As Time Marches On, Tuttle's Blissfield Success Sets Record Pace

By Doug Donnelly
Special for MHSAA.com

May 24, 2021

BLISSFIELD – Larry Tuttle spends a little more time in the dugout these days.

The Blissfield coach, 76, says that is his daughter’s idea.

“My daughter tells me she didn’t want me out there,” Tuttle said. “My reaction time isn’t what it used to be.”

Tuttle not coaching third base is something new. However, not much else has changed with the Blissfield baseball program since Tuttle arrived more than five decades ago as a budding baseball coach.

He was an assistant coach at Temperance Bedford who wanted to be a varsity head coach. Blissfield gave him that opportunity, and he never left.

“They asked me if I wanted to coach track,” Tuttle said. “I said, ‘No, I want to coach baseball.’”

Earlier this month, Tuttle’s Royals beat Hillsdale, on the road, in front of a large contingent of former players, parents and community members who made the trip to witness history. With a 15-0 win in the opening game of the Lenawee County Athletic Association doubleheader, Tuttle passed former Grand Ledge head coach Pat O’Keefe to become the winningest high school baseball coach in state history. 

Blissfield is up to 27-3 this season, giving Tuttle 1,324 career victories. O’Keefe compiled 1,315 wins during 1968 and then between 1970 and 2019 before stepping down. Both are in the Michigan Baseball Hall of Fame. 

“Pat and I go back a long way,” Tuttle said. “We’ve known each other a long time. We were both active in the coaches association as board members. He is a good man. This record has been between he and I for many, many years.”

Blissfield baseballThe secret to Tuttle’s success is that he treats today’s games pretty much the same way he did when he took over the program in 1968. 

“The expectations don’t change,” Tuttle said. “That’s important. It is the same today as it was with all my teams. You set that expectation early on. The kids have been great.”

Tuttle has had enormous success at Blissfield. This week the Royals clinched the LCAA tittle, the 40th league title Tuttle has won during his 53 seasons. Also during that span, Blissfield has won 32 District, 23 Regional and seven MHSAA Finals championships. His most recent Finals title came in 2003, which, at the time, was his third in four years. 

He has coached several baseball players that went on to play in college, several at the Division I level, and around a dozen who were either drafted or signed as free agents with Major League Baseball organizations. A couple of them have made it to the Major Leagues, and others have remained in professional baseball as coaches or managers at one level or another.

Steve Babbitt moved to Blissfield in the late 1980s when he was hired as a teacher, and became Tuttle’s assistant coach. He eventually became Blissfield’s athletic director. He was in the district for 30 years, and has retired – and Tuttle is still at it.

“He already was the head coach for 20 years when I got here, and now I’m retired and he’s still coaching,” Babbitt said. “It’s remarkable. … For somebody to be as passionate as Larry and to do it as long as he has, for more than 53 years, is unbelievable.”

Babbitt said Tuttle might have mellowed a little bit over the years, but, to his credit, he’s adapted his coaching style while keeping the expectations the same.

“Once you cross that line and get on the field, nothing has changed,” Babbitt said. “The expectations are the same. He loves the game.”

Tuttle coached third base up until this season, when he decided to turn that duty over to assistant Eric Schmidt, one of his former players. Tuttle not only coached Schmidt, but Schmidt’s father as well. The Royals have several coaches, all with various duties.

“Eric is doing third base this year and doing an excellent job,” Tuttle said. 

Matt Ganun and Matt Jones – both former Royals baseball players – take turns coaching first base. Another former Royal, Jeff Jackson, helps relay Tuttle’s calls from the dugout. 

“Jackson and Ganun were on the 1992 state championship team,” Tuttle said. “They know the game.”

Having so many coaches in the dugout is a blessing, Tuttle said.

Blissfield baseball“I’ve got a lot of great coaches with me,” Tuttle said. “Everybody knows their responsibility and it just falls into place, much better than anybody thinks. If someone look at us, it looks like we are stumbling over ourselves. That’s not the case at all.”

