Editor’s note: In the Colorado Classics series, The Denver Post takes a weekly look at individuals who made their mark on the Colorado sports landscape and what they are doing now.
Even after the words “play ball” were silenced at Colorado and Colorado State and reduced to a whisper at Northern Colorado, Jack Rose kept the college baseball fires burning.
The University of Denver Pioneers didn’t miss an inning as some other programs in the area disappeared. Rose guided the Pioneers for 35 years, leaving many to claim that DU’s program survived solely because of his leadership. That might have been true, because DU dropped baseball in 1997 after Rose retired with a 785-702 record.
CU dropped baseball 17 years before, and CSU’s baseball team disappeared some years later after a brief reprieve when players’ parents provided funding.
But Rose doesn’t think his departure should have led to baseball’s demise at DU. He answers emphatically “yes” when asked if baseball should have continued.
“It could have continued,” Rose said. “But the administration in the later years didn’t like baseball in the athletic program.”
Rose’s tenacity could be credited for keeping baseball alive at DU. When the administration exercised its form of eminent domain and took away his baseball field on the south side of Buchtel Boulevard to create space for a new building, Rose simply moved his team to the north side of Buchtel and played home games at the Denver Public Schools’ All-City Field.
Rose is a good storyteller. When the subject of playing in cold weather comes up, Rose speaks of playing at the University of Wyoming.
“It can’t get any worse than at Wyoming,” Rose said. “Up there you would go from the locker room right into the dugout. It was so cold that when we brought a player into the game, we’d have him warm up in the locker room.”
And then there was a day at the Air Force Academy.
“It’s never warm down there, and this particular day it was colder than heck,” Rose said. “We already had clinched a place in the districts, so I just left my two best pitchers in the car. Neither one of us used any of our pitchers. The umpires wanted to call it, but we said we were going to finish.”
DU finally won the game 33-29, but the northern-exposure marathon ruined baseball for some of the viewers. The late Wally Grinewich, a ticket manager at the academy, was one of the umpires. He told everyone that game ended his umpiring career.
While the Air Force Academy had baseball, DU offered rank-and-file players from the state a place to play college baseball in an established program. The school joined the Division II Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference in 1996 and announced intentions of going Division I in all sports, one year before dropping baseball.
Rose’s rosters were filled by the likes of pitcher Paul Epperson from Littleton, Tim Waner of La Junta, Steve Berlin of Cherry Creek, Toraino Golston of Aurora Gateway and Bill Saunders of Denver North.
Rose especially remembers Saunders.
“He really was a good catcher,” Rose said. “He came back and was an assistant coach for me, but we lost him to cancer.”
Rose’s best team was in 1965, three years after he took over the program. Led by first baseman Jerry Causey and pitcher Steve Blateric from Denver’s Lincoln High School, the Pioneers went 28-11. And in 1970, DU lost to Arizona 8-4 in the third game of the district finals, falling one game short of going to the College World Series in Omaha.
Rose estimates he had more than 30 players sign professional contracts. Catcher Craig Stimac played two seasons with the San Diego Padres. The most enduring was left-handed pitcher Dan Schatzeder, who appeared in 504 games and posted a 69-68 record in 15 major-league seasons.
“He also was a really good center fielder and a very good hitter,” Rose said of Schatzeder, who came to DU from Elmhurst, Ill.
Rose arrived at DU in 1961, shortly after the school announced it was dropping its football program. He had coached high school sports in Riverside, Calif., and once thought his future would be coaching basketball.
“I had played baseball and enjoyed it a lot,” Rose said. “I preferred basketball, but I didn’t hesitate when I had the chance to coach baseball at DU.”
Irv Brown, who coached baseball at CU before moving into talk radio, credited Rose for “fighting the battle.”
“He always was positive about baseball and he always had competitive teams,” Brown said. “He did a great job and kept the sport going when others gave it up.”
Rose didn’t give up baseball when he left DU. He worked for the Rockies for 10 years, taking his turn as official scorer.
“It was great the year they made the playoffs,” Rose said of the 1995 season. “It was worth the price of admission to watch Larry Walker play baseball. They had a lot of great players. I did the Dante Bichette sports camps one year.”
Rose likes many of the young players in Rockies uniforms today, but wonders if they’ll still be at Coors Field after they reach free agency.
He ponders those questions while on walks with his pet boxer. His wife, Dee, made the introductions.
“I didn’t know what a boxer was,” Rose said. “We’ve had nine of them.”
Rose didn’t say that he has had a pet for each inning of a baseball game. But you can bet it crossed his mind.
Staff writer Irv Moss can be reached at 303-954-1296 or imoss@denverpost.com.
