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.)
Still 'Loose' Swan Valley Loaded Again As Well
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
April 3, 2019
Mitch Jebb and his teammates on the Saginaw Swan Valley baseball team had plenty of fun a year ago as they made their run to the MHSAA Division 2 Final.
The young Vikings surprised plenty of people with their runner-up finish, and a crucial part of that was how loose the team played. Even with a larger target now on their back, don’t expect them to tighten up.
“If you come to one of our games, we’re always loose,” said Jebb, a junior shortstop who earned all-state first-team honors as a sophomore. “We’re just out there having fun, and why would you play baseball if you’re not having fun? That’s how we look at things – play your game, but have fun doing it. This year, we’re probably more loose than we were last year.”
Swan Valley is still plenty young, with a roster comprised mostly of juniors and sophomores, but another deep postseason run wouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. The Vikings were ranked No. 6 in Division 2 in the Michigan High School Baseball Coaches Association preseason rankings, and they opened the season Tuesday with a pair of mercy-rule victories (13-0 and 11-0, both in five innings) at Chesaning.
“I think we surprised quite a few people because we were so young and they had never heard of us before,” Swan Valley coach Craig Leddy said. “They were just playing and winning, and they were loose. That’s not going to happen this year. People have us on the radar.”
The runner-up finish is likely the biggest reason the Vikings are on the radar, but it also doesn’t hurt to have three players on the roster who have committed to Big Ten baseball programs – none of whom are seniors.
Jebb and classmate Brian Ross, a 6-foot-8 pitcher, have committed to Michigan State, while sophomore Avery Goldensoph, a 6-foot-2 pitcher, is committed to Michigan. Goldensoph, a first-team all-state selection as a freshman, opened the season by throwing a no-hitter against Chesaning.
“I knew the group coming, and we have some more kids coming next year as sophomores, so I’m excited about what we have,” said Leddy, who was a longtime assistant before taking over the Swan Valley program a year ago. “This is a special group that’s played a lot of travel ball, and that’s huge.”
There’s plenty of quality depth to go along with those stars, both in the lineup and the pitching rotation. Junior infielder Victor Mancini had 46 RBI through the team’s first 42 games a year ago, while junior catcher Easton Goldensoph had nine doubles and 26 RBI. Senior pitcher Conner Sika was the team leader in earned-run average, coming in at 0.51 while striking out 53 and allowing 26 hits and nine walks in 54 2/3 innings. He was superb on opening night, allowing just one hit in his shutout victory against Chesaning.
“I think we can do it this year,” Avery Goldensoph said of making another deep run. “We’ve got me, Brian and Conner Sika who pitched (in the opening series), he’s really good. Our lineup put up 13 runs and 11 runs, that’s a great start.”
With a tough Tri-Valley Conference Central schedule ahead, the games figure to get more difficult. But the Vikings view that challenge as a good way to prepare for the postseason, and invite the daily pressure playing in that league brings.
Because even as they try to avoid it, the pressure of greater expectations is a reality they have to face.
“I think we have a really good team, in my opinion,” Ross said. “Last year we were kind of going after everybody, and now we’re being looked at like they want us. So I would say it’s a little more pressure, but it’s nothing we can’t handle.”
The best way to handle any pressure that may seep in? By going back to what worked so well a year ago – staying loose. That starts with the coaching staff.
“We’re a little more relaxed; we’re not screaming and hollering,” Leddy said about his staff, which includes assistants Mark Jebb and David Finzel, as well as pitching coaches Chris and Nick Sarmiento. “I remember what it was like when I was a young kid; the last thing you wanted was a coach kicking you in the (behind) all the time. You want someone encouraging you to be a better person and a better ballplayer. I’m blessed to have some great coaches on staff that know a lot about baseball and care about the kids.”
The attitude of the coaches has certainly gotten through to the players.
“What happens, happens, right?” Mitch Jebb said. “If we win, we win. The goal is to win, but it’s not like Coach is saying, ‘You better win a state championship.’ We’re all playing the game we love, and it’s fun. It’s fun playing. If we can win, we want to win – you always want to win. But the overall picture is to go out there and play your game and have fun.”
Paul Costanzo served as a sportswriter at The Port Huron Times Herald from 2006-15, including three years as lead sportswriter, and prior to that as sports editor at the Hillsdale Daily News from 2005-06. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Genesee, Lapeer, St. Clair, Sanilac, Huron, Tuscola, Saginaw, Bay, Arenac, Midland and Gladwin counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Swan Valley’s Victor Mancini drives a pitch during last season’s Division 2 championship game against Stevensville Lakeshore. (Middle) Shortstop Mitch Jebb fires a throw to first.