MLB pitcher who made mid-season trips to visit son in Utah hospital shares message in new book

SALT LAKE CITY — It was after midnight and Jay Jackson was in his hotel room trying to get a little rest before an early morning flight when he received a frantic call from the family of his fiancee, Samantha Bautista.

Bautista had gone into labor a few months prematurely thousands of miles away in Utah, while his flight from western New York to Chicago would take him back to the big leagues. The Toronto Blue Jays needed his arm for a doubleheader against the White Sox.

Sometime during the ensuing chaotic sequence, medical professionals assured Jackson that Bautista would be fine and nudged him to pitch that day in July 2023 because there was little he could do with how quick the delivery was going.

He tossed 1⅓ perfect innings and picked up his first win as a Blue Jay before meandering through flight cancellations in a race out to Utah to be with Bautista and their son, JR.

JR — short for Jay Ricardo — was born at Ogden Regional Medical Center before he was flown to the University of Utah Health neonatal intensive care unit in Salt Lake City. He’d remain there for months, while Jackson came up with a difficult routine to balance baseball with time for his newborn son — traveling to Utah every off day so he could use off days with his family at the hospital.

The experience tested a mindset he had adopted over a decade ago, but — over a year later — he says it along with Bautista, their families, faith and the game of baseball carried him through the tough time.

“I was just trusting that everything was going to be OK,” he told KSL.com, reflecting on everything.

Jackson is now chronicling lessons from his life and career as a baseball journeyman in the book “9 Innings to Living Your Best Life,” which is not an autobiography or a baseball book despite its name. Instead, he focuses on the positive mentality he adopted that he credits for helping him through challenges in his life and career.

The book is now available online, but the journeyman reliever also plans to host a couple of in-person events in Utah.

A major league turnaround

Jackson’s road to Major League Baseball wasn’t easy. The Chicago Cubs selected the Furman University product and South Carolina native in the ninth round of the 2008 MLB Draft and he floated around a few organizations before cracking the big leagues with San Diego in 2015 — one of a just few from his round to ever play a major league game.

He adopted a new mindset to adjust to initial setbacks along the way, which he calls “S.M.I.L.E” today: Start Making Intentional Life Efforts. He chose to embrace the journey rather than lament its challenges, even signing winter ball deals to play in Mexico during the typical offseason so he could keep improving. His MLB debut came a few years into embracing this mantra.

“I think my career turned around when I started being more positive and enjoying the game of baseball,” he said. “When you do something you want to do, it’s work but it’s not work because you’re enjoying it.”

Yet, despite making the majors in 2015, his best offer that offseason came from a club in Japan. He played three seasons abroad before returning to America, bouncing around a few more teams in and out of the MLB system afterward.

For love of the game

Jackson was pitching for Milwaukee in 2019 when he first met Bautista, who had done some traveling herself. Her family had moved to Utah when she was a teenager after her father was stationed at Hill Air Force Base. She graduated from Ben Lomond High and then Weber State.

But, by 2019, she was living in Arizona, splitting custody of her children with her ex-husband in Utah. One night, looking to cheer herself up after her children left for the rest of the summer, she and a friend went to an Arizona Diamondbacks game, snatching seats near the visitor’s bullpen.

It just happened that the Brewers were the away team. The two locked eyes at some point during the game, and Jackson eventually tossed her a ball with a small puzzle on it — giving her his phone number if she solved it. Bautista jokes that she completed it for the sake of getting the puzzle right and ignored him for a bit afterward, but the two became friends that night.

They also fell in and out of touch during the COVID-19 pandemic and other life moments. It wasn’t until two years later that they would truly cross paths again.

Bautista was going through a difficult time when Jackson reached out and invited her to a game in Las Vegas. He was rehabbing with Triple-A Sacramento at that point, and they spent time talking. That continued when he was called up to the San Francisco Giants — her favorite team.

The friendship blossomed into something more, and they became inseparable by the end of the year.

“The universe collided … and I got to reconnect with her,” Jackson said.

