The Windy City ThunderBolts of the Independent Frontier League of Professional Baseball made a managerial change. Following a disappointing season in 2023, General Manager Mike VerSchave looked to find a better fit at manager following ex-Major League veteran Richie Sexson’s decision to step down from the position. The answer is former Chicago White Sox World Series champion Bobby Jenks.
Jenks began his coaching career in 2021 as pitching coach for the Grand Junction Jackalopes of the Independent Pioneer League. He made his managerial debut in 2022 with the Jackalopes and led them to the organization’s first Pioneer Baseball League championship.
Managing in independent baseball is atypical to the traditional responsibilities associated with the title held in Major and Minor League Baseball. Jenks will be tasked to compile a roster of the mandated minimum of 22 players (active rosters max out at 24 in the Frontier League). The now 42-year-old Jenks will also be responsible for roster decisions throughout the season and budget the team’s dedicated player payroll.
“Putting aside his popularity on the South Side of Chicago, in three short years coaching, Bobby has shown to be a great mentor both on and off the field,” said VerSchave, who just completed his 25th season with the organization. “His experience pitching at the highest level in the highest pressure situations will be invaluable in molding our pitching staff. His title run in the Pioneer League shows his ability to put together a competitive team as well as run a fantastic clubhouse that will serve him well in our league. His experiences in life and personal philosophies will help keep things in perspective during the long summer grind that is the Frontier League season.”
Jenks pitched seven years in Major League Baseball, but experienced a nightmarish final season in 2011. He battled injuries throughout, including a bicep strain, colitis and a back issue that required surgery. Before Jenks could take care of his ailing back, he was diagnosed with a pulmonary embolism.
After he was cleared for a procedure to remove spinal bone spurs from his back, it was revealed the on-site surgeon was working concurrent surgeries during his operation. Jenks recalled the experience via The Players’ Tribune:
My surgeon back on the East Coast was supposed to decompress two levels of my spine, and my insurance company had been charged for both elements of the procedure. But now I was being told by this new doctor that only one level had been decompressed, and that the second part of the surgery was never fully completed. To make matters worse, he said that the surgeon in Boston, in using the tool that shaves bone spurs, had left a jagged point, a bony spike, in my body. And that was what had ended up puncturing the membrane around my spinal cord — something called the dural sac — in two different places. The doctor in Arizona told me that while he had been in there doing this new procedure, he’d found a spike that was actually still embedded in my dural sac — that a week earlier I’d been sewn up with this thing still inside me.
Jenks was lucky to be alive, as the “bony spike” pierced his back in two places causing spinal fluid to leak. Following a life-saving procedure, Jenks became addicted to pain killers to the point where he would take “50 or 60 pills a day.” The flame-throwing hurler was forced into retirement in 2013.
Since then, Jenks has been open about battling addiction and overcoming clinical depression. He is now 11 years sober and back in professional baseball.
The ThunderBolts, founded in 1995 and formerly known as the Will County Claws, are a staple in the south suburbs of Chicago. The team settled into its home in Crestwood and debuted in the Frontier League as the Cook County Cheetahs in 1999. They underwent a name change to the Windy City ThunderBolts in 2004.
VerSchave was a part of it all beginning in 1999 as the Cheetahs made its inception in Crestwood. He will embark his sixth season as general manager in 2024. Nobody understands the ThunderBolts, its fan base and its community better than VerSchave, who is looking forward to Jenks’ impact on the organization.
“Of course, it goes without saying that his time with the White Sox makes him a near legend in the Chicago Southland area,” VerSchave told FutureSox. “The vast majority of ThunderBolts fans, me included, consider Bobby a hero during the 2005 World Series run. It is extremely exciting to bring someone like that to Crestwood and we welcome him to the Windy City ThunderBolts organization.”