'Be a buffalo': Brewers Minor League coach back from cancer battle

Joe Ayrault is the sort of Minor League manager who likes to have a laugh, so you can imagine the surprise of Brewers prospects who gathered at Double-A Biloxi last season to hear Ayrault tell the parable of the cow and the buffalo.

When a cow sees a storm coming, it runs in the opposite direction, only to plod along with the rain, he explained. But when a buffalo sees a storm, it charges, and it runs right through to the sunshine on the other side. Ayrault handed each of his players a buffalo nickel and challenged them to face adversity head on.

The manager had no way to know that he would need that message more than anyone else in the room. The coming months brought colon cancer and chemotherapy. Months away from the team. And the sobering moment Ayrault asked an oncologist to tell it straight: What were his chances? Her answer: Fifty-fifty.

Before he left the Shuckers in early June for treatment, Ayrault gathered his players again. They had prepared for this moment. One by one, they approached the manager with the same words of encouragement:

“Time to go be a buffalo.”

Ayrault, 53, has one hit and one World Series ring to show for his Major League playing career, which consisted of seven games with the 1996 Braves. He’s made his mark in the Minors, including eight seasons as a player in Atlanta’s system and 25 more (and counting) as a coach or manager for the Rangers, Reds and Brewers. He’s led a team in the Brewers' system every year since 2010, from Rookie-level Helena to Class-A clubs in Brevard County, Fla., to Zebulon, N.C., to Grand Chute, Wis., to Double-A Biloxi, where Ayrault was promoted for the start of 2024.

Pick your homegrown star over the last decade-plus, and odds are that he played for Ayrault. Orlando Arcia, Corbin Burnes and Devin Williams all did, as well as current Brewers Brandon Woodruff, Freddy Peralta, Aaron Ashby, Brice Turang, Sal Frelick, Abner Uribe and Jackson Chourio.

The players keep Ayrault young, and he felt great going into 2024 from a health perspective. That might explain why he put off getting his colonoscopy until it was too late to schedule one at home in Florida prior to the start of the baseball season. He was instructed instead to submit an at-home colon cancer screening test during Spring Training. Try standing in line at a UPS Store with that under your arm, Ayrault says.

Still, he shipped it off and thought nothing of it until his phone rang in Biloxi. There were some red flags. He underwent a colonoscopy, and doctors found a tumor. By June the diagnosis was confirmed: Stage 3 colorectal cancer.

“It just shocked me,” Ayrault said. “It’s why they call it a ‘silent killer.’”

Because the tumor was located near lymph nodes, surgery was not an option. Ayrault instead had a port installed near his shoulder and faced intensive chemotherapy and radiation at home in Sarasota, Fla. -- six rounds of treatment over 12 weeks, to be followed by another 30 treatments of chemotherapy in pill form. He began to lose his hair.

He did not, however, lose his spirit. One of the oncologists at Sarasota Memorial Hospital had a habit of wearing Hawaiian shirts on Fridays, which seemed a good omen since Ayrault was known to often sport one himself during batting practice -- a tradition that began with former Brewers prospect Keston Hiura. Now Ayrault was wearing Hawaiian shorts to Friday chemo.

Throughout the summer and fall, his phone buzzed with texts and calls. His children, Haley and Kole, and girlfriend, Emma Skinner, ensured his every need was filled. More support came from his longtime friends, the Gennetts. Scooter is the former Brewers second baseman and his dad, Joe, is a former Astros scout who left baseball and took a job with the U.S. Postal Service, where he met Ayrault while delivering his mail. They struck up a friendship and it deepened after Scooter was drafted by the Brewers and Ayrault began calling home to report about Scooter’s progress.

Joe Gennett happens to be a colon cancer survivor himself. He underwent surgery to remove a tumor the size of his fist when Scooter was a senior in high school, and had been urging Ayrault to get his colonoscopy. When Ayrault finally called to explain his diagnosis, he began by saying, “Don’t be mad at me …”

But his friend wasn’t mad.

“It’s scary that way, colon cancer. You don’t know,” Joe Gennett said. “He said, ‘You have every right to say I told you so,’ and I told him, ‘Joe, I would never do that to you.’ This thing can sneak up on you.”

The love extended beyond Southwest Florida. From Nashville, Triple-A hitting coach and cancer survivor Al LeBoeuf counseled Ayrault on what to expect over the coming weeks and months. In Biloxi, players threw up a sign for buffalo horns to celebrate big hits, knowing their manager was watching the broadcast feed from home.

