![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.)
![Orchard Lake St. Mary's baseball](/sites/default/files/2021-06/210619_D2b_2H.jpg)
St. Mary's Tops Off Tourney Run with Title, Record-Tying Win
By
Dean Holzwarth
Special for MHSAA.com
June 19, 2021
EAST LANSING – Orchard Lake St. Mary’s senior Tommy Allman stole the show on the mound in Saturday’s Division 2 Final.
His talented teammates did the same on the base paths.
Allman pitched six solid innings, and the Eaglets set a new Finals record for stolen bases in a decisive 9-0 win over Stevensville Lakeshore at Michigan State’s McLane Stadium.
Top-ranked St. Mary’s (43-1) won its second Division 2 championship in a row and the program’s fifth Finals title overall. The 43 wins tied for the MHSAA record with four other teams: 2010 Ann Arbor Father Gabriel Richard, 1997 Midland Dow, 1995 Stevensville Lakeshore and 1985 Harper Woods Bishop Gallagher.
“It was a good outing, and I was dialed in,” said Allman, who’s headed next to Jacksonville University. “I trusted my team behind me, and everything was working; the off-speed, curveball and slider.
“This is the best way to end it, with a state championship. The whole year we battled, and we pulled it off. I’m proud of my team.”
Allman surrendered only two hits in 6 1/3 innings of work. He struck out seven and didn’t allow a walk.
Relief pitcher Jake Keaser recorded the final two outs.
“It was a heck of a performance from Tommy; that was awesome,” St. Mary’s coach Matt Petry said. “The plan was to split the game among three guys, but Tommy was throwing so well that we didn’t do that. I made the decision to take him out (in the seventh), and he got a great ovation.”
The Eaglets finished with 12 stolen bases. The total eclipsed the previous Finals record of nine, set by Colon in the 1989 Class D Final against Gaylord St. Mary’s.
Alex Mooney and Ryan Mooney both tied the Finals individual record with three steals each.
“We work out all year trying to stay athletic, and I feel like it really helps,” said Alex Mooney, who scored twice and had two RBI.
“From the first inning we knew we were getting good jumps and their pitchers were not doing the best job of keeping us on. We got our timing down, and we knew we could swipe bags and we did.”
Nolan Schubart broke a scoreless tie in the fourth inning with a two-RBI double.
“Nolan is a stud, and I had all the confidence in the world that he was going to get a hit there,” Alex Mooney said. “It was a huge hit for us, and it really got us going and started that big inning for us.”
Ryan McKay followed with another double to drive in a pair and make it 4-0.
The Eaglets finished with six runs in the inning, then added another three in the sixth.
“This was the ultimate goal,” said Petry, whose starting lineup was loaded with Division I college talent.
“We have three goals each season: Win the Catholic League regular season, the Catholic League tournament championship and the state championship. We always had this day in the back of our mind, and we were able to close it out.”
Freshman Noah Chase started on the mound and went 3 ⅔ innings for the Lancers.
Lakeshore, which committed three errors and had only two hits, finished the season at 28-12 overall. The loss was its first in a Final after winning back-to-back Division 2 titles in 2017 and 2018 and a Class B crown in 1990.
“Going into the fourth, we felt really good about ourselves and the game plan was working,” Lancers coach Mark Nate said. “I’m proud of our kids for the way they fought early, and then their true talent came out and that's the bottom line.
“That team is a very, very good baseball team, and they’re deserving of winning it all.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Orchard Lake St. Mary's Alex Mooney (2) hones in on a pitch during Saturday's Division 2 Final. (Middle) Lakeshore's Andrew Lies (2) stretches for first base as St. Mary's Ike Irish takes a throw.