The toughest test

Flash forward to July 2023. The two were now engaged and planning to start a family together. Jackson’s journey had now taken him to the Blue Jays organization, and Bautista remained in Utah to be closer to family and doctors while she was pregnant with JR.

She made some trips east to be with him when she could, but she also started experiencing complications with the pregnancy. Then, in July, she was admitted into an emergency room while back in Ogden.

Jackson was on a road trip with the Buffalo Bisons when everything unfolded. After getting assurance from doctors, Jackson said he agreed to pitch in Chicago knowing his fiancee and son were “in good hands.”

Bautista still has mixed feelings about how everything played out, largely because she remembers not knowing if JR would make it through delivery or by the time Jackson made it to Utah. She still thinks of it as the longest day of her life, struggling to sleep out of fear that something bad would happen if she wasn’t alert.

That unsettling feeling disappeared the moment her fiance walked in.

“It was like someone was here to help — I’m not here by myself,” she said. “We’re not fearful by ourselves; we’re going to get through this.”

That was just the first day, though. Both of them recall the next few weeks and months being frenetic and exhausting, and they didn’t know what to expect while their son spent time in the NICU.

MLB doesn’t offer that much time for players on the paternity list before players risk paychecks and other benefits. So once the break ended, Bautista held down the fort with her children at home while Jackson coordinated with Blue Jays staff as much as possible to find ways to travel to Utah when the team had a day off.

The schedule played some favors, including West Coast swings where he could break off from his teammates for a day and then meet them at their next location.

The team optioned him to Buffalo at times for roster logistics, but that also gave him extra days in Utah. Sometimes it was easier flying out of there anyway. Other times, he’d have a car ready to pick him up immediately after a game so he could make his next flight back.

“Luckily, from Salt Lake to Toronto, I think there were like three (options) and they were right after the games sometimes,” he said. “I did everything I could to make sure I was (there).”

Bautista called it the “weirdest baseball season” with everything happening off and on the field. They made decisions every day that they knew could “make or break” JR’s life. It also ended up being Jackson’s best MLB season statistically.

Jackson said he was only able to focus on baseball during the season half of the year because he trusted JR’s medical staff, Bautista and her family when he was away. He also found it to be one of the few times he could clear his mind from everything, finding the joy in the game that kept him going during uncertainty a decade prior.

Turning lessons into writing

JR, now almost 1½ years old, is doing much better today. This week marks one year since he left the hospital, and he’s crawling on the floor of the Ogden home the family is staying at as Jackson shares the experience. He still has a few tubes, but the family is optimistic they’ll be removed soon. He also started learning how to hand out high-fives and he’s getting close to taking his first steps.

His parents are quick to acknowledge their appreciation for his NICU doctors and nurses every time they talk about his progress.

“He’s on a great path,” Jackson said.

Meanwhile, Jackson started writing a book after the 2023 season ended. He had floated around the idea for some time, but he said he hadn’t gained the courage to follow through on it until he mentioned it to YouTube influencer and speaker Matt Sapaula.

Working between a partial season with the Minnesota Twins, he finally got it through final edits a few weeks ago in time to have a hard copy book release party in his South Carolina hometown earlier this month.

Rather than focusing on his baseball journey, he wanted “9 Innings to Living Your Best Life” to learn more about his experiences embracing S.M.I.L.E., positivity and going through adversity — something he’s all too familiar with. It’s scattered out in “innings” instead of chapters, keeping some baseball themes.

Jackson is set to hold another party at the Edison House (335 S. 200 West in Salt Lake City) on Friday. It will be a limited affair open to people 21 and up; Bautista said anyone interested should message her online in advance to get in or contact the venue in advance. Jackson is also planning to hold a second event somewhere in Utah open to all ages.

Looking back on his career, even he’s surprised by where his journey led him. It’s a blessing that he chalks up to embracing its highs and lows, but he believes that feeling translates to other professions and can also be applied to other aspects of life. He adds he hopes it can guide people through tough challenges like he and his fiancee faced last year, too.

“I feel like it’s a way to change negatives into positives,” he said. “It’s just a guide to being positive, enjoying your life and being better at what you can do and what you can control. … Happiness has a snowball effect.”