Chris Earl: 'John Baggs is definitely on my gratitude list'

He was the coach who was fascinated with sportscasting.

I was the sportscaster fascinated with coaching.

More than 16 years after he left us, way too young, from his cancer battle, John Baggs is definitely on my gratitude list.

I still can't believe he's gone... and it's been 20 years, this month, since we moved from Duluth to Eau Claire.

John Baggs won hundreds of games coaching baseball at St. Scholastica. I don't know how good of a coach he actually was – that was about five levels above my understanding of baseball at the college level.

John was a master at marketing his team.

His Saints won a boatload of games in the six years I covered them, from 2000 to 2005. He coached his players on handling the media, giving good sound bites and putting the baseball program in the best light.

Some of his student-athletes, like Joe Wicklund, the pitcher from Solon Springs, needed no assistance. The "fifth Beatle" of the KDLH sports team could sell pork to a pescatarian.

The moments I loved “Baggsy” came in the winter months, when his team wasn’t in season. Here is why.

I used to shoot a lot of my own highlights. Working hard has always been out of productivity and fear. Always try and do more than your eventual replacement – in doing that, perhaps that eventual replacement will be when you move on, on your own.

St. Scholastica would play double-headers on campus on Wednesday nights at the Reif Center. Women at 5:30 p.m., men at 7:30 p.m. I could shoot the last few minutes of the women’s game and get the start of the men's game.

This also meant I would get about a half hour in John’s office, behind the south bleachers, overlooking the court.

His gems were pure gold.

John was about a decade older than me, an Iowa State grad who was still puzzled at why his school dropped baseball. I went to Wisconsin, another school that dropped baseball. He loved to grow the sport.

John even penned most of a chapter in my baseball novel, “The Last Out”. I asked him to give me what goes on inside a player’s head during a critical, 8th-inning at-bat.

So he wrote it. Of course, John wrote it. I believe he was a journalism major at Iowa State.

Like many others, his parenting advice was platinum.

“Chris, when you’re playing catch with Sam,” he told me once in 2003, “make sure you get on your knees and throw to him overhand. It does no good to throw underhanded unless he’s going to play softball all his life.”

So I did.

“I have these miniature nerf baseballs,” he broke open a package and tossed me a dozen. “Use these for hitting. It’ll make his motor skills finer.”

So I did. And Sam and I put in the reps for years.

While he switched from baseball to going “full time” in soccer by ninth grade, Sam’s baseball legacy came directly from Coach Baggs.

Be a leader.

Rarely strike out.

That’s a good philosophy in life.

I heard the news about John’s illness in early 2009 and he was gone just weeks later.

“The Last Out” hit the market three months after he died. I dedicated it to his wisdom, leadership and the bond that we shared.

He had his questions and philosophy on how to put on TV news, which I appreciated. I only had elementary questions about baseball coaching but he always answered them patiently.

Much has evolved since 2009, when we lost John.

Colleen Cheney Baggs has raised two wonderful children into “good humans” in the years since. I had the honor of seeing her in Cedar Rapids in 2021 for a baseball tournament that Maddux was playing in. I’m sure those kids constantly hear, “We loved your dad,” or “Your dad was a great man”.

He was.

And will always be in my mind. Baggsy, I love you. I’m grateful to you.

As I close out this column, I’ll end it the way you ended every phone call.

“Mmmm, bye!”

Editor's Note – Chris Earl, a former KDLH-TV sports anchor in Duluth, spent six years covering Northland sports before moving into news. Earl, now an evening anchor at KAKE-TV in Wichita, Kan., is also writing a “Year of Gratitude” for 365 days on Facebook, posting daily tributes to people who’ve helped shape his life.