Shawn said.
Like his brother, Shawn draws from his Navy experience.
“More than I even realize,” he said. “You get put into situations really early as a young officer where you don’t necessarily know everything, you need to trust your people and communicate well with them in order to get a good decision. A lot of jobs end up being success or failure and it’s determined by your ability to do that effectively.”
The Johnstons hope to be effective enough to provide the long-struggling Pirates with good young players. As a small market franchise, Pittsburgh has been reluctant to sign big name free agents, which means it depends on bringing up homegrown talent. Improvement was evident last year as the Bucs went from 62 to 76 wins, and their minor league system is ranked 12th in MLB.
“We talk all the time that the way to get to where we want to be is through improving our own players,” Shawn said. “So that puts a lot of onus on creating a development system that is capable of doing that. It’s a great organization to work in if you have a passion for getting players better.”
Jonathan has similar thoughts, saying that, “Our organization is very supportive of our development and leans on our ability to develop players greatly. They’ve poured a lot into us as a player development system. We definitely feel connected to the goal that they have.”
Neither Shawn nor Jonathan has long-range plans of getting to the big club. That’s not to say they don’t want to, but both brothers insist that their sole focus is to do the best job possible in the positions that they have, and everything else will take care of itself.
As for Tinker, he’s doing what he can to bring Pirate fever to Hamilton.
“You’d be surprised,” he said. “Naturally I get Pirates stuff and I’m wearing sweatshirts and T-shirts, and a lot of people will stop me and say “Hey, the Pirates, that’s my team!”
With his sons doing their best to bring Pittsburgh a winner, perhaps more township residents — and even Steel City residents — will be proud to call the Pirates their team.
Shawn and Jonathan Johnston with dad Tinker Johnston in Bradenton, Florida.,
