The Rutschmans at T-Mobile Park: Living out a fantasy
Adley is entered in to the home run derby (Courtesy @orioles Twitter feed)
SEATTLE — Over the next two days in the Emerald City, the Rutschmans get to live out a fantasy.
On Monday, Adley Rutschman will be one of eight participants in the Home Run Derby at Seattle’s T-Mobile Park.
On Tuesday, Rutschman, 25, will represent the Baltimore Orioles in the MLB All-Star Game at T-Mobile.
Parents Randy and Carol Rutschman and Adley’s only sibling, sister Josie, will be on hand. Josie is having knee surgery in Portland on Wednesday, but she wasn’t going to miss this.
The rest of the extended Rutschman family, including uncle Don and grandfather Ad, won’t be there. They plan to make the trip north from McMinnville Aug 11-13 when the Orioles play the Mariners in a three-game series in Seattle.
You can imagine the feeling amongst the Rutschman clan that Adley is an All-Star in only his second major league season. And that he will be playing in the first big-league park he visited, the home field for the team he rooted for as a kid growing up in Sherwood.
“All the cliche things,” Carol Rutschman says. “A dream come true. It’s incredible. Gonna be special.”
Carol and Adley Rutschman (courtesy Randy Rutschman)
“It’s a neat honor,” Randy Rutschman says. “There are a lot of good players who are worthy, so the fact that they gave the nod to Adley is a cool deal.”
“I am looking forward to watching it all on TV,” says Ad Rutschman, the family patriarch and Adley’s grandfather. “I am amazed he has been able to accomplish this so quickly in his career.”
Leave it to Don Rutschman to frame it in understated-comment-of-the-year fashion:
“It’s kind of a biggie.”
Adds uncle Don: “I thought at some point he might have a shot at it, but I didn’t think it would be this early. It’s exciting. Randy is pumped up, and Adley is pumped up, and I know my dad is pumped up.”
So, certainly, is Beaver Nation, Rutschman’s favorite fan base. Rutschman joins football’s Terry Baker, basketball’s Gary Payton and high jumping’s Dick Fosbury on Oregon State’s Mount Rushmore of college athletics. That’s what happens when you claim Most Outstanding Player honors while leading the Beavers to the 2018 College World Series title. And earning recognition as the National College Player of the Year in 2019. And becoming the No. 1 pick in the MLB draft that year.
Now Adley is an All-Star, more famous than his Hall of Fame coach grandfather, a better athlete than former pitching great uncle Don. And there is an extra treat for the Rutschmans: Randy will pitch to Adley in Monday’s home run contest.
“It makes me feel so good,” says Pat Casey, Adley’s coach at Oregon State and a Newberg native who competed in sports against Adley’s father since seventh grade. “I have known Randy practically my entire life. My brother (Chris Casey, head football coach at George Fox) played for and coached with Ad at Linfield. It is an amazing family — such good people. And a dad throwing batting practice to his kid? It’s so cool we get to experience this kind of story here in what is not supposed to be a baseball Mecca.”
► ◄
Adley Rutschman has athletic genes. “Grampa Ad” was an outstanding athlete in his own right — a four-year starter in football, basketball and baseball at Linfield from 1950-54, earning 12 letters. He was a three-time all-conference halfback in football and a two-time all-conference centerfielder in baseball.
His three sons — Don, Ross and Randy — earned another 17 letters between them, meaning the Rutschman family totaled 29 letters amongst the four of them. Can any family better that?
(Also: Don, Ross and Randy all played in the Oregon High School All-Star baseball series, and Ad coached in it. The only family on par is the Reynolds from Corvallis, Donny, Larry and Harold.)
Ad was a good enough baseball player that he spent five summers playing for the semi-pro Drain Black Sox in the Oregon Sawdust League, a centerfielder on the team that earned the National Baseball Congress championship in 1958.
Rutschman would go on to fame as a coach at Linfield, winning three NAIA Division II national championships in football and one in baseball — the only coach at any level ever to do so in both sports. Rutschman, who turns 92 in October, is a member of the Linfield Athletics Hall of Fame, the state of Oregon Hall of Fame, the NAIA Hall of Fame and the College Football Hall of Fame. He continues to coach the Wildcats’ kickoff return team each fall.
