![Retired Blissfield baseball coach Larry Tuttle coaches third base during the June. 26 Lenawee County All-Star Game.](/sites/default/files/2023-06/230629_Tuttle_2H.png)
Baseball Remains Front of Tuttle's Mind, Close to Retired Coach's Heart
By
Doug Donnelly
Special for MHSAA.com
June 29, 2023
BLISSFIELD – Larry Tuttle jogged out of Tuttle Dugout onto the artificial turf at Adrian College and took his spot in the third base coach’s box, looked in at the batter as he approached the plate and clapped his hands.
It’s like he never left.
For more than 50 years, Tuttle occupied the third base coach’s box for the Blissfield Royals. He is the winningest high school baseball coach in Michigan history and one of the winningest prep baseball coaches in America. It’s been two years since Tuttle last coached the Royals, but when the Lenawee County All-Star Game came around this year, and Onsted coach Matthew Randall was named a head coach of one of the teams, one of his first calls was to Tuttle.
“To see him coach third base again for two innings of that all-star game was nothing short of amazing,” Randall said. “I love that man and everything he has taught me.”
Tuttle and Randall faced off about 40 times over the years.
“There’s a lot of respect between us,” Tuttle said. “I was happy to do it.”
Tuttle, 79, is a Morenci native who played baseball and graduated from Adrian College, coached for one year at Temperance Bedford and five decades at Blissfield. He spends a little more than half of the year in Florida these days in a house he owns in The Villages, a retirement community about an hour north of Orlando.
This past spring, Blissfield took a spring baseball trip to Florida and Tuttle was able to come out to the field and watch a few practices.
“That’s the best time,” he said. “I always enjoyed those first practices of each season. People will ask me, ‘But what about the cold? It’s always so cold in Michigan that first week.’ The first 10 days or two weeks or so inside, that’s where we formed our whole season, working on the fundaments and the strategy, getting the kids mentally ready for the season. That was a fun part of coaching.”
He returns home to Michigan each summer to spend time with his kids and grandchildren, including a freshman-aged granddaughter who is showing good things in softball. His roots are in southeast Michigan, and he has every intention of keeping it that way.
Tuttle’s career at Blissfield was nothing short of remarkable.
He coached Blissfield for 54 seasons. It would have been 55, but the 2020 season was canceled due to COVID. The Royals won 1,332 games during his career. They won 33 District titles, 23 Regional championships and seven Finals crowns. Blissfield also won 40 league titles, including in his final season of 2021. His No. 18 jersey was retired by the school district.
In 2015, Tuttle was an easy inaugural choice for the Michigan Baseball Hall of Fame.
This summer, Tuttle returned to Michigan in time to see Blissfield play a few regular-season games and was there when his beloved Royals played in the Division 3 District tournament. He wore his familiar Royals gear. When the Lenawee County All-Star game was played, Tuttle was in his full Blissfield uniform. It still fits perfectly.
“I still enjoy the game,” Tuttle said. “It’s my energy level that just isn’t what it used to be. That’s why I stepped down. I still love the strategy of the game.”
When he’s watching a game, he still goes through every play in his mind and what he would do if he was calling the shots.
“You’re always coaching even though you might a spectator,” he said. “It may not be the right way, but it’s my way. That’s baseball. I love thinking about what to do on this count or that count, to take a pitch or not.
“I see a lot of coaches these days who had played in college. Young coaches coach the college way, but you are dealing with high school kids who may not have a real firm understanding of the game itself. You have to teach high school baseball to college kids. You don’t teach college or pro ball to high school kids.”
Tuttle, who has battled some health issues the last couple of years, misses being in his role as coach.
“I miss the players and the relationships I had with umpires and the other coaches,” he said. “It’s hard to replace that.”
Tuttle is an icon in Lenawee County. When he goes to a game, people gather around him to talk. He still follows the area teams and has a relationship with several coaches and ex-players.
Tuttle enjoyed monumental success at Blissfield. The Royals’ last sub-.500 season was in 1971.
“I know that because I have the records,” Tuttle said. “The closest we came was we were 8-8 one year in the 1980s.”
Tuttle has been a stickler for stats his entire career. Some coaches have a hard time remembering how their team did two years ago. Tuttle knows. He kept intricate stats on every team he’s coached at Blissfield and to this day has them organized only a few steps away from his kitchen table at his home in Blissfield – which is just across the street from the high school and a long home run away from the baseball field that is named in his honor.
“I have a file cabinet full of files from each season and I have the scorebook from every year I coached at Blissfield, starting in 1968,” Tuttle said. “Stats were always important to me, not the wins, but the stats. Baseball stats tell you so much about the game.”
Since stepping aside, Tuttle has had time to reflect on his career.
“I would have never believed I would have coached that long,” Tuttle said. “Then, I sit back and think, ‘That was a lot of wins, wasn’t it?’ I don’t mean that in a bragging way. I think more about it when I go to a game.”
Randall recently announced his retirement from Onsted after 13 years as head coach. Onsted is in the same conference as Blissfield, the Lenawee County Athletic Association, so he had a close-up view of Tuttle in action.
He now has a memory of the last game he coached at the All-Star Game at Adrian College.
