When Stephen Klein was a young baseball player in New Orleans, somebody told him he was too short at 5-foot-9 to be a first baseman.
He did it anyway.
When he went off to college, they told him the same thing.
He did it anyway and won the Rawlings Gold Glove at Samford University in Alabama, then a Division IIII National Championship at the University of Tampa.
Somebody must have told Klein there was no way he could turn the Baton Rouge Rougarou into a winner, then, because he has done that this summer.
In his first year at the helm of the Texas Collegiate League franchise – his first time ever as a head coach – Klein has taken the Rougarou to new heights. The team went 20-3 in the month of June, winning the first half of the Louisiana Division championship with a week to spare.
“It feels great,” Klein said. “20-3, not that much can go bad, right?”
Knock a wooden bat, quick!
In the three previous seasons since Ronnie Rantz bought the team in 2022, it’s the team’s best start to a season. The Rougarou’s best overall record so far was last year when they went 23-21. It was the first time the team finished above .500. The team finished 20-28 in 2023 and 19-23 in 2022.
The team will travel to Bryan, Texas, to begin the second half of the season Tuesday night against the Brazos Valley Bombers. The Rougarou will enjoy having 15 home games in July, as opposed to only eight in June.
“I’m absolutely pleasantly surprised,” Rantz said. “You don’t go into a season thinking you’re going to start 20-3. That’s beyond your wildest dreams, especially for a guy who’s never filled out a lineup card before. I’m happy for him. I’m happy for the success he’s having and it’s clear that the players respect his leadership and are playing hard for him.”
Klein said everything has gone exactly according to his plan.
“On paper, and everything, I was expecting to be really good,” Klein said. “Even against all the doubts, what the Rougarou has been in the past, coming into it, there were a lot of improvements that needed to be made. That was the plan for me and (pitching coach) Carl Labit.”
But it was also personal for the young – he’s 24 years old – first time coach.
“My whole life I was told I can’t play first base because, at 5-9, I’m way too short for that,” Klein said. “My biggest thing as a player and now as a coach is, I’m going to prove to people that that will be wrong. Yeah, I’m 24, but I’m going to run the whole TCL league. That was my goal. That was my plan.”
But it took a loss to get the team really rolling this summer.
Klein said it was one of those hot summer nights in Seguin, Texas, that changed the whole culture of the team.
“We’re down 8-nothing,” he said. “Bad, bad game, down 8-nothing. We come back, make it an 8-8 game. Very sloppy game. We just let them walk it off. We knew we were better than that team, we were just playing really bad. At that time, we were 3-2. The season could go one way or another. So me and Carl had a heart- to-heart conversation with the team. We just told them, “Hey. This is a special group and we get it. Summer ball is a grind. But if you have our backs 100 percent we’re going to have y’all’s backs 100 percent the whole season. Let’s just change the whole culture of the Rougaru for now and in the future. And ever since then -- that’s when we went on the 12-game winning streak.”
The Rougarou did put together a 12-game winning streak, but they also earned themselves a reputation as the Comeback Kids, with eight come-from-behind victories, including twp walk-off wins, two ninth-inning rallies and two 10th inning rallies.
The culture of the team has changed so much that a couple of players who signed up only for the first half of the season have now decided they want to stick around for the rest. Some still will leave for other obligations and a few new ones will come in.
One player who isn’t leaving – not that Klein would let him – is Josh Shelly, who is currently atop the league standings with a .438 batting average. Blaise Priester is the league leader in home runs with three. Ben Robichaux is the RBI leader with 22.
“It’s been a very different experience from the last two years, for sure” Shelly said. “It’s just more fun with the team. They took a little different approach this year and it’s all working out the right way.“
“These guys are excited,” Klein said. “They’re looking forward to getting 40 wins. The difference is this team loves who they’re playing with. I think it’s more of an escape for these guys. Hey, let’s just enjoy this summer. I think that’s what’s really keeping them together. I’ve got this group of guys that believe in me and I believe in them. That’s all that matters.”
By Lori Lyons, Rougarou Writer
Photo by Carla Walker