In late May 2007, after he played his final game for Virginia Tech and about a week before the Colorado Rockies drafted him in the 38th round, infielder Warren Schaeffer walked into coach Pete Hughes’ office with a thoughtful gift.
It was a CD of Bob Dylan’s classic album “Blood on the Tracks.” Hughes remembers the gesture as if it happened yesterday.
“People say I’m an old soul because I listen to Bob Dylan,” said Hughes, now the head coach at Kansas State. “Well, Warren’s an old soul because he listens to Dylan, too.
“Warren’s a Renaissance man. There is so much more to him than a guy in a baseball uniform. He’s self-taught on the guitar. He’s intellectual, he’s curious, and he cares about everything. And he knows baseball.”
Schaeffer left quite an impression, especially considering he played just one season under Hughes.
“I’ve been doing this a long time, and I know not to put superlatives on people,” said Hughes, now in his 28th season as a head college baseball coach. “You hear people say, ‘Oh, this guy was the best player,’ or, ‘This guy was the best worker.’
“But Warren Schaffer was the hardest worker I have ever been around on a baseball field — to this day. I can easily put that stamp on Warren. I’m not surprised by where he is now.”
Now, Schaeffer is the Rockies’ interim manager. The 40-year-old was thrown into the breach when longtime manager Bud Black was fired last week. Schaeffer took over a team that entered the weekend with a 7-36 record and on pace to lose more games than any team in major league history.
A lose-lose scenario, you might be thinking? Think again, say those who know him. In their mind, there is nothing “interim” about Schaeffer.
“His communication skills are top-notch,” said Rockies outfielder Sean Bouchard, who played for Schaeffer at Triple-A Albuquerque.
“He personifies what it means to be a leader because of his demeanor and how straightforward he is,” said Josh Suchon, the Isotopes’ play-by-play broadcaster.
“If there is one guy I’d want to build my team and my culture around, it would be Warren,” Hughes said.
Warren’s father, Jim Schaeffer, added, “His strength of character, more than anything else, will help him succeed. He genuinely cares about his players and wants to see them do well, as players and as people.”
But Schaeffer’s big-league chance is not some here-today, gone-tomorrow kumbaya baseball moment.
“There’s never a lot of screaming, but he’s intense,” said his father, an option quarterback at Pennsylvania’s Division III Allegheny College. “Warren hates losing, but he keeps hoping.”
Schaeffer was born and raised in Vandergrift, Penn., a former steel mill town. He attended Greensburg Central Catholic High School. As a senior, he hit .554, and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette named him its East Player of the Year. Harvard and Princeton recruited him, but he chose to chase his baseball dreams at Virginia Tech.
He was a starting shortstop all four seasons for the Hokies, slashing .292/.351/.402 as a senior. Colorado, hoping for a diamond in the rough, selected him with the 1,143rd overall pick. He was a college senior with a degree in history and a minor in English, with dreams of playing in the majors. He signed for $1,000.
But Schaeffer never made it. He climbed as high as Triple-A, playing for the Colorado Springs Sky Sox in 2010-11. Overall, he slashed .214/.273/.285 in 461 minor league games, with nine home runs and 137 RBIs. He was all field, little hit.
“If you talk to my wife, Karen, she’ll still tell you that he could have been a major league player,” Jim Schaeffer said with a laugh. “She’ll watch a game now and say, ‘Oh, Warren could have made that play.’ I’ll say, ‘Karen, that was a long time ago.’
“But she’s never quite let that go. She’s always believed in him.”
Her son knew better.
“To be honest with you, in my opinion, I wasn’t a very good player,” Schaeffer said. “The way I look at it, everything I learned in the minors was preparing me to coach.
“When I hung up the cleats after the 2012 season, I never looked back. I never once wished I had played again. It was such a grind for me to play. I was married to Callie; we had no money. It was time to be an adult and move on.”
Jim Schaeffer often told his son to pursue a career that affected others.
“My dad was always my inspiration,” Schaeffer said. “I thought baseball and teaching would allow me to do that.”
The Rockies saw something special.
“The Rockies kept a short list of players they wanted to stay on and become coaches,” Jim Schaeffer said. “Warren was one of those guys.”
Schaeffer’s first gig was as the hitting coach for Short-Season Tri-City (Pasco, Wash.) in 2013. He kept climbing the organizational ladder. He managed the Asheville Tourists from 2015 through 2017 and Double-A Hartford in 2018 and ’19.
He was tabbed to manage Triple-A Albuquerque for the 2020 season, but it was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. He managed the Isotopes in 2021-22. In November 2022, the Rockies promoted him to their major league coaching staff as third base and infield coach for the 2023 season.
“I just thought he was ready,” Black said then. “He brings in a good combination of experience, but also some youthful energy. Plus, he already has a relationship with some of the guys on our big-league team.”
Bouchard has played for Schaeffer in the minors and the big leagues. He thinks his new manager has the right stuff.
“He sets a high standard,” Bouchard said. “That’s what the guys need. That’s what he brings. At the same time, he understands how hard this game is. The focus and attention to detail are something he demands. He’s told us to hold each other accountable.”
Suchon, the broadcaster, got to know Schaeffer well during their time together with the Isotopes. Suchon was impressed with how the manager worked to balance his life.
Schaeffer read, listened to music, studied scouting reports and worked out as if he were still playing. Mike Redmond, the former Rockies bench coach who was fired along with Black, used to tease Schaeffer, saying, “You can’t coach third base in the bigs until you have a third base coach’s paunch.”
“Warren’s family would sometimes come on the road with him,” Suchon recalled. “I’d see him with his kids (Beauman and Emerson) in the swimming pool. He didn’t just sit by the side of the pool, watching them. He’d be in the pool for a couple of hours with them, swimming, throwing them up in the air. They were having the time of their lives.”
But in July 2021, the Isotopes were having a miserable time. They were mired in a rut, losing nine of 11 games. Suchon, however, got a peek into Schaffer’s leadership qualities during that tough stretch.
“We were in Las Vegas, and we hadn’t played well. We lost a series of heartbreakers,” Suchon recalled. “Somebody forgot the infield fly rule, and it cost us the game. We had a couple of bullpen meltdowns.
“But the next morning, on the bus to the airport, Warren was in the customary first seat on the bus. He was not reading. He was not on his phone. He said hello and had a fist-bump for everybody. After this gut-wrenching stretch of baseball, he was positive. That stood out to me.”
When Schaeffer found out he was succeeding Black, he immediately called his dad and the two had a heart-to-heart.
“Karen and I were thrilled for him,” Jim said. “We had an emotional talk. He knew — we knew — he was going to be entering a tough situation. We also know it’s an opportunity and a chance.”
Schaeffer is not Pollyannish about the state of the Rockies. He knows the team has entered the national spotlight for all the wrong reasons. He shrugs it off.
“The wins will come if we build our culture, moving forward,” he said. “I’m not worried about the national media. I don’t pay attention.”
He does care what the Rockies’ fans think. He understands they’re ticked off by seven consecutive years of losing.
“Rightfully so,” he said. “Because they want to see a good product on the field. They deserve that. One of my goals is to do that, with a day-to-day plan, moving forward. I feel like, moving forward, this thing can get rolling. I’m a big believer.”
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