Ad Rutschman gives the word to his grandson at T-Mobile Park (courtesy Don Rutschman)
Ad and wife Joan had five children in two-year increments — Don (now 70), Cindy (68), Ross (66), Randy (64) and Mary Jo (62). Joan died in 2016 after 64 years of marriage. Ad, Don and Cindy live in McMinnville, Ross in Newberg, Randy in Sherwood and Mary Jo in Dallas.
Don, Ross and Randy all played four years of baseball under their father at Linfield. Don played football for four years, and Ross one, under Ad at Linfield.
Don was a fine receiver, earning All-Northwest Conference as a senior in 1975, but it was in baseball that he excelled. He was three times all-conference, and in 1974 was Northwest Conference and District 2 Pitcher of the Year and an honorable mention All-American. Don would go on to coach 44 years in football and 32 in baseball — most at the high school level — and retired after a long teaching career in 2020.
Randy was a four-year starter at catcher and a two-time All-NWC selection for his father from 1978-81.
“Randy was a very good catcher and a good contact hitter,” Ad Rutschman says. “He struck out once in his first 109 times at the plate as a freshman.”
But Randy, 5-11 and 185 as a senior at Linfield, was a bit of a late bloomer.
“I had puberty so late,” he says. “I wasn’t even shaving. I’m glad I played after I was done at Linfield.”
Boy, did he.
For 21 years, until he retired at age 43 in 2002, Randy played what was then called “semi-pro ball.”
“I hung my cleats up a long time ago, and Randy is still wearing them,” kids brother Don.
Well, not quite. But Randy played for a long time, first in the Portland City League, then in the Pacific International League, and finally what morphed into what was now the West Coast League for college players.
“It was really good competition,” Randy says. “I started out playing against (future major leaguers) Aaron Sele, Scott Hatterberg and John Olerud. That’s when I learned a lot about catching. I learned how to deal with pitchers better and was able to pass that along to Adley. I became much more of a learner during my last years of catching.”
Casey remembers Rutschman during that period.
“The guy was a dirt dog,” Casey says. “You would see his face all dusty and dirty when taking off the mask. Randy wasn’t very big, but he was a really good athlete. He was born to be a catcher. It’s not shocking that Adley gives such great compliments to his dad for working with him as a kid.
“Randy worked a lot of camps. Randy helped me and (Bailey) when we were at George Fox. He is just a baseball junkie. The guy knows baseball.”
Rutschman played one Portland City League season with current Linfield head coach Dan Spencer with Reinhardt Plumbing. A Fort Vancouver High graduate, Spencer had played third base and catcher at Texas Tech.
“When I came in, I was the new guy,” says Spencer, an assistant coach at Oregon State from 1996-2007 and Collegiate Baseball’s Pitching Coach of the Year his final year there. “I told them I was a catcher. They said, ‘Randy is our catcher.’ I said I also played third. They said, ‘We have Scott Brosius at third.’ I said I could play anywhere in the infield. They said, ‘We’re going to play you in right field.’ The first game, I was in right field.”
Spencer says Rutschman “was a good contact hitter and had all the skills defensively. All the personality traits you see Adley have at catcher today — the relationships with pitchers, the ability to work with umpires, the ability to get a little more out of the guy on the mound — that was Randy. He was tremendous. He didn’t have any of the raw skills his son has. But he could throw the ball to second base, could block, do all the work. And he would play every day. If we were playing, he was catching.”
Spencer, who would go on to serve four years as head coach at Texas Tech and as pitching coach at Washington State and New Mexico, considers Rutschman a good friend.
“If you need Randy, he is there,” Spencer says. “You couldn’t find a guy who would say a bad thing about him. Christian man, super family. … Randy is a 10.”
Rutschman also coached and played for Davidson Auto Parts and Taylor Electric and, at the end, the Aloha Knights, who eventually became the Corvallis Knights. He always worked with the team’s catchers.
“I really enjoyed working with (current Knights CEO) Dan Segel — the dude is a visionary,” Randy says. “It was mainly Dan and Jim Richards in Bend who made (the West Coast League) take off.”
Rutschman was an assistant coach working mostly with catchers at Linfield and then at George Fox from 2003-15, serving under head coaches Pat Bailey and Marty Hunter. Randy is considered one of the preeminent catcher coaches in the Northwest. He worked Oregon State prospect camps from 2004-20 and at camps and clinics for George Horton at Oregon and Don Harrell at Seattle U. For 34 years, Randy’s day job was as a teacher, doing everything from elementary physical education to performance psychology in high school. He worked many years at Tigard High and still substitute teaches there.