“I credit a lot of my coaching philosophy to this day to him,” Randall said. “Our relationship has really grown over the years. I wanted Coach Tuttle to be with me in my final game. That’s why I asked him.”
PHOTOS (Top) Retired Blissfield baseball coach Larry Tuttle coaches third base during the June 26 Lenawee County All-Star Game. (Middle) Tuttle’s jersey is retired during a 2021 ceremony. (Photos by Doug Donnelly.)
![Bellaire baseball](/sites/default/files/2022-04/220422_Bellaire_2H5.jpg)
Low Numbers Lead Softball Foursome to Bolster Bellaire Baseball
By
Tom Spencer
Special for MHSAA.com
April 22, 2022
Things were pretty straight forward last spring for Bella Huffman, Karysn Fischer, Alex Dawson and Brooklynn Clark.
Huffman played third base the Bellaire Eagles. Fisher was a designated hitter and outfielder. Dawson regularly played outfield and catcher, and Clark handled second base.
Huffman is senior now. Fisher is a junior. Dawson and Clark are sophomores. They were playing for the Eagles softball team. Today, they are members of the Eagles baseball team. Small numbers forced the cancellation of girls softball for this spring.
Hesitant, maybe at first, the four student-athletes made the leap to baseball.
“This is a slightly unique situation, and I am very proud of the girls for stepping out of their comfort zone to help the baseball team,” said Brad Fischer, Bellaire’s athletic director. “Unfortunately, the numbers were just not there to support a softball team.
“When we had to make the tough call to cancel our softball season, we told the girls that they are more than welcome to join the baseball team – and we are happy that a few chose to do so.”
The girls played their first game Thursday at Pellston for first-year coach Chris Bearup after a handful of games were lost to spring weather complications. All four got playing time.
The girls, and athletic director, credited the coaches for the smooth transition to the baseball field.
“Coach Bearup has done a great job of getting the girls comfortable and making sure they know they are part of the team and have every opportunity that the boys do,” said Fischer, also Karsyn’s father. “His leadership has been tremendous.
“We are fortunate to have him.”
The girls started to become very comfortable with baseball during a meeting after the first practice with Bearup and assistant coach Al Balko.
“They were worried about the boys picking on us and treating us like … we weren’t going to be as good as them,” recalled Clark of the post-practice meeting. “Now they’re being more incorporative.
“They are really trying to make us feel we’re at home, and that we’re welcome,” she continued. “They’re giving us a chance to try everything.”
Huffman has dabbled with pitching, and that may work out. It may be a battery with Dawson in the catching position.
“We all got to practice (pitching),” Karysn said. “Alex was in her catching gear, and we pitched.
“Bella was pretty good at it naturally.”
The girls were confident going into Thursday’s season opener. Their eyes are now opened wider as a result, and they are better prepared to compete as they head to Central Lake on Monday. Huffman, Dawson and Clark all got their first at bats out of the way.
“It was a little nerve racking,” Huffman said.
Dawson was in the starting line-up for the first game. She experienced running the 90-foot bases, after being used to the 60-foot base distances in softball.
“You run your little heart out,” she said. “I didn’t make it there, but I ran."
Bellaire lost 9-1 and 11-0 to Pellston, which had already played two games this year.
The girls are coming into baseball with slightly different expectations for themselves as individual players. All plan to try working harder than the boys.
“I went into this season with high expectations for myself because I knew as a girl on the baseball team I had to work harder than any of the boys to try to prove how good I am or how good I am possibly going to be,” Clark noted. “I think speaking for all the girls, we do.”
Numbers also are low for the baseball team. There are 14 on the roster. The tough result of no softball may have saved the baseball season.
And the senior boys are down to their last swing for a District championship. The boys in the Class of 2022 have yet to win a District in any sport. Cole Robinson is among the seniors seeking that first title.
Robinson had his sophomore baseball season cancelled by the pandemic. His football teams saw limited success. The Eagles boys basketball team made substantial improvements especially this past season, but lost its District opener.
Robinson has carried on since losing his father and coach Brock Robinson in April 2020. His dad served as the assistant baseball coach and head football coach for the Eagles before his unexpected death at the age of 54.
The girls would have been cheering for him to get his first District title. But now they plan to help him win one with their play on the diamond.
“We love Cole,” together they exclaimed.
Tom Spencer is a longtime MHSAA-registered basketball and soccer official, and former softball and baseball official, and he also has coached in the northern Lower Peninsula area. He previously has written for the Saginaw News, Bay County Sports Page and Midland Daily News. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Manistee, Wexford, Missaukee, Roscommon, Ogemaw, Iosco, Alcona, Oscoda, Crawford, Kalkaska, Grand Traverse, Benzie, Leelanau, Antrim, Otsego, Montmorency, Alpena, Presque Isle, Cheboygan, Charlevoix and Emmet counties.
PHOTOS (Top) A foursome of past Bellaire softball players, from left Alex Dawson, Bella Huffman, Karsyn Fischer and Brooklynn Clark, take a photo during their baseball debuts this week. (Middle) Brooklynn Clark stands in at the plate against Pellston. (Below) Karysn Fischer plays right field for the Eagles. (Top photo by Julie Clark, action photos by Kendall Fischer.)