Tuttle has heard from several of his former players and community members since setting the wins record.

“I’ve had a number of players who have contacted me, some over the internet, some have phoned. It has been very exciting from that standpoint and very rewarding to hear from them,” Tuttle said.

“I heard from Brad Fischer. He has been in pro baseball for 43 years with various teams, Major League teams. … He made a comment to me that really hit home. He said, ‘Coach, if it hadn’t been for you, my career in baseball would never have happened.’ That really hits home when someone tells you that. Then I know maybe I’ve had an impact on some lives.”

Blissfield is enjoying one of its best seasons in years, led by five seniors – Nolan Savich, Ty Wyman, Zack Horky, Scott Jackson and Gavin Ganun. Ganun and Horky have signed to play at Bowling Green State University next season. 

Tuttle’s goals have been the same pretty much every season for years – win the league, win the District, and make a deep MHSAA Tournament run. This year’s team is ranked No. 6 in the most recent Division 3 coaches association poll.

Breaking the record also brought a lot of attention, from newspaper and television stations to Bally’s Sports Detroit doing a segment on Tuttle and the team for a Detroit Tigers pre-game show.

“It’s been exciting,” Tuttle said. “It’s been good for our whole community and the school system. In a small town, the school system is a major part of the community.”

Tuttle lives across the street from Blissfield High, not much more than a long fly ball from the Royals’ stadium. Most days, especially this time of the year, that is where you will find him, working on the field.

“I don’t do as much as I used to because I have a lot of people helping me,” Tuttle said. “Some of the other coaches won’t let me now. But I’m over there almost every day doing something, because usually there’s something that has to be done to keep it looking like it does.”

Some things never change.

Doug Donnelly has served as a sports and news reporter and city editor over 25 years, writing for the Daily Chief-Union in Upper Sandusky, Ohio from 1992-1995, the Monroe Evening News from 1995-2012 and the Adrian Daily Telegram since 2013. He's also written a book on high school basketball in Monroe County and compiles record books for various schools in southeast Michigan. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Jackson, Washtenaw, Hillsdale, Lenawee and Monroe counties.

PHOTOS: (Top) Blissfield coach Larry Tuttle poses for photos with his team after setting the MHSAA record for baseball coaching wins this month. (Middle) Tuttle’s 1992 team was among his Finals champions; he is standing back row, far right. (Below) Tuttle with this season’s five seniors. (2021 photos courtesy of Joe Flaherty. 1992 photo from MHSAA files.)

After 2021 Semifinal Trip, Huron Building Toward Another Big Finish

By Doug Donnelly
Special for MHSAA.com

May 10, 2022

NEW BOSTON – Phil Yancey learned an important lesson while coaching baseball to teenagers in the Dominican Republic – a lesson that he uses today with his players at New Boston Huron.

“The kids there play hard, from the warm-ups right through the last play of a game,” he said. “They give 100 percent. For many of them, it’s there only way out of poverty. Baseball is their ticket off the island.”

Yancey stresses to his players now to play hard every single minute they are on the field.

“Field that ground ball like it’s your last ground ball,” he tells them. “Go up to the plate like it’s your last at-bat.”

Yancey coached five seasons in the Dominican before becoming the varsity baseball coach at Huron High School in southern Wayne County seven years ago. He’s developed a rock-solid program at Huron, one that is currently ranked among top teams in the state and looks to be built for a deep tournament run. 

Huron went 26-8 in 2021, reaching the state rankings for the first time in school history. The Chiefs won Division 2 District and Regional titles and made the Semifinals before bowing out to eventual champion Orchard Lake St. Mary’s. That club had 10 seniors, but Yancey saw potential for big things this season.

“It was nice coming into the season with guys to build around, but we found some really talented players this year too,” he said. “We are playing pretty well right now.”