But in recent years — especially the last two — Randy has found he didn’t want to be tied down. He had a prodigy to watch play baseball.
► ◄
Randy Rutschman started working with Adley on baseball when he was about four. But only after being asked.
Even as a toddler, Adley Rutschman had a bat in his hands (courtesy Randy Rutschman)
“I never said, ‘Let’s go out and play ball,’ ” Randy says. “Never, ever in my life. For the last 20 years, I have had two buckets of balls sitting in the garage ready for that time when Adley will say, ‘Let’s go out and hit.’
“When he was four, we would go out in the front yard, draw up some bases and play with the Wiffle ball. After awhile we started using the JUGS Life-Flite machine, which shoots a lighter and softer ball. We used those for quite awhile. (Neighbors) still find them in their yards once in awhile.”
Adley played T-ball. The team part appealed to him most.
Randy and Adley Rutschman (courtesy Randy Rutschman)
“Adley is highly social,” Randy says. “Baseball was as much about his passion to be around his buddies as it was the game itself. He didn’t do the travel-ball stuff when he was young. He wanted to be with his friends in Sherwood.”
Sometimes, there was sacrifice involved in Randy’s baseball pursuits, at least from a female perspective.
“Every family vacation was around a baseball field, traveling with a team Randy either coached or played with,” says Carol Rutschman, to whom Randy has been married for 29 years. “We always found a way to make those vacations combine with baseball. We would have a game going on the side with the other children.”
Adley attended hitting camps run at schools such as George Fox and the University of Portland.
“Adley learned from coaches like Pat Bailey and Marty Hunter and Terry Pollreisz,” Randy says. “I didn’t have to spend a lot of time with him on hitting. He knew more about the correct swing at 8 than I did at 21.”
In the early years, Adley wanted to play every position on the field.
“With catching, I knew he needed to learn more about how to do things right, but I never wanted to push it,” Randy says.
During those years, Randy was often a speaker at the Northwest Baseball Clinic. He decided to make a DVD to go along with his presentation.
“I needed a young kid as my model,” Randy says. “It was a perfect opportunity to teach Adley how to catch.”
As a reward for Adley’s time put in on shooting the DVD, Rutschman asked a Seattle-area company called “Viper Bats” to make a miniature bat with the name “Adley Rutschman” inscribed on it.
“He got his first signature wood bat,” Randy says. “I have only one copy of that DVD left, but there are a couple of them still floating around out there.”
Randy always helped with Adley’s junior teams but was never the head coach. Randy was coaching at George Fox and had a full-time teaching job during those years.
“I don’t think Randy wanted to interfere, but he taught Adley the catching game, no doubt about that,” Ad Rutschman says. “Once he got to high school, everything was pretty much in place.”
Soon it became obvious that Adley had the perfect blend of talent and temperament.
“He was good because he liked to play,” Randy says. “He was pretty relaxed about it. He didn’t care all that much if he struck out. He was a good catcher, but played shortstop a lot. He had an extremely strong arm. I’d recommend (to his coaches) not to put him on the mound. If you are 12 years old and at the plate seeing 69 (mph) on the mound, it is intimidating.”
As he got older, Adley developed a work ethic.
“Throughout (his teen) years, a couple of times a week he wanted to go to the ball field and have me throw to him,” Randy says. “One more pitch always turns into 100 more with him.”
“They have put in a ton of time together,” Don Rutschman says. “It could go on any time from day break to night time. But Randy wasn’t pushing Adley. It was the kid wanting to go out and catch or hit. It was constant. The passion wasn’t shoved down his throat. He just liked it.”
Rutschman liked other sports, too. At Sherwood, he was an all-league placekicker and linebacker and a starting running back as a senior. He was second-team all-state as a kicker and booted a state-record 63-yard field goal.
Adley Rutschman totes the Pigskin for the Sherwood Bowmen (courtesy Randy Rutschman)
“Adley was really good in baseball in high school, but I’m not sure he wasn’t right there as a football player, too,” Don says.
At Oregon State, the 6-2, 215-pound Rutschman served as Coach Gary Andersen’s kickoff man during his freshman year in 2016.
“Had (OSU coaches) let him kick field goals and extra points, they would have had a couple of more wins that season,” Pat Casey says. “If Adley hadn’t become an All-Star catcher, I believe he would been an NFL kicker. If he had just gone into the business world, he would have become a CEO for some company. He has the ‘it’ factor big-time.
