Former Milwaukee Braves player, Kenosha Twins GM teaches mental game
By Mike Ramczyk
Two years ago, Bob Lee lost his wife of 58 years, Natalie Ann “Tootie” Lee, to a battle with leukemia.
Lee, 80, a former left-handed pitcher in the Milwaukee Braves organization in the mid-50s, was looking for a way to get back into baseball.
A Kenosha native, Lee was living in Burlington and had met Burlington varsity baseball coach Scott Staude from attending some of the local team’s games.
After Staude convinced Lee to join his staff as a volunteer pitching coach in 2016, the connection yielded instant success – the school’s first state baseball championship, thanks in part to Lee’s assistance with all-everything pitchers Jacob Lindemann and Aaron Mutter.
Now in what is rumored to be his last season with the squad, Staude can’t stop singing Lee’s praises.
The pitching staff, which lost Lindemann to injury and Mutter to college baseball, has seemed to fill the void with ace Zach Campbell and sophomore sensation Trey Krause, two left-handers, at the top along with talented right-handed arms like Trent Turzenski, Derek Koenen and Drew Pesick.
Take Tuesday’s sectional sweep for example: 12 innings, 0 earned runs and two escapes from bases-loaded, zero-out jams.
Staude constantly preaches that it all starts with pitching, and he can’t help but bring up Lee’s name every time.
“I give credit to our coaching staff, especially pitching coach Bob Lee,” Staude said of Tuesday’s games. “He had those guys ready to go.”
Lee was on Catholic Central’s coaching staff when the Toppers won a state championship almost 20 years ago.
More mental than physical
Now with the Demons, his specialty over the past two seasons has been mechanics and mental makeup. Lee stresses the next pitch, as pitchers can’t afford to dwell on mistakes.
Also, he can diagnose problems with location based simply on whether a pitcher is finishing across his body.
Lee is just happy to be part of something special.
“Age is just a number, and I don’t feel 80,” Lee joked. “I love working with these young men. I needed to keep busy and get things off my mind to a certain extent.”
“I’m paying it forward from things I’ve learned, and my experience as general manager for the Kenosha Twins (former Minnesota Twins Single-A affiliate). You never stop learning baseball. The big thing over the last two years is the mental part of the game. So much is emphasized on radar guns, but you have to learn how to pitch and believe in yourself.”
A prime example Tuesday was Kenosha Indian Trail’s Ryan Hoerter. A Division 1 college baseball recruit who was touching 90 miles per hour on the gun, he fell behind 2-0 because his fastball was sailing high.
Hoerter was high in the strike zone, and it cost him.
“You have to hit the lower third of the strike zone, and Zach and Trey did that today,” Lee said. “I saw two of the finest innings all season, when each of them had bases loaded with nobody out.”
“That’s where the mental game comes in. I’ve seen so many high school pitchers get in that position and just blow up.”
Lee keeps things light with his pitchers, and he wants them to translate that onto the mound.
“Guys get a little nervous, and it’s pretty hard to get an ice pick where the sun don’t shine,” he chuckled.
Lee joins pitchers in the bullpen before games and before certain innings and breaks down mechanics and emphasizes a positive mentality of looking forward.
“I tell them to stay back and not jump at the catcher, stay focused,” he said. “Know the outs and the count. If they get a hit off you, look for that double play ball. Attack the strike zone and relax. At this level, they’ve all got enough to win at state. They have the ability, but they must handle their emotions and have their head on straight.”
Wise beyond their years
Through Tuesday, Krause is 5-0 with a microscopic 0.66 ERA, surrendering only three earned runs in 32 innings.
His mental game was on full display in the conference championship game against Waterford, when he allowed only one earned run in a high-stakes game in front of a large crowd.
Pesick was wild in relief and allowed the Wolverines to get to within one run, but he settled down to end the threat. Pesick said after the game he thought of his mechanics and stayed mentally strong.
Along with Tuesday, Campbell had a gutsy performance in the regional final win over Union Grove, a 2-1 nail-biter on June 1.
Campbell fell behind, 1-0, early in the game and battled bronchitis and inaccuracy.
By the sixth inning, he found his command and was able to erase a bases-loaded nightmare.
“When you get a new, young pitcher, I wonder if they really want to listen to an 80-year-old?,” Lee said. “The seniors from last year have told the new guys to listen. I keep it simple. When I see a guy and try to tweak him, it’s just ‘Try this.’ I don’t ever want to criticize who taught these kids before. It could’ve been his dad or some other coach. I never want to go there.”
“It could be throwing across their body, and I see they’re upstairs all the time. Pretty soon, they take to it and they believe in me. When they’re on the mound, I may yell a few things, and they know what I’m talking about.”
Lee said lately a trick has been “1-2-3-4,” a rhythm where a pitcher’s windup or stretch goes in steps.
Lee credited catcher Aaron Sturdevant for handling the Demons’ pitchers and settling them down at the mound.
Sturdevant is mostly allowed to call games and dictate what he wants pitchers to throw.
Lee dedicated last year’s season to “Tootie,” and he still feels she is looking down on the Demons.
“We’re still winning, and we haven’t stopped winning, I swear she’s looking down on us,” Lee said. “If she was here, she would be very happy for Scott and the coaches and all these young men. She would’ve loved it, because she loved baseball.”
“She’s still with me.”
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