In June, when the Shuckers held their annual “Shuck Cancer” Night soon after Ayrault first left the team, they made sure his locker was stocked with an alternate jersey for the occasion. Players signed it, and the team had it framed and hung it on the wall of the manager’s office for Ayrault’s hopeful return.

And in August, Brewers coaches from the big leagues down to each affiliate wore T-shirts in Biloxi Shuckers blue with Ayrault’s No. 33 under antlers. It was a particularly personal touch. They knew that during meetings, Ayrault, who is an avid hunter, has a habit of doodling deer antlers.

It was all a way to keep Ayrault connected to the organization during what became a memorable summer in Biloxi. When the Shuckers clinched a postseason berth in September, Ayrault was included in the party via FaceTime.

“We kept his story about the buffalo in our head throughout the season,” said utility man Zavier Warren, who has played for Ayrault at Carolina, Wisconsin and Biloxi. “When he started to tell that story, it was a little weird because I’ve never seen him do anything like that anywhere. Then, when he left and we learned how serious it was, it’s like it became his story.”

“I’ve been with him for the last four years and usually he just goes with the flow [in his first team meeting],” said Darrien Miller, a young catcher in big league camp. “This was a real, serious, motivational session. It’s like he almost felt something coming even before it came, like it was a pump-up speech for himself.”

Miller kept the buffalo nickel in his locker all season and regularly texted with Ayrault as the clubhouse began to grasp the seriousness of the manager’s illness. Back in Florida, the Gennetts had Ayrault and Emma up to Scooter’s farm, complete with cattle, chickens, pigs, goats and an emu. And as summer turned to fall, Scooter’s brother-in-law, Andy LaRoche, the former big leaguer who is now a hitting coach in the Royals' system, made a tradition of Sunday football with Ayrault, watching games at a bar or at the house. They asked the Brewers to send some of those blue T-shirts with deer antlers and surprised Ayrault one day.

“He never lost his fun spirit. It was always positive,” said LaRoche. “When he came out to the house and saw us in those T-shirts, it got real emotional.”

Everyone wanted to help.

“I want you to understand that this guy is a legend,” Scooter Gennett said. “When you ask any of his players, the first words out of their mouths is, ‘He’s the best coach I’ve ever had.’ The only time I ever played for him was in Brevard on a rehab assignment with the Brewers, and I’m telling you right now, that was my funnest time playing baseball.”

For Ayrault, the response was overwhelming in the best possible way.

“Before all this, I’d say there were five times in my life where [emotions] really got to me,” Ayrault said. “You have a kid, you get overwhelmed and feel the tears well up from within. Or calling my mom when you get called up to the big leagues. You know, happy tears?

“Now, they come all the time. They’re unlimited.”

Recent scans are exceptionally promising, Ayrault said. He’s given up chewing tobacco and alcohol and mastered the good night’s sleep. The same oncologist who said with a grave face that his odds of survival were 50-50 says his results are “incredible,” Ayrault said, and told him there are no signs of tumors.

Over a group text with the Brewers’ top player development and front office officials during the offseason, Ayrault shared updates about his progress and discussed a plan for 2025. He told them he’d fill any role the organization wanted, from part-time roving coach all the way up to manager. In his heart, he hoped he’d get to stay in a managerial role, and in January, with the approval of his doctors and Brewers brass, Ayrault’s wish was granted.

“I love managing, I love being with the guys,” Ayrault said. “The only word I can say is ‘gratitude.’”

Ayrault was even grateful for the long drive from Sarasota to Phoenix because it gave him time to think and time to call some of the friends who helped keep him focused and optimistic over the past year. During a Brewers staff meeting last week, GM Matt Arnold and manager Pat Murphy gave Ayrault an opportunity to stand and say thanks.

“Those guys all gave me strength and helped me grind through,” Ayrault said. “About a week before coming out, I scrolled back through my phone, looking through texts and writing down names of people to thank. I was just overwhelmed by happiness. I know it can all come back, but right now it’s all gratitude.”

His hair even came back better than ever. Instead of strawberry red, it returned a glorious gray, so thick that it surprised LaRoche the first time he saw it.

Ayrault already knows what this year’s message is going to be on Opening Day in Biloxi. He’s planning a talk about three G's: Growth, grit and, you guessed it, gratitude.

“The type of guy Joe is,” said Scooter Gennett, “the more you’re around him, the more you want to be around him. Thank God that he’s still with us. Thank God he’s healthy and happy. I think that going through this, he really saw the people in his life who care about him. That’s a beautiful thing.”