In time of transition for Royals, Rusty Kuntz is a constant as teacher and confidante
Forever young as he might be, longtime Royals coach Rusty Kuntz completed his application for Medicare a few months ago with his 65th birthday looming.
Five minutes later, as he remembers it, he received a call from general manager Dayton Moore.
As Kuntz playfully recalled thinking, “Aren’t I supposed to be retiring?,” Moore asked him to reprise his role as first base and outfielders coach — the role in which he was pivotal to the Royals’ back-to-back American League championships and 2015 World Series triumph.
After two years as a roving instructor in the minor leagues because of vision troubles now resolved, Moore proposed Kuntz return to a job in which his animated and wise persona and distinctly outdoor voice could have particular resonance for an organization in transition with ownership and managerial changes.
Conceding that his wife wouldn’t allow him to retire, anyway, Kuntz smiled and said, “So here I am.”
In this case, the here is Monday morning in the Royals’ coaching room, where Kuntz was alone on a rare spring training off-day for coaches and players.
With his ever-present bag of Cheetos alongside, Kuntz sat consumed by video on his iPad as he charted opposing pitchers’ pickoff and delivery tendencies. Every pitcher has a tell, he said, even if it might take hours and hours to crack the code.
This exhaustive approach has led to a fusion of science and gut feeling — “I use it to confirm what I see,” he said, “rather than rely on it to be” — that most visibly informed Eric Hosmer’s seemingly mad dash home in the ninth inning of Game 5 of the 2015 World Series against the New York Mets.
And it’s an approach, and presence, valued by new manager Mike Matheny, who seems to see him as a confidante.
“I believe he’s one of the best coaches I’ve ever been around,” said Matheny, adding that Kuntz’s infectious zeal has led him to profound knowledge of the game. “You just kind of watch how he goes about his business; he makes people better.”
Still in his blood
You might ask Kuntz why, in his 43rd year in professional baseball, he needs to be here on this day — especially since the players who energize him by practically “plugging themselves into you” aren’t even around.
He’ll joke that there was nothing better to do.
But that means something different coming from him than it might from others.
There really is about nothing better for him to do than this, for reasons you can trace back, poignantly, to the day he was drafted in 1977. And to his wife, Sally, who understands it was his calling to be a teacher. And to a sense of rejuvenation he feels about working with Matheny, with whom he spent much of 2019 as Matheny was immersed in a comprehensive study of the organization at all levels.
“Hanging out with Mike Matheny, oh my God, that was a blast!” Kuntz said, adding, “Talk about a presence. Leadership qualities. High character. … He was meant to do it.”
Long ago, somebody told Kuntz to write down 10 things every day he’d never seen or heard before. So he does, from the margins of his work notes to about any place he can scrawl, and he’s had ample new material through Matheny and other new staff members.
The other day, for instance, a minor-league coach heard Kuntz ask a player why he did something that went wrong and then furnish the answer (“was it because …?”) instead of allowing an open-ended response.
“Without knowing (for years) I’m asking a question and answering it for the player,” he said, laughing. “And he’s just standing there looking at me talking to myself, basically.”
So he still strives to learn as much as teach, which in turn makes him a better teacher who already helped develop legions of grateful players.
That includes Lorenzo Cain and Alex Gordon, with whom Kuntz spent considerable time in Omaha as Gordon was making the transition from third base.
“Those are moments that you live for as a coach,” Kuntz said.
Vision ... and a fix
Kuntz’s time as an-field coach seemed to end in late 2017 after Mike Moustakas hit a line drive that Kuntz never saw coming his way in the first-base box. Then-manager Ned Yost told him later that it looked like the ball “went right through your head.”
Suddenly acutely aware he had vision issues, Kuntz was replaced at first base by Mitch Maier the last two seasons.
But when Maier moved to director of baseball operations after last season, Kuntz had had corrective measures taken, including cataract surgery and a contact lens in one eye that he says allow him to read the microscopic print on a chart 30 feet away in the coaching room.
Meanwhile, all these years later, Kuntz still has a clear view of how he got here in the first place — a sense of purpose that helps explain his why. He’s told this story in the past, but he brought it up in a new way and context on Monday.
His father, Chet, was a bricklayer and mechanic and not a particularly sentimental man. There was a lot of “get it done, let’s go,” times when being disciplined meant being knocked to the ground and not a lot of hugging.
When Kuntz was growing up in Paso Robles, California, his father helped him get a summer job as a roustabout for Mobil.
Typically, the job called for him to don a respirator, goggles and bandana and descend into a 12-foot hole to use a pickaxe and sledgehammer to bang and scrape tar off pipe to be repaired.
Ultimately, he was offered a full-time job with Mobil that would have paid twice as much as father was making doing three jobs.
Decision to make
At that very time, Kuntz was drafted by the Chicago White Sox. As he was graduating from California State-Stanislaus, he asked his father what to do.
He told him to do what he felt in his heart. And he told him, “Everybody gets a graduation present. I don’t have much to give you, but I want to give you this as a reminder.”
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So he handed him an oil rag featuring the date of the draft (June 15, 1977) etched in the middle and arrows pointing two ways.
One direction was SAN ARDO OIL FIELD.
The other, underlined, was BIG LEAGUES.
Kuntz tears up as he tells the story and goes to his locker to retrieve the rag, which he takes with him everywhere.
Kuntz appeared in 277 big league games over six seasons and had a game-winning sacrifice fly for Detroit in Game 5 of the 1984 World series. And here he is back in a big-league uniform, again and still.
He looks over the shoulders of his charges, reminding them millions would love this chance and to do all they can to be “the guy, not a guy.”
He tells them to heed his base-running teachings because “at some point in their career, I won’t be standing next to you going, ‘OK, watch this!’ ”
Good thing for us all that even at 65 he can’t retire for so many reasons.