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Dave Schuler

AGE: 52FAMILY: Wife, Sherry; daughters, Emily Oxley and Erin Schuler, both of Omaha, Neb.; brothers, Mickey Schuler of Milford, Mass., and Chuck Schuler of Myrtle Beach, S.C.; sister, Joanne Moulton of Lady of the Lakes, Fla.; and a granddaughter. RESIDENCE: Lewes POSITION: Coordinator, Horsey Family Youth Foundation EDUCATION: Bachelor’s degree in general business management, University of New Haven, New Haven, Conn., 1975 INTERESTS: Gardening, music and fishing

NANCY E. LYNCH
Special to The News Journal
05/04/2006

LEWES — In his major league debut as a California Angels pitcher in 1979, a nervous Dave Schuler faced the legendary George Brett as his first batter.

“Call it first-day jitters. My delivery was different, my throw was off, but I retired him on a fly to left field caught by Don Baylor,” he recalls of dispatching the Kansas City Royals’ third baseman to the dugout.

Schuler, the lanky lefty from Framingham, Mass., had landed squarely in his field of dreams. “One of our coaches, Jimmie Reese, had been Babe Ruth’s roommate,” he remembers. “And Jim Fregosi, who later led the Philadelphia Phillies to the World Series, was our manager that year.”

There’s more. The Angels’ owner was Gene Autry of cowboy movie and music fame, and Nolan Ryan and Rod Carew, future Hall of Famers, also suited up with Schuler.

The Angels went on to win the American League Western Division Championship in 1979.

“I remember pouring champagne on Richard Nixon’s head in the locker room as he was hugging Autry. He was ecstatic. Then his toupee started to slide off and we didn’t even know he wore one.”

The Angels lost to the Orioles in the American League Championship, but Schuler will prize that unforgettable season forever.

Today, the Lewes resident, a former pitching coach in the New York Yankees, Orioles, Seattle Mariners, San Francisco Giants and Atlanta Braves’ systems who helped develop more than 30 major league pitchers, thinks about baseball a lot, especially this time of year.

So he’s gone to bat for Delaware kids as the rookie coordinator of the Horsey Family Youth Foundation.

“We’re trying to keep kids off drugs, off the streets and into sports by contributing to Little Leagues, Pop Warner football teams and cheerleading squads throughout the state,” says Schuler, hired in January by Sussex County businessman and family patriarch David G. Horsey.

“We’re trying to give kids a hand up not a handout by providing money to youth sports in Delaware,” he adds. One of his first fundraising efforts is organizing the May 25 Celebrity Golf Classic at The Rookery near Milton.

Although the event is in its second year, Schuler, through his connections, brings about two dozen retired professional sports celebrities to the tee this year.

“We’ve got Orioles’ first baseman Boog Powell, Baltimore Colts’ quarterback Tom Matte and Lenny Moore, ex-Phillies and Washington Redskins players and former University of Delaware football coach Tubby Raymond,” he says.

Schuler started sandlot ball when he was 5, playing at Grace Park, the field his older brothers built in Framingham. “When my dad cleaned out the gutters at home, he’d always find rubber balls. I tried to throw them over the house. Most of the time I did, then I’d run around the house and throw them back over. I was blessed with a good arm.”

Francis Schuler, who grew up in the Bronx and between innings handed gum balls to Babe Ruth through the chicken wire fence at the polo grounds before Yankee Stadium was built, had an inkling his youngest son had a future in baseball.

“Dad took me to Fenway Park to see my first major league game about 1964,” Schuler recalls. “The Boston Red Sox played the New York Yankees. We sat in the first row behind the third base dugout. I saw Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris. My mouth was agape.”

He pitched through high school and college. In 1973, he was a member of the first U.S. team to win a gold medal at the World Games in Nicaragua. After his 1975 graduation from the University of New Haven, he pitched for the next 12 years, including winter league ball in Venezuela and summer ball in Fairbanks, Alaska, and Hawaii.

His first day in the majors was memorable not only for retiring Brett.

“Gene Autry gave me a commemorative belt buckle of him riding a horse. He said, ‘Welcome to the big leagues.’ ”

Soon after he started coaching in 1988, Schuler was assigned to the Mariners’ minor league system. He coached major leagues in Taiwan from 1997 to 1999.

From the Far East, Schuler settled in Ocean Pines, Md. “My wife grew up in Newark and wanted to be closer to home.” Sherry Schuler’s father, Dan Grim, is director of information technology at the University of Delaware where her mother, Patricia, is assistant to the chairman of the school of nursing.

Dave Schuler was the Delmarva Shorebirds’ pitching coach from 2000 to 2002. Based in Salisbury, Md., the Shorebirds are a Class A affiliate of the Orioles.

“Dave did a great job when he was here. Some of the guys who’ve moved up owe him a debt of gratitude for his patience and his knowledge of the art of pitching,” says Norb Sadilek, Shorebirds’ team liaison and director of community relations.

Schuler, who moved to Lewes about a year ago, remembers his introduction to the Boys & Girls Club.

“John Hollis invited me to the Boys & Girls Club in Seaford. He later introduced me to Dave Horsey and his son, Bobby.”

The rest is history.

“The best part of my baseball career,” Schuler says, “was touching people’s lives. Now, I’m trying to give back by making money to support kids’ sports.”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 9th, 2006 at 5:32 pm and is filed under 1974, 1975, Main Blog Page. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.