“Sometimes when guys are really talented, they are high-maintenance. Not this guy. Adley came to the yard every day with the lunch pail, looking for more. It was beautiful to watch.”
Both of the Rutschman offspring were excellent academically. Adley carried a 3.9 GPA and was a member of the National Honor Society at Sherwood. Sister Josie, who played tennis and volleyball for the Bowmen, was her class valedictorian with a 4.2 GPA. She graduated from Linfield a year ago Summa Cum Laude with a 3.9 in exercise science. Josie is headed for grad school at Point Loma Nazarene in San Diego, with an eye on becoming a physician’s assistant.
Josie and Adley Rutschman (courtesy Randy Rutschman)
“They are two sharp kids,” Don says. “That comes from Mom.”
Agrees Randy: “It’s definitely not me.”
The Rutschmans at Pacific City (courtesy Randy Rutschman)
Family remains important to Adley, who has built a house in Wilsonville that will serve as his offseason home. The Rutschmans’ play site of choice is Pacific City, where Ad, Don and Randy all have vacation homes. When he can, Adley participates in family fishing or crabbing trips, from Netarts to Nestucca Bay.
From a crabbing trip on the Oregon Coast. Upper left to right, Ross Rutschman, Jeff Gunness, Adley Rutschman, Drew Rutschman, Ad Rutschman and Don Janigan. Front from left, Don Rutschman and Randy Rutschman (courtesy Don Rutschman)
It’s the kind of person he is that makes his mother most proud.
“Adley is a mini-Randy Rutschman,” Carol says. “Anyone who knows ‘Rutsch,’ they know Adley, too. Both of them have pure hearts. They see the best in people. They make people around them better.”
Adley and Carol Rutschman at Camden Yards in Baltimore (courtesy Randy Rutschman)
► ◄
The immediate Rutschman family will converge in Seattle on Monday.
Randy will arrive from Minneapolis, where he watched the Orioles play their final pre-All-Star break series against the Twins. Carol will be driving up from Sherwood. Josie has a doctor’s appointment on Monday and will fly from Portland that afternoon.
While in Minneapolis, Randy and Adley took the occasion to “sneak in a batting practice session” at the Twins’ Target Field. On Friday, I asked Randy how he feels about throwing BP to his son in the Home Run Derby.
Adley and Randy Rutschman after a batting practice session at Yankee Stadium last week (courtesy Don Rutschman)
“It’s a different venue than I’m used to,” he says. “I threw BP forever for the Knights. I have probably thrown BP to Adley at least 2,000 times in my life. But now you are in front of 40,000 people.”
And, I remind Randy, millions watching on TV.
“Oh, thanks a lot,” he says. He pauses while we both laugh.
“I want to do my best to give Adley a chance to hit some balls at a point in the season where his legs are getting beat up,” Randy says. “Just want to give him an opportunity hit some home runs.”
Wisecracking Don is leery.
“I have seen Randy pitch enough over the years,” he says. “He just needs to worry about getting the ball over the plate.”
Does Randy have a plan?
“Absolutely,” he says. “You want to try to throw balls in the swing zone. I’m looking for that and trying to get the timing and the speed right. You are throwing from a different distance. You need to put those things together and make it work.”
In a published report earlier in the week, the switch-hitting Adley indicated he might bat from both sides of the plate.
“I think he will spend most of his time on the left side,” says Randy, who throws right-handed.
Adley goes in as the No. 8 seed in an eight-hitter field, matched against No. 1 seed Luis Robert Jr. of the Chicago White Sox. There will be three single-elimination rounds. Batters have three minutes to hit in each of the first and second rounds. Two minutes are allowed in the final round.
“Ideally, you would get at least 12 swings per minute,” Randy says.
Rutschman comes in with 12 home runs this season, fewer than any other contestant. Robert and Pete Alonso lead with 26 apiece, followed by Mookie Betts with 25, Vladimir Guerrero with 23, Randy Arozarena with 16 and Adolis Garcia and Julio Rodriguez with 13 each.
Rutschman’s M.O. will be to go out there and have fun. And compete. And — who knows? — to win.
That’s Adley’s way.
► ◄
Readers: what are your thoughts? I would love to hear them in the comments below. On the comments entry screen, only your name is required, your email address and website are optional, and may be left blank.
Follow me on Twitter.
Like me on Facebook.
Find me on Instagram.
Be sure to sign up for my emails.