The Chiefs are off to a 17-2 start. The losses came to Grosse Ile in an early-season game and to Livonia Stevenson in an 8-7 slugfest. The Chiefs have a key matchup with Riverview this week, and a win would go a long way toward the team repeating as Huron League champion. 

The team is built with a solid core of seniors including shortstop-pitcher Cole Grunwald and centerfielder Matt Williams, plus juniors like Rory Callahan, Michigan State University commit-Gavin Moczydlowski and sophomore Micah Smith – who is quickly gaining the interest of multiple colleges.

Moczydlowski is the ace of the pitching staff and one of the top hitters on the team. He committed to MSU in the fall after a great season last year. 

“He throws 90-92,” Yancey said. “He’s a really good pitcher, doesn’t walk many, and hitters have a tough time with him.”

New Boston Huron baseballMoczydlowski would have been on the varsity as a freshman, but the season was canceled because of COVID-19. As a sophomore he broke a bone in his elbow during basketball season, and no one knew it until after he pitched – and won – the baseball season opener. He ended up playing first base all season due to the arm injury. This year he’s in the rotation, and Yancey considers him the ace.

“It like an addition to the team because he didn’t pitch last year,” Yancey said. “We like the combination of him starting and Micah Smith closing.”

Smith has been a pleasant surprise. He’s another hard-throwing righthander. Yancey wasn’t even counting on him when the season started, but he’s throwing in the 90s and has more than proven himself. Oakland University and the University of Pittsburgh have been in regular contact with Yancey about the sophomore, who has a 1.80 ERA with 34 strikeouts among the 84 batters he’s faced.

“He’s a diamond in the rough,” Yancey said.

Grunwald is 4-0 with an ERA under 1.00. Grunwald pitched a perfect game in the Regional Final last season and hit for the cycle in the Quarterfinal. He’s hitting almost .400 this season. 

Junior Lucas Coll is another solid piece of the rotation.

“We definitely have a better, deeper pitching staff than last year,” Yancey said. “It’s hard to win deep in the tournament with one guy or two. We have five. We are setting up nicely. It’s like we added a whole new pitching staff to our team since last year. 

“It’s a good problem to have.”

Catcher Connor Grant is hitting .468 with three doubles in his first season behind the plate. Ashton Warren is hitting over .500 in limited action, and Callahan has raised his average more than 100 points over last year and is batting .377.

Yancey says Williams might be the fastest guy in centerfield in the state. 

“When other teams look back at why we beat them, inevitably the answer is Matt Williams,” Yancey said. “He can dominate games.”

Yancey has coached on and off for about 20 years, including time as an assistant softball coach at Huron when his daughter was an all-state player. His time in the Dominican Republic was an eye-opener.

“The kids play hard, but they play loose,” he said. “They know they are out there to have fun. That’s one thing I tell my kids at Huron – play to have fun – but never take a play off. We’ve had very good results that way.”

New Boston Huron will start the MHSAA Tournament run with Carleton Airport. After that, Yancey has the path to Michigan State and the Finals well-mapped out. Now, the Chiefs must go out and perform.

“We’ve built a program,” he said. “It’s not a varsity team, junior varsity team and freshman team. It’s a program. We all wear the same uniforms. Every guy, from the nine guys on the field to the guys on the bench or guys on the JV team … they are all competing for spots. Everyone knows their number could be called at any time.”

Doug Donnelly has served as a sports and news reporter and city editor over 25 years, writing for the Daily Chief-Union in Upper Sandusky, Ohio from 1992-1995, the Monroe Evening News from 1995-2012 and the Adrian Daily Telegram since 2013. He's also written a book on high school basketball in Monroe County and compiles record books for various schools in southeast Michigan. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Jackson, Washtenaw, Hillsdale, Lenawee and Monroe counties.

PHOTOS (Top) Huron’s Gavin Moczydlowski drives a pitch while his teammates look on during a game at Chelsea. (Middle) The Chiefs’ Cole Grunwald pulls into third base during a game against Trenton. (Photos by Tom Hawley/Monroe News.)