Colorful Coach Says Baseball Is 'In His Blood'

Some people can’t leave a game, no matter what. They play until they can’t and then they coach until they can’t.

The game is in their blood.

Mitch Stewart already played baseball until he couldn’t. Now he coaches the Northbrook Braves, an American Legion team, as he has for 39 seasons with no signs of stopping.

Stewart passed the 1,000-win mark in 2009 and has had only two losing seasons during his tenure.

Coaching that many years and amassing that many wins, you come across some great players. Stewart has had his fair share of those, with Jason Kipnis recently joining the list of major leaguers. Stewart smiled when he heard the news of .

“I’m so happy to hear Kip got up,” he said after the Braves’ 11-1 win over Mt. Prospect in the Cook County Legion Tournament on Thursday night. “That makes about a dozen [major leaguers] out of this program.”

Asked to name his best players, Stewart also mentioned John Castino,  a New Trier graduate who played for Stewart in 1973 and was drafted by the Minnesota Twins in 1976.  Castino was named American League Rookie of the Year in 1979.

“It’s a little hard to put Kip on top of him,” Stewart said. “That’s certainly what I would say are the two best players. Now that’s still downgrading a few other guys that made the majors.”

Stewart has had a part in so many successful careers because of his insistence that his players play the game the right way. He demands a commitment from his mostly high school and college players for the duration of the summer season and isn’t afraid to cuss out a player for not hitting to the right side to advance a runner.

Known for his colorful language, Stewart isn’t afraid to say anything to anyone and his competitive nature is on display during games. But players say they know he cares about them, and they love him for it.

After the Braves finished fourth in the league tournament last weekend, losing 10-3 at Arlington Heights on Friday to end the season, many of the players made a point of saying goodbye to Stewart individually and hugged him. These weren’t simple goodbyes; they were also teachable moments for Stewart. This isn’t the side that everyone sees.

“I’m sure a lot of people hear about it and think that he’s not a good coach, but he’s a good coach,” said , who has known Stewart since age 7.

“He means well with everything and he really cares about us. I don’t think he means all the stuff he says. It’s kind of just his vocabulary," he added. “We all love him. He’s the man.”

Synek, who graduated from Glenbrook North this spring, completed his fourth year of playing for the Braves and is eligible to play a fifth next summer. He has plenty of Stewart stories to tell.

“He’s just a character all around,” Synek said. “There’s a couple times with just the comments he makes. Some of them are inappropriate, but just because he’s Mitch it’s OK.”

Most players don’t play for Stewart’s Braves as long as Synek has. Kipnis played for just two years, and had a team record .532 batting average and 55 stolen bases in 57 attempts in 2005. This summer Synek was joined by GBN classmates Sean Thomas, Henry Erickson and Tyler Hurst, senior-to-be Chad Bruce and 2010 graduates Brian Zohn, Anthony Volk and Adam Robinson. The team also includes players from Wheeling High School and some Chicago schools.

It doesn’t matter how long the athletes have played for Stewart, however. He is the kind of coach they never forget.

“He’s definitely an interesting character,” said Thomas, who played with the Braves for the first time this summer. “He’s been around the game for a very long time and he knows what he’s talking about. He’s somebody to definitely take note when listening to.”

Although Stewart takes a “different approach” than other coaches, Thomas said it didn’t matter.

“As long as he can get his point across no matter what way [it's done], that’s what you’re looking for,” he said.

This year’s group rates well with Stewart, even if they underachieved in his view.

“I’m very fond of this team,” Stewart said. “They don’t quite know they could be as good as I think they can be because we’ve lost a lot of close games by giving them away.”

After losing to Arlington Heights by giving up 10 unanswered runs, he said it was not a good finish, an understatement he likely repeated to the players in one of his legendary post-game speeches.

In his decades of coaching, Stewart has seen the game change, noting the biggest difference is toughness. He said youngsters have more things to do now than they did years ago and that has changed the atmosphere of the game.

“I’d say kids back in that day were tougher, but then again that sounds a little degrading to these guys,” Stewart said. “I don’t mean it that way, but in general. You had tryouts in the olden days, ’70s, ’80s, early ’90s. We’d have 35 guys wanting to make this 18-man roster. Now we got to hand pick and try to get 18.”

It’s not just the players that have changed either. A newly formed Suburban Chicago Connie Mack Baseball League, comprised of north suburban teams, took away potential Legion players and teams this year. As a result, the Cook County first division dwindled to seven teams.

While Stewart also coached at  and  high schools, he says Legion baseball is a step up from high school ball. He also prefers the rules and the summer weather.

“If you talk to good high school coaches like the one at North, [Dominic] Savino, he knows this is a playing level,” Stewart said. “In many, many cases some juniors aren’t ready for it.”

That’s where Stewart comes in: to offer up some tough lessons.

“Major League rules out here,” he said. “High school re-entry this, courtesy runners this—come on. That’s not real baseball. That’s what you got to switch these kids’ heads into out here.”

Stewart isn’t shy about his dislikes for the league or the teams that left it, but his love of coaching Legion ball still remains the same.

“I’m still 60-something, but I don’t feel it,” he said. “I like it, I love it. It’s in my blood.

“Thirty-nine years of Legion ball and summers and traveling and recruiting kids. I love this,” Stewart said.

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